This page is a hodge-podge of photos (sinks, flowers, birds), mostly from early October.

An Inconvenient Truth

The Morelia International Film Festival started yesterday (Sunday, Oct 15) and the first film shown was Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth".  We were pleased to see that the theatre was completely packed.  If you haven't seen this film, go see it.  If you have, recommend it to your friends.  It is THE best presentation of the consequences of global warming I have ever seen (and it's pretty good on the causes, too).  It is a compelling film - EVERYONE should see it and be moved to action after having seen it.  It opens in theatres on November 3rd.



One of our favorite local places is a huge open area at the top of a hill on the edge of town near the community of Jesus del Monte.  Right now it is filled with flowering plants: Cosmos, marigolds, verbenas, daisies, and many species we don't recognize.


       
      


               

                 


Near the tortilla stand where we buy our 40 cents/pound of tortillas, these horses were tied up, waiting for their jobs for the day.  A lot of people in our neighborhood use horses to haul things to and from the market.
 



Teachers' strike

We leave work at 2:00 to pick up the kids from school.  One day, traffic was snarled for miles around our neighborhood and the school.  Fearing what would happen if we were late to pick up the kids (they send kids home who ARRIVE late at school), Don started walking to their school while Helen waited in un-moving traffic.

It turned out that there was a teachers' strike and they were blocking the highway in front of the governor's mansion (right across the street from our apartment).  The strike lasted from 2:00-4:00.  Don was among the first parents to reach the school at 2:45.

In the meantime, the kids enjoyed lying the empty highway!

                   

They blocked the road with piles of bricks.  

 





At 4:00, they removed the bricks, traffic started moving, and we never saw a story about the strike in the local papers.



















Explanation wanted:  

Here is the sink in our laundry room.  It is identical to hundreds of thousands of sinks in this city (indeed, to the millions of sinks in the country) and I can't figure it out.  The water flows into a basin with no drain (on the right); the drain is in the left sink (with no faucet).  Suppose you want to wash out some clothes: you fill the right sink with soapy water and soak your clothes.  You scrub the clothes on the handy corrugated cement contraption in the left sink - so far so good.  But then you want to rinse these clothes.  You can't drain the soapy water out of the right sink (there's no drain); you can't add water to the left sink (there's no faucet) . . . .

We've "solved" this by going to the laundromat weekly - the sink lies dry and unused.  If any of you know the philosophical underpinnings of this sink, please e-mail me and tell me about it!

 


Local produce: the sign below (on a bus stop) says: "Eat produce from Michoacan (our state): we all benefit".
Fortunately, with all the local markets selling fresh produce, this is easy.  And here are more of Margaret's market photos:

       

              
   
   



Sarah's birthday
(yes, we know it was in September, but we forgot to put these on the early web page)

As you know from a previous webpage, we went to the beach (Troncones) before her birthday to celebrate.  But, of course, we still had to commemorate her birthDAY, so we made the traditional animal-shaped cake and crown.  Despite our simple tools in our little kitchen in Mexico we made one of the best birthday cakes yet!  But we missed celebrating with all of her friends and Grandma Becky - we'll see you all at her next birthday.

     


These are just some pictures of downtown.  The left shows part of the aqueduct: over 250 arches extend down one side of town.  It is beautifully lit at night - we wish we could walk on the top of it.

On the right is the gazebo near the cathedral: beautiful tall ceiling.  A band not dissimilar to the Bristol band was playing there one evening and we walked into town to hear them.  We have discovered that the walk into town is only about 35 minutes so we've been doing it more often.  And, when we don't want to walk, we can take a "combi" (the VW van in the left photo): for 40 cents we can get a ride from downtown to within several hundred meters of our apartment.  And, if that's too slow, we can take a taxi directly home for about $2.50

 

The view from our living room window continues to amaze and delight us: the dawn (which we only see on weekends because we leave the house before dawn on weekdays!), dusk, fog, and rain storms - it's all wonderful to watch.  These photos are of the egrets that pass by our windows twice daily: in the morning they fly out of the city to wetlands (somewhere! we don't know exactly where they are heading), in the evening they fly to the trees at the zoo.  The sun reflects off of their white feathers in magical ways.