March 28, 2008, Semana Santa Photos, An alternative spring vacation, By Abby Lohr, Rotary conference to examine the many faces of diabetes in Mexico, By Liz Powell, Protecting San Miguel, By Joan Duke, Interior Voices, By Graciela Cruz López©, Spring Equinox sounds in the garden, COLLECTION CENTERS IN SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE

Not only did these young people avoid the beach, they worked all week at the Center for the Adolescents of San Miguel de Allende or CASA. Although this may not have been a relaxing vacation, these students will remember their time with CASA forever.

The Rice University week of service and learning was comprised of a variety of activities. The students, most of whom are pre-med majors, helped teach sex education with CASA’s peer counselors and also accompanied CASA’s midwifery students during prenatal exams and PAP smears in rural communities. There, they also donated dental supplies to local school children. In the middle of the week, the group gave basic routine check-ups to youth with developmental disabilities at Atención Múltiple and spent time playing with children at the Centro de Crecimiento. After taking a dip in the natural spring water baths at La Gruta, the students continued their week of service and learning by meeting with Doña Antonia, the founder of CASA’s midwifery school, to learn about her amazing life and achievements.

Overall, the students’ time in San Miguel de Allende was exhausting yet funfilled. Many of them even commented that they enjoyed working with CASA so much that they plan to return in the future as interns. Clearly, this week of service and learning has provided these Rice University students with invaluable hands-on experience. As they continue their education in the medical field, not only will they be able to use the knowledge they gained at Rice, they will also be able to draw on their CASA week of service and learning to be better able to treat patients such as those in San Miguel de Allende. We at CASA thank Rice University for sending us student volunteers and we look forward to working with another group next year.

Abby Lohr is currently interning at CASA and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Nearly 6.5 million Mexicans—more than 10 percent of the population—are diabetic and another estimated 2 million have not been diagnosed. In the state of Guanajuato, estimates are even higher. By 2025, an estimated 11 million Mexicans will suffer from diabetes, the country’s No. 1 cause of death.

To address the growing diabetes epidemic in our area, the Rotary Club of San Miguel de Allende-Midday, El Club Rotario de San Miguel de Allende AC and the Rotary Club of Tallahassee, Florida have joined forces to sponsor the first Conference on Diabetes in San Miguel de Allende. Featuring internationally renowned experts from the United States and Mexico, the conference is designed to raise public awareness and provide an educational forum for educators, social service providers and the medical profession. Officials from the Municipality of San Miguel have fully supported and actively participated in planning the conference. The conference web site, www.smarotaryclub.org/diabetes offers a full description of the program and the speakers.

Dr. Larry Deeb, former President of the American Diabetes Association, together with his Tallahassee Rotary Club initiated the idea of the conference and secured funding from the Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company. Dr. Deeb recently said, “we may have started something really big…at least this is my dream. Diabetes is a huge problem worldwide and Rotary can be part of the answer.” Local Rotary leaders Dr. Salvador Quiroz and Gordon Logan echo his enthusiasm and belief that the conference will make a difference in the lives of many people.

Diabetes is a chronic and often debilitating disease that can damage many parts of the body, such as heart, kidneys, eyes, hands and feet. Early detection and proper treatment can limit the damaging complications, but many cannot afford treatment. Proper diet and exercise can help prevent diabetes for many individuals. Conversely, lack of a healthy diet is a key factor in the skyrocketing rates of diabetes, particularly in countries like Mexico.

Many communities lack resources and equipment to address adequately the various consequences of diabetes. For example, it is estimated that 25,000 diabetics in the state of Guanajuato may lose all or part of their eyesight without the digital camera used to detect damage to the eyes and the laser treatment needed to remove damaged retinal tissue. Currently, there is only one set of this equipment in the entire state. The Rotary Club-Midday is working with several US Rotary Clubs to purchase this equipment for the Hospital General with the goal of having it in place by the end of this year. Maggie Sperling, a Rotarian who has herself benefited from retinopathy treatment, said the benefits will be huge—the gift of sight for many people.

