Mujeres en Cambio January luncheon, 
Jan, 5 2007

Mujeres en Cambio Lunch Thursday, January 18, 2pm, Hospicio 16 Entry by ticket only, 120 pesos Contact Roger Hind, 154-6552

The objective of Mujeres en Cambio (Women in Transition) is to help young Mexican rural women to gain an education and thus to foster their self-sufficiency, self-esteem and self-respect. The organization provides high-school and college scholarships to more than 120 young women from the ranchos around San Miguel. Scholarships are offered to promising students recommended by their school principals, and continued receipt of a scholarship is dependent upon their maintaining good grades.

The January lunch features an Asian-inspired main course prepared by guest chef Michele Vallon of The Night Kitchen Caterers; salads, vegetables and desserts will be prepared or supplied by Mujeres en Cambio core members.

Come along, enjoy great company (men and women both welcome!), beautiful surroundings (donated by Hacienda de las Flores) and learn more about the scholarship program.

Attendance at the lunch is limited to 50 people and is by pre-sold ticket only. Tickets cost 120 pesos and are on sale now at Casa de Papel, Mesones 57A (the China Palace building); RE/MAX Colonial, Portal Guadalupe 12 (diagonally opposite the Parroquia); and Solutions Mail Service (Recreo 11). Get your ticket early because they sell out quickly!

Also, keep in mind our annual rustic rancho buffet lunch in Atotonilco in February. Further details will be published in Atención prior to the event.

We are always happy to welcome new core members to join us in working for this worthy cause. For more details, call Roger at 154-6552 or visit our web page, www.mujeresencambio.com, to find out more about us and for the latest events information.



Parallel lives: Outcomes uncertain
By Barbara Erickson and Roz Karson Tol, Translations by Lynette Seator

Actual interviews with young women dealing with domestic violence*

Silvia, who is 18 years old, came to talk to us with her son, Roberto, who is one year and 10 months old. She is pregnant with her second child, due next February.

Silvia and her boyfriend married when she got pregnant. Her family was angry with her because she was so young (about 15). Nevertheless, they had a beautiful honeymoon and moved into his parents’ home. One day during her first pregnancy, the young couple was invited to a fiesta. They went, and Silvia's husband began to drink and do drugs. Silvia was talking to the friend who had invited them when her husband became enraged and told her to just “stay with him” and stormed out of the party. She followed him home and on the way, he bought a bottle of wine and continued to drink and yell at her. He told her he was the devil and started to beat her up, hitting her on the arms, pulling her hair and pushing her. When they got home, he picked up a baseball bat to hit her. At this moment his mother, who lived downstairs, came up and told him to stop. He told her to get out of the way and hit Silvia’s legs and feet. Then he left for two days. 

When he came back, he was crying for forgiveness and asking her to take him back. Things were good for a couple of months and she thought it would be ok. But he continued to hit her whenever he was drinking or doing drugs, and sometimes when he wasn’t. She hoped that after she had the baby everything would be better. Instead, he got worse. She talked to her mother-in-law about it, but all she offered was to talk to him. Her father-in-law could make him stop by yelling at him and insulting him, but it did not really get better. 

Silvia finally went to CASA last October when her father-in-law helped her to move back to her mother’s house. During the two months she lived with her mother, she came to counseling at CASA and was almost ready to get a divorce and move away from her husband. He found out and attacked and raped her, and she is pregnant again. She worked with Alejandra, the CASA psychologist, and went to report her abuse to the police. At the last moment, she decided instead to go back to her husband. We do not know the outcome yet. Silvia told us that she saw a lot of other women who had worse lives than hers at CASA, so she decided to go back. Silvia continues to live with the man who has beaten her.

Rosa is 18 years old, single, no children.

When Rosa was 15, she had a boyfriend. After they had been dating for about five months, he asked her to move in with him, which she did. Her parents did not approve. At first, their life was wonderful. But soon after, he began to verbally abuse her. She did not know that there was anything wrong with that. So she just took it. Then she got pregnant. He said that since they were using birth control the pregnancy was not his fault and she must have been cheating on him. She denied it and told him the baby was his. This is when he started to hit her. His brother tried to defend her, and that made him even madder. 

Over the next few months, he continued to hit her for any small thing, and at four and a half months of the pregnancy she had a miscarriage. She knows the miscarriage was the result of all the beatings. Rosa was very angry after the miscarriage. She went to her mother, who took her back home. She decided to stay with her family. Her parents and her three brothers are very supportive of her. She is the only girl. When she felt better, she spent another week with her boyfriend and then decided to leave. “It was just a teenage crush,” she says. 

