New students for Mujeres en Cambio
By Roger Hind
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Mujeres en Cambio afternoon tea |
San Miguel is blessed with a huge number of community groups working to improve people’s lives—from living conditions to bedding; from education to school books; from life-saving surgery and medical care to toothbrushes. And then there are those striving to improve the lot of animals. There are so many wonderful groups doing such important and challenging work! Behind all of these groups stand legions of volunteers who give up hours and hours of their time, contribute huge amounts of energy and apply their special talents to making a success of their particular group (or groups).
One of the huge pluses of working this way is that we get to see the results of our contributions first hand. We see that we make a difference; we meet and interact with the people or animals we aim to help. It’s so much more rewarding than writing a check to some huge charitable organization in the US whose administrative costs chew up as much as 30 percent of your donation and organizational inefficiency can further dilute its effectiveness. Let me tell you about a recent experience that illustrates this principle.
Every two months students receiving scholarships from Mujeres en Cambio journey from the campo to bring us their grades and to collect their scholarship money. Between noon and 2 pm, August 29–30, nearly 75 students each day lined up outside La Terraza restaurant (next to la Parroquia), a venue kindly provided by one of our members, owner Pakina Fernandez). Since the school year was about to begin, there were more than the normal processes to go through. In addition to checking attendance and grades, members of the Mujeres en Cambio Scholarship Committee interviewed each student, gave each student a questionnaire to complete, answered questions and paid each student.
I had volunteered to take photographs—one of each student for our records. What an uplifting experience to meet each student, if only briefly, to put names with faces and to have the fun of trying to coax smiles out of these charming and vivacious young women. Fellow member Joan Strouse asked the girls to write their names and helped me make sure that we had the photo number allocated by my camera next to the correct name.
The girls were all smiles and giggles as they approached us, but for some reason suddenly looked as though they were posing for mug shots once the camera came up. Joan had a lot of fun pulling faces and hamming it up (often at my expense I learned later, including pretending to put a pencil in my ear and making rabbit ears above my head) to try to get those smiles to appear.
The resulting photographs, some of which accompany this article, are treasures. What a wonderful reward for being involved in this organization that I know in my heart is making a difference in the lives of so many young women. However, the icing on the cake was when we learned that we were able to grant scholarships to 15 new applicants who had waited patiently until all the paperwork was processed for existing students.
The looks on their faces said it all and their excitement transmitted itself to each of us. It was a great two days’ work in so many, many ways.
Mujeres en Cambio provides scholarships to more than 150 girls from the ranchos around San Miguel, promising young women recommended by their school principal. Our organization is entirely volunteer-run. Right now we need talented people to help us with event planning, website development, filing and developing policies and procedures. Please get in touch if you can help.
We rely on the generosity of our supporters to raise the US$75,000 needed each year to operate our program. One of the ways we raise funds is by holding monthly events. Our next fundraiser will be on November first when Heidi and Bill LeVasseur will once again open their beautiful B&B, museum and gallery, Casa de la Cuesta, to us.
Expect to see colorful and witty altars adorning the gorgeous colonial spaces inside this beautiful home and hear from the LeVasseurs about the traditions of the Day of the Dead. We also will be treated to a tour of the folk art gallery and mask museum and you’ll be able to examine and maybe purchase some of the many indigenous articles on display. In addition, examples of the magnificent woven rugs of Jacobo Mendoza from Oaxaca will be on display and for sale. If that’s not enough, don’t forget the magnificently indulgent afternoon tea that Mujeres en Cambio members will be preparing.
Come enjoy great company (men and women both welcome!) and beautiful surroundings, and learn more about our activities.
Tickets for the lunch are on sale now at Casa de Papel, Mesones 57A (the China Palace Building) for 120 pesos. Please note that entry to the event is by advance purchase ticket only. The 75 tickets always sell out quickly, so no tickets will be available at the door.
The last two lunches of 2007 will be held at Hacienda de las Flores—Lebanese on November 15 and traditional holiday fare on December 13.
For more information, please visit our website, www.mujeresencambio.com, or call Roger at 154-6552 (sorry, no reservations can be taken). Take a sneak peak at why this opportunity will be a very special experience by visiting
www.casadelacuesta.com.