The Conference on Diabetes will bring together the community to focus on improving the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diabetes and its related conditions. It seeks to attract a diverse audience, including health-providers, community educators, social service providers, government officials and representatives of non-governmental organizations that provide community health services.

On April 10, the program will be held at the Teatro Ángela Peralta. Led by Dr. Georgina Majia Bocanegra, Director, Centro de Salud, it is directed to the Municipality’s Vocales de Salud. Its focus is to educate these leaders on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diabetes so that they can make villagers aware of health issues and services. This session is open to the public. Additionally, there will be free diabetes testing for participants and the general public.

The program for April 11 and 12 will be held at the Hotel Real de Minas and is divided into sessions for heath providers and those for educators and social service providers. For health providers, first day topics will include diabetes as a world problem, diabetes retinopathy, gastric lap-band surgery, and the role of Mexican Diabetes Association (AMD) centers. On the second day, health providers will hear about prevention and early detection, quality of care challenges, and modern management of type 1 and 2 diabetes.

For education and social service providers, the first session will include a multi-media educational program on the seriousness of diabetes, its prevention, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment. The session will be conducted by the AMD center in Guanajuato. On the second day, participants will hear about the realities of diabetes today, diabetes education in the classroom, nutrition and exercise, and diabetes among children.

The conference will also provide a forum for a Proclamation by President Jesus Correa of the Municipality of San Miguel de Allende designating April as Diabetes Awareness Month. Additionally, an important expected outcome of the conference will be the establishment of a San Miguel de Allende chapter of the AMD to serve as a source of continuing coordination and information on diabetes in this area.

Protecting San Miguel
By Joan Duke

Va Por San Miguel meeting
Tue, Apr 8, 7pm
El Sindicato, Recreo 4

Va Por San Miguel is a group of residents with official, legal status interested in addressing issues that affect the quality of life in the city. The group proposes to become the “Monitoring Board” that is called for in the 1939 “Law for the Protection and Conservation of the city of San Miguel de Allende.” This law established the formation of a “Monitoring Board” that is in charge of giving or denying permits to build, renovate, restore homes and buildings that are within the urban area; and, if necessary, to prevent such events without proper permission, or suspend demolition projects that contravene the overall architectural character of the city. The local municipality has not responded to Va Por SMA’s request for action so an Amparo has been filed with a federal judge. The decision requested from the judge is a determination if there are legal grounds requiring the municipality to respond and if the judge agrees that the 1939 law should be put into effect and implemented.

Members of the group have met with officials from Wal-Mart and plan to meet with interested residents to determine the best strategy. If you are concerned about the conservation of the city and wonder where you can go to address such concerns, you should come to the next meeting.

About 60 concerned residents attended the last meeting on March 11.

The meeting divided into the following subcommittees:

· Charco del Ingenio led by Cesar Arias

· Finance and Fundraising led by Ricardo Vidargas

· Government Transparency led by Lorea San Martin

· Centro Historico led by Dorothy Vidargas

· Urban Development led by Arturo Morales

Three subcommittees reported at the end of the meeting. The Transparency Subcommittee stated that their purpose is to promote reliable public information regarding the local government’s compliance with federal and state laws. They are requesting that municipal authorities publish a Citizens Gazette and make it available online. While they await a response, they are planning the following actions:

· Regular feature articles for Atención, Correo, radio and TV stations on proposals and actions by the authorities.

· Fact Sheets on Hot Topics. These topics include compliance with the 1939 law, Wal-Mart (planned for the corner of Libramiento Dolores & Estación del Tren), Starbucks (Hidalgo corner of the Jardín), and a new development at San Miguel Viejo, an Otomi Indian site.

· Government Watch Report Cards on the actions of the authorities.

· Handbook of Civic Responsibilities – “Smart Residents.”

The Urban Development Subcommittee plans the following events:

· Meeting to discuss Wal-Mart plans on March 25 at Correo 46 at 6pm.