Nevertheless, he continued to stalk her, and even if she was just hanging out with her girlfriends, he came around and acted jealous. Rosa had returned to high school, and every day he waited for her outside the school gate. In a way, she felt protected and flattered. Her family and friends and her co-workers at CASA persuaded her not to go back to him, even if she thought that all those jealous displays meant that he loved her. 

Rosa had become a promotora at CASA after she heard an announcement on the radio for new members. She finds the group of friends most helpful, and through all the things she has learned at CASA she feels like she is a real person and has a good life. She enjoys being able to help take the message out to the other communities. “They never get to know it," she told us, “unless we bring them the information.” 

We asked her what she would say to a friend who was in a situation of domestic violence. She told us that she would advise her of the other options available and that she did not have to take it as it is. She reminded us that many people are afraid to change, and that often women have too many children—una montaña de niños—to risk losing support, and that many others just don’t know any different life and are content to be where they are.

These two young women are the same age, got involved with boyfriends at the same age in their lives, and come from similar economic and educational levels. However, they have chosen very different paths. CASA psychologist Alejandra shared with us the pain of Silvia’s return to her husband; she had worked diligently and gently with Silva to educate her about her right to a life without violence and the need to have the courage to change her situation. We hope Silvia’s husband becomes a better husband and father, but if he turns to violence once again, Silvia will still be able to call on CASA for help.

Alejandra shared that the real difference in these young women's lives is self-esteem. CASA’s many programs try to address this issue for young people and for their communities, by bringing awareness of the human rights of everyone to live a life without violence. The anti-domestic violence program is very culturally sensitive; women who want to leave their situations are taken into the homes of trained CASA workers, who can help protect them from shame and at the same time provide support.

In November 2006, CASA published a comprehensive manual on domestic violence: Por el Derecho: A Una Vida Sin Violencia. The manual covers the laws in Mexico and Guanajauto, as well as how to understand domestic violence and how to find help and support. It is available now at CASA. For more information, call Alejandra Saucillo Romero at CASA: 415-154-6060.



*The names of the women have been changed to protect them and their families.

Fact: Levels of violence against women in Mexico are comparable to those reported from other countries. Lifetime prevalence was 41% (National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery of Mexico, Mexico City, 2005).

Fact: 2006: Mexico passed the UN-sponsored General Act on Equality between Women and Men. 

Fact: The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women listed 42 recommendations for Mexico to follow to eliminate violence against women. The most important of these is to make it possible for domestic violence to be an automatically punishable crime (Associated Press, Nov. 23, 2006). 

Fact: Health effects of domestic violence can include poor nutrition, exacerbation of chronic illness, substance abuse, brain trauma, organ damage, partial or permanent disability, chronic pain, unprotected sex, pelvic inflammatory disease, gynecological problems, low-birth-weight infants, miscarriage, adverse pregnancy outcomes, maternal death, suicide and death.

Community Security Committee hears concerns on development
By Carol Schmidt

The demonstrations, protest meetings, petitions and rumors surrounding the El Caracol development were at the forefront at the Community Security Committee meeting held December 19, at which Mayor Jesús Correa vowed repeatedly to have his administration be 100 percent open and transparent.

Authorities offered to host a presentation and discussion on municipal development plans and issues that form part of the newly created 25-year city plan. 

[Editor’s note: This public meeting has been set for Tuesday, January 16, at 7pm in Teatro Santa Ana, Biblioteca Pública, Reloj 50A. Speakers include city authorities and guest specialists.]

The committee also heard updates on several crime prevention issues aside from the emphasis on development concerns.

In the renewed fight against corruption within the police department, 20 officers have been fired and publicly reprimanded. City Council has approved another 20 percent raise in police salaries in an additional step to curb corruption. A new police substation is planned near the bus station.

The new administration is re-arranging budgetary priorities to purchase 11 new police patrol cars and five new motorcycles. Christopher Finkelstein, City Secretary and former Director of International Relations, Tourism and Economic Development commented, “The city must make many sacrifices in other areas to finance police security. As long as some people are not paying their fair share of property taxes, they cannot expect us to fund all of the services they want us to provide.”

“Parking meters are still on the agenda,” Finkelstein said. “We still have the problem of 25,000 cars on our streets today, compared to 10,000 cars 10 years ago. The city is still working on the best way to provide parking meters that are less visually intrusive, such as is done in Georgetown and many European cities.” He did not have an estimate of when the meters will be installed; original hopes were that they would be installed last year.

