Around town

Meetings & Lectures

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

By all measures, Cuba is a medical superpower. Dr. Cliff DuRand discusses this achievement in a talk titled “Humanitarianism and Solidarity Cuban-Style” at this Sunday’s Unitarian Universalist Fellowship service.

This small country has more doctors serving abroad than the World Health Organization, and still has more at home serving its own people than the US. Its health indicators equal or exceed those of the US. While basically a poor country, for nearly a half century it has invested heavily in the education and health of its people, making possible a remarkable level of human well-being in spite of a punishing US blockade.

Dr. DuRand is a founding member of the Center for Global Justice and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Morgan State University in Baltimore. He also holds an honorary Profesor Invitado at the University of Havana and has just returned from his 25th visit to Cuba, leading an annual research trip by US academics.

The UU Fellowship meets every Sunday at 10:30am at La Posada de la Aldea, Ancha de San Antonio 15, and welcomes people of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientation and gender identity. Visitors are invited to attend the service and then join the UUs in the hotel restaurant for brunch. For more information about Mexico’s only chartered UU Fellowship, visit portalsanmiguel.com/lifestyle/unitarians/unitarians.html.


Midday Rotary Club

Edward Clancy, the American Consul in San Miguel, will be the guest speaker at the Midday Rotary club meeting on Tuesday, July 31. He will discuss the intricacies of his role as Consul and the interaction he has with local authorities.

As a youngster, Ed spent many of his summers visiting his grandmother here in Mexico. This lifelong involvement with the country gives him unique insights into the relationship between the two cultures. Ed received a bachelors degree from San Diego State University and his JD degree rom Stanford Law School. After a successful career in finance in New York City and Kansas City, Ed moved his family to San Miguel de Allende in 2001.

The Rotary Club of San Miguel de Allende-Midday meets every Tuesday at the Villa Jacaranda Hotel, Aldama 53, Centro. Check-in time is 12–12:25 and the meeting starts promptly at 12:30. Visiting Rotarians and others interested in Rotary are invited to attend this meeting. Rotary is an organization of business and professional persons united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and help build goodwill and peace in the world. Lunch follows at 1:30 in the hotel dining room. For more information, please go to the website rotarysma.org.




Classes & Workshops

La Cocina cooking classes

Tuesday, July 31, from 4–7pm is devoted to naturally healthy Mexican food, some of which dates back to pre-Hispanic times. The menu includes guacamole made with a molcajete, chicken with roasted tomato salsa, shrimp in pumpkin seed sauce, cactus salad and mango mousse.

On Thursday, August 2, from 4–7pm the class features traditional Mexican fare. After snacking on freshly made sopes con tinga, you’ll learn the secrets of making homemade mole, one of Mexico’s most festive dishes. The menu features mole poblano, cheese chile rellenos and tres leches cake.

La Cocina offers you more than a cooking class—it’s a fun evening out with dinner, margaritas and new friends. The cost is US$45 per person. For more information and registration, stop by El Buen Café, Jesus 23, between 9am and 4pm, or go to www.mexicocooks.com. 

Aerial dance with Gravityworks

The School of the New Circus Arts at La Carpa is holding aerial dance workshops. Learn at your own pace. All ages are welcome. Weekly workshops this summer are held July 9 through August 16. Classes for children ages 8 to 13 are Mondays to Thursdays, 4–5:30pm. Classes for ages 14 and up are held Mondays and Wednesdays 5:30–7pm. The cost for the workshop is 350 pesos per week.


Mindfulness meditation retreat

Under the auspices of the Meditation Center of San Miguel, Steve Shealy will offer a weekend retreat, Mindfulness Meditation Beyond the Cushion: An Integrated Practice, Aug 3–5. The following weekend, Aug 11–12, a provocative workshop, Mindfulness and Emotional Healing, will be hosted by LifePath Center in San Miguel. While these are self-contained, free-standing programs, they are complementary, as the skills developed during the meditation retreat would be a natural foundation for the healing workshop.

One of the most profound benefits of mindfulness meditation practice is the ability to open without resistance to physical and emotional discomfort with compassion and gentle curiosity. Discomfort associated with conditioned patterns can sabotage one’s best intentions and, until brought into awareness and skillfully addressed, have a strong negative impact on thoughts, beliefs and actions. Through mindfulness meditation practice, it becomes apparent that there is no need either to suppress or to unskillfully express these energies, despite how uncomfortable they may feel at first. One can simply allow them to move through the body/mind and be released. The resulting spaciousness is the basis for true and lasting happiness.

