AROUND TOWN

Meetings & Lectures January 4, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Brother Gilberto Z. Perez discusses “Buddhism and Activism” as practiced by the Nipponzan Myohoji monastic order at this Sunday’s Unitarian Universalist Fellowship service.

Founded in 1919 by the Japanese monk Rev. Nichidatsu Fujii, the order seeks to bring the message of nonviolence, service and a path to peace to the world based on Buddhist practice. Its primary course of action is interfaith peace walks across many countries to end all wars and disarm all nuclear weapons. The order is also responsible for the construction of more than 80 peace pagodas throughout the world.

Born in Cuba, Brother Perez emigrated at age one to the United States with his parents, where he was raised in one of the toughest ghettos in the East Bronx. Educated at Bronx Community College, San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley, he raised three children and worked as a community organizer for the administration of New York City mayor Ed Koch, before becoming a monk. He currently spends most of his year in San Miguel but recently returned from Cuba where he participated in a vigil at Guantanamo Bay to protest the torture practices of the Bush administration. Last summer he participated in a peace walk from Tokyo to Hiroshima to protest the nuclear arms race.

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.

Midday Rotary to discuss medical care in San Miguel

On Tuesday, January 8, guest speaker Dr. Roberto Maxwell will address the state of medical care in San Miguel today. Dr. Maxwell was born and raised in Mexico and received his undergraduate degree at the National University of Mexico. His internship and his residency in critical care were at ABC Hospital in Mexico City. He studied cardiopulmonary medicine at National Heart Institute Ignacio Chavez and was a Cardiology Research Fellow at the University of California at San Diego. He was Chief of Critical Care Medicine at San Jose Hospital for two years and has had numerous papers printed in major medical journals.

Dr. Maxwell has been in private practice in San Miguel since 1987 and has been involved with the Red Cross here for 20 years. He is also the Medical Director at the newly opened Hospice San Miguel.

Please join us for what promises to be an interesting topic that concerns us all.

The Rotary Club of San Miguel de Allende-Midday meets every Tuesday at their new location, the Hotel Real de Minas at the corner of Calles Ancha de San Antonio and Stirling Dickinson. 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. For more information, visit www.rotarysma.org.  

Navigating San Miguel with Robert de Gast

“Seek and ye shall find.” So writes Matthew in the New Testament. Well, maybe. In San Miguel it can be a tough call.

Streets that change names every block. Arrows pointing in different directions. A nearby village with four different names. Three streets with the same name just a few blocks apart. House numbers in mind-boggling sequences. Misspellings galore. Ring a bell? And be at the wrong house? Welcome to San Miguel and the pleasures and pitfalls of finding your way around our fair city.

On Tuesday, January 8, at 5pm, San Miguel-based writer and photographer Robert de Gast will present a slide show and talk at the Teatro Santa Ana in the Biblioteca. He calls his presentation “Wacky Names and Weird Numbers: Discovering San Miguel” and warns that it will be a tongue-in-cheek examination of the way culture and language affect map-makers and city planners (and can drive visitors crazy).

You will find out where the names “Umarán” and “Diez de Sollano” come from. You will discover what it’s like to try to find a particular house number on a street named for the birthday of the first person to build a house on it and experience the frustration of obtaining reliable directions. You will find out that San Miguel has two “Kissing Alleys.”

Robert de Gast, the author of nine books, including, most recently, Behind the Doors of San Miguel, is also the creator of “The Best Map of San Miguel,” his venture into map-making. “Still,” he says, “unfortunately maps only approximate the real world.”

The Netherlands-born speaker, whose photojournalistic work over the last five decades has been published worldwide, will also talk about his personal experiences in finding his way around the city and surrounding countryside—on foot, by car, canoe and burro, and occasionally with his hot air balloon.

Admission to the event is 50 pesos and benefits the Biblioteca’s many programs.

Classes & Workshops

Chess workshops

Free chess workshops resume Monday, January 7. Children 8 to 12 years old will meet from 4–5pm in the Sala Infantil, and adults at 5–6:30pm in the central patio of the Biblioteca Pública. The Biblioteca has chess sets, but bring your own if you’re fond of it, or if it’s charged with a mojo of good luck. Local chess master Francisco de Santiago will provide a few minutes of sage advice and underhanded tricks, then you’ll have over an hour to practice them on your opponents.

