Fund raisers and fiestas

Last Sunday was a big day at Love In Action; they had a garden party as a fund raiser.They got a very good response as we heard that they sold over 400 tickets at 250 pesos each. There were several singers and performers. The little ones sang a song with Anabel, the director, (photo 1) and some of the older girls had practiced a hula dance (photo 2; photo 3 has some kids from the babies house). It was a beautiful day and gave a lot of people a chance to see the facilities.

After the garden party, we stopped at a reception put on by Viva la Música! This group does 5 concerts in the summer, but also organizes bus trips. Some trips are to Guadalajara for concerts, including 5 broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. This was the group that organized the trip to Morelia that we took last fall. This reception was to give members a chance to renew. Members get discounts on tickets so that it doesn’t cost anything to be members if one is going to the concerts anyway. They gave out tickets for a draw; the prize was 2 tickets to the Northern Lights Festival starting on March 5th. Lo and behold, I won! For entertainment at the reception (it was held at the Anglican church in Riberas), Chris Wilshire, who is the organizer of Northern Lights, had 4 of his students who are preparing for a violin competition play for us. Chris is a Canadian who married to a Mexican and now lives in Guadalajara. Recently, he was presented with a Governor-General’s award recognizing his contributions to cultural relations between Canada and Mexico. Most of the musicians who come to perform in the Northern Lights (over 20 of them each year) are Canadians. They get no pay, except air fares and room and board here. There are 6 concerts over 2 weekends. I shall be away for the first weekend March 5 - 7, but will be going to 2 concerts the second weekend. The 3rd concert is jazz and not my cup of tea; however, lots of other people do like jazz so I don’t think that they will miss me. Last year there was only one jazz concert, but there was so much demand that they are doing 2 this year.

The mid-term exams from my class arrived very quickly. It took just over 27 hours from the time they were picked up at St. Mary’s until they were delivered to our door. I got them graded over the next 2.5 days. There may be 2 more late ones to come, but they should be out of the way before I go to Windsor to see Rosemary. I have reservations for March 4; I intend to return March 9th. I expect that I shall be making more than one trip.

The weather has been returning to more normal and temperatures have been going up, although most still are several degrees below those of last year.

There are a host of charitable organizations down here and they arrange most of their fund raisers at this time of year when the snowbirds are here. Quite a few ex-pats are actively involved and a great many seem to be good about supporting these fundraisers. Besides, they are entertaining. Today and tomorrow, there is a big fiesta called the Chilli Cookoff, just up from us on the highway. It raises money for 7 charities; they said that last year they were able to give each of the charities 35,000 pesos. There are singers, dancers and other performers. Today a number of amateur groups were in competition with their chilli recepies; tomorrow, a number of chefs in local restaurants will be presenting their chillies. We took our 3 niñas there this afternoon. For us, it was easier than sometimes and the girls seemed sufficiently interested and entertained.

Tomorrow, we are going to another fund raiser, this time for a charity called, Los Niños de Chapala y Ajijic. They provide small subsidies for children of poor families to go to school. Our friend Kate is on the board so that we learn a lot about it from her. The families have to pay half of the expenses and be supportive; the kids have to maintain high grades to stay in the program; there are about 200 kids in the program currently.