· Meeting to share official and legal information about the Otomi site and prepare a strategy.

· Prepare and post information on traffic proposals on www.vaporsanmiguel.blogspot.com

The Centro Historico Subcommittee plans:

· A meeting with Adolfo Cervantes to present proposals on traffic.

· A flyer and protest action for the Starbucks opening on March 26. This flyer will explain why franchises do not fit with the historic conservation of San Miguel as well as inform people of the many café options in town.

· To form a citizens’ forum on the restoration of Centro historic buildings.

Va Por San Miguel is soliciting memberships and is in the process of obtaining their Hacienda tax status. You can join at the next meeting for 250 pesos.

After several years, I am returning to the Biblioteca, the place that sheltered my first afternoons of study, the same place that hosted scholarly meetings and obliged dates with childhood and youth friends. I speak with the voice with which I recently taught a local history course to the transit officials of the city. It is also a new encounter with the institution from which I had the privilege of receiving a scholarship from 1986 to 1999; it is the return to corridors, to whispers, to serenity and to the history of a building that refuses to let me go.

Interior Voices is an invitation to talk about the essence, the sense and the personality of our small country, going deep into a past-time that wanders the present and upsets the future, a continued history in which casualty does not exist, but on the contrary, an articulation of logics and complexities that surrounds each one of the processes, times and actors.

Those interior voices will come out, those voices which are in the depth of times and in the enlarging of spaces, in the surroundings of the desert and stony land, on the hillside of the mountains that encircle our city, in the urban net with its waving arteries that formed the Camino Real (the oldest road in the city that is still in use), with its shapes and symbolisms, in its festivity character, in its precessions, in its palace type and vernacular architecture, in its religious buildings, constructed with deep spirituality and popular piety.

I dedicate this first column to those who speak to us from the interior of this land, to all who are a part of its historical consciousness and who have contributed to its exceptionality. With these lines, I pay a particular and deserved tribute to don Félix Luna whose hard work and with an overflowing soul, has made an indelible stamp on the memory of the present and future generations, the authentic values and traditions that belong to our city. Thank you don Félix, for your devotion, your sincere friendship, and for the endless evening talks. We will remain with his memories, with his example, his teaching, and the shared experiences.

The Sacred Encounter: The Good Friday Procession of the Brotherhood of la Santa Escuela de Cristo.

The Sacred Encounter is an important Holy Week procession in San Miguel, which has its origin in the messianic spirituality of Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro, and the strength of collectivity and popular piety of the colonial times. A deep devotional footprint that has exceeded time and crisis, joints and changes, ideologies and opposed feelings, in order to be present in the 21st century, after 260 years.

The foundation of the Brotherhood of the Santa Escuela de Cristo in San Miguel el Grande, must be understood as an essential part of a spiritual project that Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro began in the Villa of San Miguel el Grande and symbolically ends at the Shrine and House of Spiritual Exercises of Jesus the Nazarene at Atotonilco.

The Santa Escuela de Cristo was founded in 1742, to honor the sacred hearts of Jesus and Mary, and has as its main praying house the church of Our Lord Saint Rafael (next to the Parroquia), which was supposed to be the primitive parroquia of San Miguel, according to its architectural characteristics, its orientation to the sun and its placement on the terrain. This same church and hospice of Prince Saint Rafael, which in 1756 temporarily sheltered the nuns of the Convent of the Purísima Concepción (today known as Las Monjas).

The foundation of the Santa Escuela de Cristo, served as an example to other brotherhoods founded later in and out of the area, all around the Bajío and the novo-Hispanic north, from Atotonilco to Zacatecas. It was the true seed of the religious militancy that, in different liturgical times, were involved in the spiritual exercises in Atotonilco.

The Santa Escuela de Cristo of San Miguel was formed by a group of virtuous men, devoted to Christian values, to intense prayers, to spiritual works and to all kind of pious practices. They were always faithful followers of Christ’s example, pledging him obedience as they considered him their Divine Master; they were also faithful to Mary, devoted to her for the rest of their lives.