The retreat supports the Meditation Center of San Miguel as well as the teacher and is offered on a Dana (generosity) basis and includes a potluck lunch on Saturday and Sunday. No registration is necessary. Please bring vegetarian food to share with the group. For more information, contact the teacher directly at steve@BeMindful.org.

The weekend workshop Mindfulness and Emotional Healing will include basic instruction and practice in mindfulness meditation and the cultivation of non-judgmental awareness. With this foundation, conditioned emotional energies can then be identified, released and a new level of emotional freedom realized. The fee includes three training CDs and a light vegetarian lunch each day. No prior meditation or yoga experience is necessary. To register, please visit LifePath at lifepathretreats.com or call 888-667-3873.

Steve Shealy, PhD, a clinical psychologist with an independent practice in Tampa, Florida, specializes in mindfulness-based psychotherapy aimed at long-term relief of anxiety, depression, stress-related physical disorders, addictions and intimate relationship, marriage and meaning of life issues



Icon painting workshop

For centuries icons have been painted in the quiet surroundings of monasteries. Now you too can have this unique and wonderful experience. The Benedictine Monastery, Nuestro Senora de la Soledad, Atotonilco, will host a five-day workshop.


In this retreat, students will be introduced to the practice and theory of the Christian art of icon writing in the Byzantine-Russian tradition. A multi-stepped process characterizes the iconographical method, leading from dark to light, rough to refined, chaos to order. Explanations of the iconic symbolism, including the theological and philosophical basis of each step of the process, are parallel to the technical painting instruction.


No artistic experience is necessary for the beginning student. The main goal is to cultivate a clear and conscious image that becomes a window to the divine; an image worthy of inspiring thoughts of God and ourselves in the world. Through the discipline of icon painting, a student can eventually move toward an understanding of that which stands beyond the symbol, and ultimately gain a clearer vision of that God in whom we place so much trust. Everyone will complete an icon of the pantokrator, Christ the teacher.

Participants should arrive Sunday, August 12 between 5 and 6pm for orientation and a light supper. The workshop begins Monday with mass and the blessing of hands. The workshop closes Saturday August 18 at 1pm with the blessing of the finished icons. All meals will be taken in silence with the monks in the main dinning room. Habitation is dormitory style with individual private rooms and shared bath. Mary Jane Miller, an experienced iconographer, will be the instructor and coordinator. For more information about her work, look on the website sanmiguelicons.com. Cost is 3200 pesos; 500 pesos in advance can be dropped off at the Icon Gallery on Calle Pila Seca 3. Please confirm early because we have limited space. Contact Mary Jane Miller 152 5762.





Tours & Excursions

Instituto Allende trip to city of Querétaro

On Saturday, August 4, at 9am, Instituto Allende Tours hosts a day-long field trip to the city of Querétaro. Querétaro originally was an Otomí Indian settlement the Aztecs conquered and then fitted into their empire in 1446. With the expansion of national tourism, Querétaro has become an important Mexican tourist destination.

The city has a reputation for its encouragement of the arts. The Spanish converted the settlement to Catholicism. French influence is also apparent with Maximilian having a personal chapel built in Querétaro, the very place where he was executed.

There will be stops at the famous aqueduct, considered an ambitious feat in engineering during the mid-19th century, the Cementerio de los Hombres Illustres, the Plaza de Armas and Querétaro’s centerpiece, the Villa del Villar del Aquila Fountain.

Querétaro’s popular outdoor market is on the itinerary, as is a walking tour through the typical colonial streets to see the gardens, churches, fountains and the house of La Marquesa (now a luxury hotel). Lastly, there will be a visit to the Hill of the Bells where the Benito Juarez Monument stands along with the Chapel of Archduke Maximilano. A preview of tours in the form of free lectures takes place each Wednesday at 4pm at Instituto Allende.

Instituto Allende tours are all-inclusive; including transportation, museum fees and a restaurant-served meal. Native-speaking, bilingual guides lead all tours and offer further insights within a secure environment. Cost is $55US. Reservations are required and fees must be paid in advance. Visa and MasterCard accepted. For more information, visit the Instituto or call 152-0226.


Botanical Garden tour

Every Tuesday morning, discover the marvels of cacti and other Mexican plants as well as the history of El Charco with Mario Mendoza, Assistant Director of the garden. The tour includes a visit to the nursery that contains many rare species and is not usually open to the public.

Entrance fee is 30 pesos (waived for members) and the tour is 50 pesos. All proceeds benefit the garden. The tour is in English and starts at the main entrance at 9am, lasting about two hours. Bring a hat and water. Space is limited, so reserve by calling 154-8838 or email charcodelingenio@gmail.com. 