Red Cross faces major crisis and major opportunity
By Bruce Rossley
| The Red Cross provides ambulance and paramedic services free of charge to all residents and visitors to our town. But today the Red Cross of San Miguel de Allende faces a major crisis and, simultaneously, a wonderful opportunity which can only be realized with your help. |
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Recently, one of the Red Cross ambulances was destroyed in an accident and the Red Cross’s other ambulances are aging. To meet major crises facing over 180,000 residents of San Miguel and the surrounding area, today the Red Cross has only four ambulances, which are insufficient to meet emerging needs.
A new ambulance in the US costs approximately US$120,000. In Mexico, a new ambulance costs only 500,000 pesos under a special agreement with the manufacturer.
Fundacion Azteca, the charitable foundation of Television Azteca, has offered the Red Cross a generous matching grant of 500,000 pesos to purchase a new ambulance; however, that offer is predicated on the community raising an additional 500,000 pesos to purchase a second ambulance. Initially, this sounded like a daunting task. Recently, the municipal government, through the leadership of Mayor Jesus Correa, has offered 75,000 pesos if the balance can be raised. The local cheese company, Esmeralda, has generously pledged an additional amount toward the goal.
An organization founded by the SMA foreign community, the Red Cross Association of San Miguel, has raised an additional 100,000 pesos through many efforts, including Tuesday Night Bingo at Restaurante Los Milagros.
The Red Cross is approximately three-quarters of the way toward purchasing two new, state-of-the-art ambulances. Your help, large or small, is desperately needed to raise the remaining 225,000 pesos, approximately US$23,500.
For further information, call one of our English-speaking volunteers: Dr. Jose Luis Gallegos, SMA Red Cross President, at 044-415-101-0003 (cell); Dr. Roberto Maxwell, SMA Red Cross Secretary, at 044-415-100-3592 (cell); or Bruce Rossley, SMA Red Cross Association Co-Chair, at 152-5696.
Through your generosity, the life you save may be your own or that of a loved one.
Bruce Rossley is co-chair of the Red Cross Association of San Miguel. He has been a resident of San Miguel for the last six years.
New hospital in need of many things before winter
By Carol Schmidt
| Families of patients at the new general hospital in San Miguel often arrive with no money, no food, no place to stay, and end up living on the lawns and in the parking lot while their family members are hospitalized. | |
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Winter is coming, and administrators and doctors of the new hospital want urgently to have the new 48-bed family shelter next to the hospital open as soon as possible so these families will not be sleeping outside in the cold. The project is similar in concept to the Ronald McDonald houses at many US hospitals.
About US$45,000 is still needed to complete the family housing shelter, called the Alberque Dr. Xavier de la Torre. It has been completely built with private funding, at the north end of the Felipe G. Dobarganes Hospital General on the far side of the parking lot.
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The hospital is located on Avenida Primero de Mayo, behind the prison and the courthouse. To get there, drive out the Carretera de Queretaro to the first U-turn beyond Tuesday Market, come back around as if coming into San Miguel, and get into the service drive. |
There is no sign on Avenida Primera de Mayo, but on one side of the street is the modern new white Alternative Justice building and on the left is a large Construrama sign. The hospital is a yellow-tan and bright blue one-story building nearly at the end of the boulevard.
The shelter was dedicated in August but awaits interior completion. Projected cost for the shelter was US$200,000, although the final cost may be higher, and US$45,000 is still needed now to be able to open before the cold weather hits. Donations of blankets, twin sheets, pillows, living room furniture, televisions, toys, kitchen supplies and basic food items like beans and rice also are needed.
Checks may be made out to Patronato del Hospital General de San Miguel de Allende (US dollars are fine) and brought to Alberto Villarreal Sautto, Director del Patronato at Casa Canal, Canal 3, across from Banamex. Villarreal is the father of former SMA mayor Luis Villarreal, now the federal senator for this district. Call Carmen Villarreal at 152-1098 about other donations. Tax-deductible receipts can be written for donations, which can be deposited in Banorte, to the account name Patronato Del Hospital General de San Miguel de Allende. The account number for deposits in pesos is 00194328492. The account number for deposits in dollars is 00169434869.
| Villarreal; Jorge Vidargas, MD, the director of the hospital; and Thom Kandell, MD, a volunteer physician who is a board-certified internist and urgent medicine specialist, led a tour of the hospital and shelter October 11. | |
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The 60-bed hospital includes three operating rooms and ten beds in the ER. It is open to both Mexican citizens and foreigners alike. The general hospitals are meant primarily for those covered by Seguro Popular, the Mexican insurance plan that covers the 60 percent of the population that is not covered by IMSS (Instituto Mexicano de los Seguros Sociales). It is part of the Ministry of Health of the State of Guanajuato.