Choosing a meaningful path for midlife

For many of you who have made your way to San Miguel, you’re probably shifting toward the third lifestyle and focusing on the question “what can I do that will give me satisfaction and happiness.” Author and consultant, Dr. David J. Powell, Ph.D states that at some point in our 40s or 50s we are faced with “a crisis of limitations.” Our sense of having unlimited energy and physical possibilities shifts to seeing the limits in what we can accomplish, limits in how long we might live and loss of important relationships. This shifting is what causes us to realize we have timely decisions to make if we want to live out our lives with meaning.

This path isn’t necessarily easy or comfortable. It typically involves introspection as well as sitting with the unknown during a time of exploration…allowing a new direction to emerge. Yet this road offers the potential for creating new meaning to the current activities of life and a new way of internally experiencing success. The options that emerge may include making subtle changes in past activities, carried out differently with a new perspective. Or in other cases, new directions may be taken that are quite different, perhaps revitalizing a past, previously discarded passion

Mary Radu’s workshop, Roadmap to Meaningful Midlife®: Create Your Vision and Action Plan will be held January 19, 10 am–5 pm at the LifePath Center on Recreo 80. Cost is US$75. Workshop size is limited, so reserve your space by January 14: 154-8465 or mary@pathmakercoaching.com. 

Tours & Trips

Instituto Allende hosts field trip to Pozos

Instituto Allende will host a field trip on Saturday, January 12, to what is often referred to as the “ghost town” of Pozos and the surrounding area. The trip embarks at 8am and takes approximately 45 minutes to Pozos and Victoria. This adventure is a camera buff’s delight. The scenery is spectacular. There will be some moderate hiking to view the ancient petroglyphs. Pozos was once a bustling silver-mining center. It has bottomless shafts and ruins of old mines. Pets and children are not permitted on this trip due to dangerous areas. Sunscreen and wide-brimmed hats are suggested. Other highlights of the outing will be touring the remains of giant hearths built by the Jesuits in 1597, and being treated to a concert at the old musical instrument store.

Each Wednesday at 4pm Instituto Allende provides a free lecture previewing the upcoming weekend’s field trip. Bilingual, native guides lead all outings and field trips in a safe environment. Cost for this all-inclusive trip (museum fees, transportation, meal, cocktails, etc.) is US$65. Reservations are a must. Visa and Mastercard accepted. Instituto Allende, Ancha de San Antonio 20, 152-0226.


 

Films & Videos

Center for Global Justice Snowbird Film Series to start

The Center for Global Justice presents Cheney’s Law and Prescription for Disaster as this week’s entries in its 2008 Snowbird Symposium Film Series.

Cheney’s Law is a powerful documentary originally aired on the PBS show Frontline. There is little middle ground concerning Dick Cheney. He is viewed either as a staunch defender of American liberty or as the scariest person ever to occupy the executive branch. The near-indisputable fact is that Cheney is the most powerful vice president in US history and has waged a 30-year campaign to establish the presidency as the dominant arm of government.

Through a series of interviews, most notably with former Assistant Attorney General Jack L. Goldsmith, this hour-long special tells a chilling tale of government bureaucrats being overrun by Cheney’s use of the war against terrorism as justification to circumvent the other co-equal branches of government, at one point prompting 30 Department of Justice officials to threaten resigning in protest. 

Eventually, with Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, Cheney had precisely what he wanted—as one observer put it, “someone they could control.”

Prescription for Disaster provides an in-depth investigation into the symbiotic relationships between the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA, lobbyists, lawmakers, medical schools and researchers, and the impact this has on consumers and their health care. It’s estimated that Americans spent nearly US$2 trillion treating disease last year. Despite this massive expenditure, more Americans are sicker than ever with largely preventable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and depression.

This documentary by research scientist Gary Null asks why so little is being spent on prevention compared with what is being spent on treatment. The answer, he concludes, is simple: when you are sick, it is highly profitable to various giant corporations. When you are well, it doesn’t profit them much at all.

Cheney’s Law will be shown on at 3pm on Monday, January 7 and Prescription for Disaster at the same time on Thursday, January 10 in the Teatro Santa Ana in the Biblioteca. Admission is 50 pesos.