“About 10 or 15 of the larger, older buses already have been replaced with smaller ones that pollute less, but each bus permit is for 10 to 15 years, and we cannot force a bus owner to replace his bus with a smaller, new one while his permit is still valid. We have 110 buses, which carry 44,000 people a day. People who live outside of the urban area need public transportation to come into the city—buses are not just for those who can afford cars.”

Don Patterson, head of the Ecology Department, said that progress is also being made in the way inspections are done. “In the past, Urban Development sent out inspectors to investigate one area of interest, such as population density. Now, the recently hired city biologist will go along, and often four departments will send inspectors out in one car at the same time to work together. For the first time, Ecology has a biologist, an agronomist and an environmental engineer working together.” 

According to Patterson, the city population includes a talent pool of only 1.2 percent professionals from which to hire inspectors, and so many have only high school educations instead of college degrees. 

Besides the main focus of the meeting on El Caracol, other development issues were also raised. Finkelstein noted that a development bordering El Charco was turned down. “We are working to ensure that all laws are followed, not just construction laws but environmental laws.”

“It is not true that there are 30 to 60 developments approved by the past administration waiting to be built,” said Finkelstein. “At the moment, there are 12 or 13 viable permits in existence. Many people do not know the law. Many permits are granted but very few projects are actually built—usually the developers can’t find the money. Most permits expire unused.”

The new Director of International Relations, Tourism and Economic Development, Francisco Peyret García, noted that Mega supermarket was recently instructed to modify its façade, colors and advertising, a request received and complied with during construction of La Luciérnega shopping center. “It is very important to get citizen input in advance on the façades of buildings, which affect the overall appearance of the city.”

Finkelstein, who prepared San Miguel's final application to UNESCO for designation as a historic city, said that the city is being very careful with all aspects of development, especially within the historic center, so as not to endanger that designation. “We have been told that San Miguel is in the lead in Mexico for that recognition, to be awarded in 2008,” he said.

But the main focus of the meeting was the condominium project, El Caracol, the third project of Casas San Miguelito, which previously completed Rincon del Cielo in 2004 and El Encanto, both located behind La Lejona. Rincon del Cielo had 41 homes from US$65,000 to $75,000, and it won three national housing awards that were presented by President Vicente Fox. El Encanto’s initial prices were US$80,000 to $90,000, and already the prices have doubled for many resales.

“Some 52 percent of our customers are buyers from the foreign community who cannot afford million-dollar homes,” said Carlos Vázquez, one of the five partners in Casas San Miguelito, who all were born and raised in San Miguel or Querétaro. “We are all local people who love San Miguel and want to provide housing and employment here. My biggest disappointment in stopping construction while we modify the façade to reflect community concerns, working closely with the Architects Association, is that in doing so we had to lay off 108 San Miguel employees during this season.”

Vázquez said that the company admittedly made a mistake in going with a computer-generated architectural rendering of the proposed development. “It is from a helicopter view that no one will see. A rendering from eye level, where people will actually be looking at El Caracol, would have allayed many fears.” 

Vázquez said the property was privately owned—not federal land, as some have charged—and that it is a unique 5,000-square-meter property “that cannot set a precedent for any future permits. It is built into a naturally occurring depression, and it rises along the mountainside out of view of almost all of San Miguel, especially Centro.”

The building will rise five meters (about 16 feet) above the ground at the top along the Libramiento Manuel Zavala, the curving road that runs between the glorietas leading out to Celaya and Querétaro. Next to where its approximately two stories will be visible is a two-story building housing a muffler shop, a furniture building shop and a planetarium that rises even higher. 

The bottom of El Caracol starts at the end of Cinco de Mayo. Parking for the 36 units will be built underground, and the first level includes a gym and spa. Proposals for the new façade are already available, but the primary public criticism has been that it is a seven-story complex with a façade that does not blend in with a colonial city, and that the traffic from 36 more homes will add to congestion and strain on the infrastructure in colonia Allende. 

Ed Clancy, US Consular Agent to San Miguel, said, “I tell expats not to join a Mexican political party or give money to a Mexican political candidate or take part in political demonstrations, but on issues that affect the entire community such as how we want San Miguel to look in the future, it is legitimate for all residents of San Miguel to express their views.” 

For assistance in navigating any city offices and procedures, go through Fabiola García, coordinator of the foreign affairs office, at 120-4528 or 120-4529.

For emergencies only, Finkelstein gave his personal email: cfinkelstein@sanmiguelallende.gob.mx 


Carol Schmidt and her partner, Norma Hair, run www.fallinginlovewithsanmiguel.com  with FAQs, blogs and forums, and published Falling … in Love with San Miguel: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security, available at Amazon.com and in local shops.