Only 5–6 percent of the income received by the local hospital stays with the hospital; the rest, and donations made directly to the hospital, go to the State of Guanajuato and may be distributed to other hospitals considered more needy. The hospital costs US$300,000 a month to run, and it is still heavily subsidized by the state. Donations made to the Patronato instead stay in San Miguel—the purchased equipment and supplies are loaned by the Patronato to the hospital and thus cannot be sent to other areas.
This is a level two general hospital. Health centers are level one; specialized hospitals that can perform advanced surgeries are level three. Patients who come into the San Miguel hospital with a heart attack, car accident or other serious condition will be stabilized and, if additional care is needed, they will be transported to level three hospitals in Celaya or Leon.
A social worker will interview patients without Seguro Popular to determine their ability to pay. Ten financial levels determine how much a hospital stay will cost. The basic ER cost is 63 pesos. The hospital pharmacy provides very low-cost prescriptions for medications ordered by hospital doctors.
The hospital replaces the older Hospital General on Relox, which is now empty. “We now serve a population of as much as a half million people,” Dr. Kandell said. “We draw patients not only from the 80,000 residents of urban San Miguel and the 60,000 who live in nearby towns and villages, but from a much larger rural area. These are the patients who often arrive with no money and their families have no money for hotels or food while they are with their hospitalized family members.”
The hospital is “a work in progress,” Dr. Kandell said. “We don’t truly have an ICU. A true ICU requires specialists and trained nurses on duty 24/7. We need to have nurses in an ICU who will not only call a doctor and say, ‘this patient looks bad,’ but can say, ‘this patient is throwing PVCs and should we start lidocaine?’”
Staff physicians at the hospital earn about 18,000-20,000 pesos a month, or under US$1,740 a month, US$400 a week, US$20,880 a year. Dr. Kandell noted that they could be earning US$200,000 if they practiced in the US. Registered nurses earn 8,000 to 10,000 pesos a month, half what the staff doctors make. They could be making US$80,000 a year if they worked in the US, Dr. Kandell added. “They don’t have the money to pay for their own certification programs or continuing education classes.”
There is only one board-certified cardiologist in San Miguel, and no certified pathologist, Dr. Kandell said. “Biopsies must be sent out of San Miguel.”
The hospital is fairly well equipped, and now the major shortage is in trained personnel, he said. A patient cannot bring in any private physician; the physician has to be certified or registered and willing to work under the direction of physicians who have been admitted to the hospital staff, just as in the US.
The hospital has an MRI machine, a digital X-ray room (the only one available in San Miguel), a laboratory and pharmacy, an outpatient area, and a childbirth and ob/gyn area. Pediatrics and orthopedics are among other specialties of the hospital. The laboratory operates 24/7 but is open for use by the general public 8–10am weekdays.
“The concept of the shelter for patients’ families is relatively new to Mexico, as is the recognition of the need for a waiting area for families of patients undergoing surgery. Families often waited in hallways to find out how a patient was doing during and after surgery,” Dr. Kandell said as he showed visitors the hospital facilities.
“We also have a room for physicians to consult and to do research and fill out paperwork, rather than having to work in the halls themselves.” There is a real sterilization room for hospital equipment and linens, he pointed out.
All of the 60 beds are in wards, except for an isolation area, and the hospital administration is attempting to get some private rooms, which might be more conducive to drawing some patients.
“Let’s face it, many expats move to Mexico because it is cheaper,” Dr. Kandell stated. “But we need to be part of our communities. Almost all of us are in the top 15 percent economic level of San Miguel, and we have a responsibility to give our time and our money to improve our community, to make it desirable to live here for all of us. If you plan to live here, you have to deal with the reality of Mexico, you have to get involved. We can’t have families living in the parking lot this winter.”
Carol Schmidt and Norma Hair operate www.fallinginlovewithsanmiguel.com
and wrote Falling…in Love with San Miguel: Retiring to Mexico on Social Security.
A call for donations!
Christmas is approaching and with it comes the Biblioteca Pública’s traditional bazaar, known as the White Elephant Sale, where year after year, throughout a fun morning, people find the curious things other people have discarded, things that are almost new and always in first-class shape.
