September 2011

Welcome to Mexico! By Victoria Schmidt Mexican Architecture Houses in Mexico aren’t like houses further north in North America. Coming from the bleak north, the riot of colors, shapes and sizes are sheer eye-candy. Large walls or gates secrete some of the most beautiful gardens, fountains, topiary, and homes. The houses themselves feature miradors, patios, […]

La Orquesta Tipica De Chapala By Margaret Van Every   Traditional Mexican music is suffering a serious crisis, says Javier Raygoza, founder and director of the Orquesta Típica de Chapala. It is being displaced by “the noisy, horrible band music (narcocorridos y onda grupera) of the drug culture. Raygoza observes that the mariachi band no

CHILD of the month By Barb Corol Rogelio Lara Huerta   Rogelio and his family live in Potrerillos, Jocotopec. Mom, Ana Sofia Huerta Verdia and dad, Reyes Lara Ornelas brought Rogelio to Niños Incapacitados in May of 2011 at which time they were accepted into our program.  Ana Sofia told us that in February, Rogelio

The Lament By Gale Griffth (I Can’t Catch Mosquitoes Anymore)   It never was a contest. From the time I was a youngster, living the country life every summer at our cottage, the mosquitoes in my native Canada didn’t stand a chance! I was energetic, swift and accurate and I practiced two methods of attack. My

The Poets’ Niche By Mark Sconce Charles Baudelaire(1821-1867)   Alert readers of this column know that the Classic Poets I’ve featured are near synonymous with their respective countries:  Yeats/Ireland; Lord Byron/England; Pushkin/Russia; Goethe/Germany; Dante/Italy; _______/France? Yes, who best represents France? Let’s see if we can put a face on Belle France. You’ve got Victor Hugo,

The Lakeside Science Fair Program Hank Shiver, Louis Regalado, Todd Stong and Charlie Smith are working with Lakeside high schools to develop science fair projects of high enough quality to participate in the Intel International Science and Engineering  Fair (ISEF). There are currently Lakeside  science fairs but none which competes at the ISEF level. ISEF

Anyone Can Train Their Dog By Art Hess Teaching the Basic Heel   The final step of our basic off leash “lure and reward” training is to teach Shep to heel off leash with a simple hand signal. As you see in the first photo we have Shep on our left side (as I explained

Wondrous Wildlife By Vern and Lori Geiger The Otter Cat If you ask someone to name a wild cat they will probably say a tiger or a lion. Much lesser known than other wild felines is the jagurundi; this small agile wildcat is native to Mexico, Central America and the northern and central countries of

Special Announcement   Our 17th Annual Writers’ Awards Luncheon shall be held on the 13th of September, 12 noon, at the Tango Restaurant in Ajijic. All those writers who contributed (sorry, Letters to the Editor are not included) to our pages from October 2010 through September 2011 are cordially invited to attend and encouraged to