For information about CGJ courses, call 150-0025 or mail info@globaljusticecenter.org. 

ShalomSMA FORUM to present The Syrian Bride

ShalomSMA Forum has the pleasure to present a dynamic film, The Syrian Bride. Eran Riklis's film digs into the Middle East conflict with the tale of a Druze woman who lives with her family in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Her family makes plans for her to marry a Syrian television star from Damascus, but the wedding must take place at the border and, according to both Israeli and Syrian laws, once she marries and crosses into Syria, she’ll never be able to return home. 

Hiyam Abbass, Makram J. Khoury and Clara Khoury star in this film about physical, emotional and religious borders and the people who try to overcome them. What do you know about the Israeli Druze? This is an eye-opener, and one that will touch your heart.

See it at the Hotel Quinta Loreto TV Room, Monday, January 7 at 5pm. You’ll want to stay for refreshments and the lively discussion afterwards. Your donation of 50 pesos to ShalomSMA is much appreciated.

Volunteer Opportunities

Does your nonprofit need hands? Send your short requests to edit@atencionsanmiguel.org with “Volunteer Opportunities” in the subject line.

Save A Mexican Mutt (SAMM) is a charitable organization that rescues, spays/neuters, provides veterinary care, socializes, and transports highly adoptable Mexican street dogs to the United States for adoption. We need volunteers to foster dogs for up to six weeks and to transport dogs to the United States. If you live here full or part-time and can provide a temporary loving home for one of the many dogs in line to be transported to their forever homes or are traveling to Texas, New Mexico or Colorado by car and can transport one or more dogs with you, please contact Kelly Karger at info@saveamexicanmutt.org and see our website at www.saveamexicanmutt.org. (Save A Mexican Mutt is a US 501c3 charitable organization. Donations to SAMM are tax deductible on your US federal tax return.)


Field volunteers needed for Patronato Pro Ninos

PPN, one of the oldest and most vibrant charities in SMA, is looking for a selective group of volunteers who would be willing to dedicate two or more mornings per month to go out to the outlying areas of the municipality of San Miguel de Allende to visit schools, talk about the work that PPN is doing to assist children with medical and dental problems, and to invite those children who need medical attention to the office of PPN for evaluation and assistance at little or no cost to the family. The volunteers ideally would either be reasonably fluent in Spanish and/or have a car/truck/SUV which can withstand the back (mostly unpaved) roads of the municipality. If interested, please contact Steve Livingston at steve@stevelivingston.com  with your name and contact information. 


Feed the Hungry looking for screening volunteers

Feed the Hungry is looking for volunteers to help with the preventive medical screening of our school children. We are looking for persons with one or more of the following skills: Bilingual persons, drivers with access to vehicle with high ground clearance willing to drive out to the ranchos, computer data input persons. This medical work is being conducted in cooperation with Patronato Pro Niños for the children our organizations serve. For more information please contact us on 152-2402 or contact@feedthehungrysma.org. 


Volunteers needed to help organize San Miguel Walk 2008

The 5th Annual San Miguel Walk Against Domestic Violece takes place on January 24, 2008. The San Miguel Walk funds the Violence Prevention Program at CASA, Centro Para los Adolescentes de San Miguel de Allende, A.C., a local non-profit organization that has been serving the poor, particularly adolescents, rural women and their families, through health, social service, education, and environmental outreach programs since 1981. We are looking to form a team of dedicated volunteers to help out with advertising, publicity, fundraising and outreach. Please contact Shelley at shelleybull@gmail.com  or 044 415 114 8648 for more information.


Pro Musica

Pro Musica de San Miguel AC puts on more than 30 classical music concerts throughout the year in the city. We are looking for volunteers to fulfill various roles. These include helping out as ushers at St Paul’s church and other venues during concerts, selling tickets prior to the House and Garden Tour at the Biblioteca on Sunday mornings, helping to organize suppers in private homes after concerts for our musicians and patrons, and assisting with publicity, marketing and fundraising. We are a fun group of people to work with and the music is fantastic! Contact Pro Musica’s President, Michael Pearl, at 152-2688 or email him at mpearl5493@aol.com.