Following the long-established custom, all the money raised at this event will be directed entirely to the Scholarship Fund dedicated to helping deserving youngsters of modest means. Started many years ago, the Fund gifted 73 university scholarships in 2005, and that has grown to 111 university scholarships in 2007.
This year’s donations of articles for the bazaar have so far been fewer than normal and so the Biblioteca is making a special appeal to the public for more articles. They accept all types of items that you no longer have use for. Anything not chosen for sale in the bazaar will be sold throughout the year at the Thursday sales. Remember that with your help, a child will get a chance to continue in school and whoever buys these articles will know the satisfaction of helping out at Christmas.
Items may be handed in at the Biblioteca, or you may call the number (152-0293) and they will be collected from you home.
Remembering Michael Salinsky
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The late Michael Salinsky enjoying Los Locos with close friends in San Miguel. |
Michael Salinsky, beloved husband of Wendy Croft, passed away October 15 after a long and heroic struggle with cancer.
Born April 11, 1942 in Sheboygan,Wisconsin, Mike was a life-long traveler, having had wanderlust from an early age. When he got his first car at 16 (another passion), he decided to drive with a friend down the Pan-American highway from the US, through Central and South America. Other trips included the Trans-Siberian railway, to Africa on safari, jaunts to Turkey, China and beyond. He and Wendy lived first in San Francisco, then Costa Rica for seven years, the south of France for five and in San Miguel de Allende for the past four years.
Mike graduated from high school in 1960 and went to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. After junior year, he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and started medical school at Washington in St. Louis, where he finished top in his class. Changing direction, he went back to Madison for law school, where he was also top in class. He had an amazing tight mind with an almost photographic memory. Things seemed to come to him effortlessly.
Michael went to San Francisco and joined, and later became partner in the prominent law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro during the 1970’s, 80’s and early 90’s. According to Kevin M. Fong, Partner, “In an era when fine-grained walnut stand-up desks were the norm for partners, Mike chose a plexiglass desk. In an era where partners’ offices were adorned with photos of family or vacation, Mike’s office featured a very large Soviet poster. Yet, he was part of the fabric of the firm, as much as school and Sutro, Sr.” he concludes. He was the first Jewish member and was known as “The Russian.”
He always had flair and style, often dressing in those days in capes, hats and cigarette holder. He remained a confirmed bachelor until age 50, when he met Wendy, fell in love and followed her to France.
Michael is survived by his wife and a brother William of Lebanon, TN. Contributions may be made in his name to the Amigos de Animales, San Miguel.
Donate by Check
To receive a US tax deductible receipt for your donation please make out a check to:
Amigos de Animales de San Miguel de Allende. Amigos de Animales de San Miguel de Allende
PMB 262, Aldama 3, San Miguel de Allende, Gto, Mexico C.P. 37700
Words from Wayne Greenhaw
In the last four years, Mike Salinski became an important part of our lives in San Miguel. My wife Sally and I bought our place in the spring of 2003 and met Mike and Wendy soon thereafter. He became an interesting part of our breakfast group that convened daily at the Jardín Cafe, where we were served by Pedro who watched after us, making sure our coffee was hot and our eggs cooked just right.
Mike brought local facts to the table, letting us know who was moving in, where new businesses would be located and the workings of the Mexican society, usually handed down to him from his man Jorge, whom many of us got to know and enjoy.
After Mike got sick and had to return to the Bay area, I emailed him some of my latest short stories about my home city of Montgomery, where I wrote about characters who peopled the southern urban area, and I could hear him laugh weakly when we talked. “Write some more about those people,” Mike told me, and I appreciated deeply his heartfelt interest.
One of the last times we were together was on a Sunday morning when a friend from Alabama and I were sitting at a sidewalk cafe on the Ancha de San Antonio, drinking coffee. I looked across the wide street and down the narrow alleyway. Mike was trudging toward us, his French trousers cut short, his sandals dragging on the sidewalk, his broad-brimmed hat shading his face. He wanted to know all about my friend, asking her about the small town where she was raised, and later he showed us his and Wendy’s home and talked about how he was looking forward to coming back and resting and spending a long time here.
When Michael Salinski left us last Monday, he left us with pleasant memories of a terrific guy who loved his wife dearly and enjoyed his friends immensely. We’ll miss you, Mike.