These first of Christ’s disciples from the Santa Escuela, clergies as well as seculars, were the ones who began this tradition of the procession, which left from the brotherhood’s church each Good Friday at dawn, to feel in their own flesh, the painful journey of the Passion and Death of the Redeemer.

The devotees, organized in a military-type line, bearing disciplinas (a kind of rope for flogging), which have been represented in paintings and historical documents, with a freezing expression and wearing rough clothes, cilicios (tunics of rough cloth), skulls and thorn crowns. They walked embracing the cross, guided by the founding banner, which refers to their intense devotion and to the bleeding hearts of Jesus and Mary, walked silently through the villa’s main streets, carrying a skull in their hands, the pure representation of death. The death for the brothers of the Santa Escuela was always present in front of their eyes, through the memory and the spiritual exercises they performed frequently to confront not only the end of their own life, but the death of the beloved ones.

Originally the procession was formed by biblical passages, from the Old and New Testaments, particularly the Passion iconography, which was bored only by military officials (captains, lieutenants, second lieutenants and others), who lived near the way of the passing of the Divine Master, which was announced by the dramatic Priest’s Passing, represented by the presence of Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro, who after walking through a two and a half league journey, from the Shrine in Atotonilco to the Villa of San Miguel el Grande, offered the three falls before arriving to the Golgotha with his brothers of the Santa Escuela de Cristo.

Graciela Cruz López is the author of the official document submitted to UNESCO for San Miguel’s application for World Heritage recognition and a former Biblioteca Pública scholarship recipient.

(Graciela Cruz López holds the whole copyright according to the Mexican Law of Copyright. This piece cannot be completely or partially reproduced without the author’s authorization).

WASTE	PLACE	SCHEDULE	CHARACTERISTIC

GLASS	GUAJUYE Lupita 2 Estación de FerrocarrilTel. 15 2 70 30	From 9am to 2pm and from 4 to 5pm Monday through Friday	We accept all kinds of glass, whole or in pieces.

BATTERIES	ART PRINT San Francisco 11Col. Centro Tel. 152 1575 y 154 9596	From 10pm to 2pm Monday through Friday.	We accept all alkaline batteries, AA and AAA style. It’s necessary to isolate each of the poles with masking tape.

CARDBOARD JUNK METAL ALUMINUM COPPER BRONZE BRASS CAR BATTERIES	RECICLADORA DESAN MIGUEL Libramiento Dolores 6 Col. Olimpo Tel. 150 72 03	Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 5pm Saturday from 9:30 to 3pm	We accept all kinds of material, in any form or container.

PLASTIC BAGS	IGLESIA DE SAN PABLO Cardo 6 Tel. 15 2 03 87	From 9am to 2pm Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 9am to 1pm.	Clean plastic bags, whether white, black or clear (not bubble wrap).

PAPER	UNIRSEGo-Housing Daniela Morales 15 449 561	From 9am to 2:30pm and 4 to 6pm Monday to Friday.	Newspaper, magazine, cardboard.

PET Plastic Containers	ESCUELA NIGROMANTE Las Moras s/n Col. Allende.Tel. 15 2 06 48	From 8am to 1pm From Monday to Friday.	We accept clean and compacted plastic containers, clear or colored, green, blue, etc.. Plastic that have in the bottom No. 1 or No. 2

PET Plastic Containers	ESCUELA JOSE VASCONCELOS Barrio Del Obraje S/N en el Obraje.Tel. 15 218 69	From 8am to 2pm Monday to Friday.	We accept clean and compacted plastic containers, clear or colored, green, blue, etc.. Plastic that have in the bottom No. 1 or No. 2

ORGANIC WASTE (generated at home)	FAI–PEASMA Hidalgo 13 Centro Tel. 15 2 36 86	From 10am to 2pm Monday to Friday FAIPEASMA	For information and tips on making compost or to purchase compost containers.

More information: www.peasma.com

As a part of environmental education, PEASMA invites you to participate in the separation of recyclable material to support and save our precious resources.