Saturday Adventurers

Adventurers are going to “La Quemadita,” the beautiful ranch of Jaime and Pakina Fernandez. Their adobe home is a treasure house of family heirlooms, some brought from Germany, the country of Pakina’s ancestors. A short distance away is Pakina’s studio, which is a “Troje” a Tarscan house brought from Patzcuaro. It is here that Pakina is inspired and creates all of her fantastic pieces. 


Next we go to the town of Atotonilco, where there is a sanctuary built in 1754 by Padre Felipe Neri, for the Otomí Indians to go and atone for their sins. To this day thousands of pilgrims go annually to use whips to beat their sins away. Murals cover almost every inch of the walls inside. 

The tour begins in the Jardín, across from the Parroquia, at 10:30am.


Global Justice trip to Cieneguilla

Join the Center for Global Justice on Sunday, July 29, on a full-day trip to Cieneguilla, a welcoming community 1.5 hours northeast of San Miguel where you will have the opportunity to not only share comida with community members, but also meet with four students from the Center’s unique summer internship program. The program brings together young people from Cuba, Mexico and the US currently living and completing research projects in the community. Cieneguilla, like many communities around San Miguel, survives by sacrificing many members to work in the US. But some positive family reunification solutions are at work in Cieneguilla, largely due to the organizational work of Yolanda Millan, who has helped organize women in the community to join a sellers’ cooperative of 104 women from different villages throughout Guanajuato. In Cieneguilla, the women make baskets and other saleable items that are sold in San Miguel’s first exclusively fair-trade shop, the Mujeres Productoras store, located at Calzada de la Lu
z 42 (near the corner of Loreto). Visit the community of Cieneguilla and the diverse mix of students as we work together to create a more just and fair world.

Advance registration is required by calling 152-4040 or in person at the Center for Global Justice, Calzada de la Luz 42. Of the 300 pesos fee, 75 pesos go to the women of the community who prepare the comida; the bus rental is 2000 pesos and the balance pays the guide and office support staff. The bus leaves from the Center at 9am, and the projected time of return is 4pm.





Performances & Events

Authors’ Sala book fair

San Miguel Authors’ Sala first started to offer programs supporting the local writers’ community in August 2003.

After four years, the Sala has hosted more than a hundred events, including a radio show, literary supplements, an anthology, readings, signings, book launches and workshops, introducing hundreds of writers to San Miguel audiences.

New York publishers and agents, bestselling authors of many titles, a Pulitzer Prize winner, an Oprah celebrity, a Playboy bunny/author and poets contemplating their first chapbook have all been featured.

To celebrate this fourth anniversary, the San Miguel Authors’ Sala hosts a Book Fair Saturday, Aug. 4, 5–7pm, in the Hotel Posada de San Francisco, Plaza Principal 2 on the Jardín. Admission is free.

Authors signing their books and answering questions, such as what passion inspires their writing, include O’Henry Award winner Janice Eidus, who is launching her latest novel, The War of the Rosens, that weekend.

Others are Manja Argue, Charlotte Bell, James Cervantes, Alice Denham, Wayne Greenhaw, Ricky Harris, Gerald Helferich, C.M. Mayo, Susan V. Page, Sharon Solwitz and Masako Takahaski.

For more information about the Authors’ Sala and the Book Fair on Aug 4, go to www.sanmiguelauthors.com , or contact Kathy Devine at katalinasma@hotmail.com  or Sala founder Susan V. Page at susanvpage@mac.com. 

Arts and crafts fair at Instituto Allende

Instituto Allende will host its final arts and crafts fair during the summer season Saturday and Sunday, August 4–5 from 10–6pm. Some of San Miguel’s finest artists and others from around the nation come to show their items at the fair. There is all-day entertainment and a variety of foods.




Volunteer Opportunities

Volunteering at the Biblioteca

If you would like to volunteer to assist in any of the following departments, please see Elia in the Sala Infantil, Monday-Friday, 4–5pm, or send an email to volunteers@bibliotecasma.com and Judy Boston will get back to you. The departments with the most need are La Tienda, the English Book Committee (which needs shelf readers at the moment), English classes and conversation with students, the computer room, the Sala Infantil with literacy programs and painting, administration, the Café, the Sunday House and Garden Tour and Atencíon. A minimum commitment of 3 months is requested for most of these positions.

See you in the funny papers

Mark Saunders, creator of Atención’s “Más o Menos” cartoon, invites suggestions from readers for funny material about living in San Miguel that would lend itself to a cartoon. Selected ideas will be drawn by the cartoonist, and authors will be given credit as well as a signed copy of their cartoon. Please send your “expat” cartoon ideas to edit@atencionsanmiguel.org.