Thursday, March 22, 2007

An Education Day - Doors & Windows



Tuesday – Week 3: Nothing big on the schedule today, other than a slide show by a noted local photographer this evening. In the late morning we explored some different streets on the northeast corner of the historic district. Mary Ann joined me in this climb and decent, but I am not too sure how happy she was about it. We ended up at the Artesanias market and we did find a nice Mexican style shoulder bag for me. This had been an object we had been searching for, so that the “male pack animal” would have proper equipment.

Following the purchase we headed for La Biblioteca so Mary Ann could start thinking about what books could be checked out when she proverbially hit the wall of no reading matter. I encouraged this kind of research as it would ultimately be cheaper and easier than psychiatric counseling. The library contains the Santa Ana Café and we stopped in for a liquados de fruta and sandwich. The liquados is a blended fruit drink like a smoothie, but at room temperature. As Mary Ann says, it was probably much better for us than a Coca Cola. In the La Tienda gift shop in the library, we bought the Gringo Mexican cooking book, in order to expand all of our local cooking options.

La Biblioteca Pública is really quite a place, and serves as a community center, particularly for the expat community. There is always something going on to include lectures, plays, movies, computer center, cultural activities, home tours, all sorts of classes, ticket sales, and of course the checking out of books. It is always humming with a lot of people, both Mexican and Anglo. I don’t believe I have ever seen an institution quite like it. It certainly makes San Miguel de Allende a unique place. They have an excellent website, with a lot of information and photos: http://www.bibliotecasma.com/

In the early evening we returned to the Biblioteca Santa Ana Theater for a slide and oral presentation by Robert de Gast, a photojournalist who has been living in San Miguel for 12 years and has had several books published with his photos of San Miguel. His books include The Doors of San Miguel and Behind the Doors of San Miguel. His slides of doors and windows of San Miguel, and his narrative about them, and his new projects were very enlightening. Now I suspect Mary Ann will be taking photos of nothing but doors!

No comments: