Third Sexual Diversity Festival: Smaller but still tons of fun 
By Jesús Ibarra August 1, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

From Wednesday, August 6, to Saturday, August 9, San Miguel becomes even more festive, playing host to the Third Annual Sexual Diversity Festival. Highlights include parties, exhibits, a fashion show and films and conferences about sexual diversity.

“This year the festival will not be as big as the first and second ones,” said festival organizer, Daniel Sirdey. “Although we did not have many sponsors this year, we did not want to forgo it.” Sirdey added that next year they intend to organize a bigger festival.

In the past, the festival has met with some opposition. “At first, the gay community did not understand why heterosexuals were organizing a sexual diversity festival. But heterosexuality is also part of sexual diversity. Now, the gay community collaborates a lot with the festival,” said Sirdey. “The first year, there was also a group of nuns who tried to stop the festival at La Carpa, but they did not prevail.

 Afterwards, I learned that they were praying for the salvation of our souls.”

This year, the festival’s venues will be Teatro Santa Ana, where most of the movie performances will take place; Fonda Rosa, on San Antonio Abad, where several feature and short films on sexual diversity will be shown;

Market Bistro, on Hernández Macías, where film screenings, exhibits and drag shows will take place; Z Club, near the train station (cocktail parties, a drag show and costume party); and Gustos, at Reloj 17 (a party and show).

Perhaps the highlight of last year’s festival was the showing of the documentary Muxes: Authentic, Intrepid, Seekers of Danger, about the muxes, indigenous gay people and cross-dressers from Juchitán, Oaxaca. This year, said Sirdey, the documentary will again be shown on Wednesday, August 6, at 1pm in Teatro Santa Ana.

Besides the muxes documentary, other films at Teatro Santa Ana include For the Bible, a documentary about homosexuality and its perceived conflict with religion; Les Chansons d’Amour (The Songs of Love), about a sexual relationship between a man and two lesbian women; and Nesio, a Mexican film about a small-time drug dealer. 

Among the films slated for screening at Market Bistro and La Fonda Rosa are Boys Don’t Cry and Ma Vie en Rose, an acclaimed Belgium film.  Sirdey announced that the festival’s special guest this year is Arturo Castelán, head of the Mix Festival from Mexico City, who talks on sexual diversity in films and videos.

“On Friday evening we will have a fashion parade by Barbara Porter Boutique, departing from the Jardín and ending at Market Bistro,” said Sirdey.

The festival offers two cocktail parties, on Friday, August 8, at Market Bistro and on Saturday, August 9, at Z Club. The cocktail party at Market Bistro, themed “Blue Cocktail,” will also feature photo exhibits by Flor Acosta, titled “Ensayos para un amor desesperado” (Essays for a desperate love) and Carlos Abraham Slim, titled “Constancias en el tiempo” (Evidence in time), a series of male nudes.

A drag show by Magali Platino will also be presented during the Blue Cocktail party.

Z Club’s cocktail party, themed “Pink Cocktail,” is a costume party, with prizes awarded for best costumes. “First prize is a trip for two to a city in the United States, donated by one of the party’s sponsors, Libido magazine,” said Sirdey. “There will also be strippers at the Z Club party,” he added.

Third LGBT+H 2008 Festival For complete schedule, visit www.bombao.com/conmemoracion -lgbt.htm.

Wed, Aug 6
1pm, Film
Muxes; Autenticas, intrépidas, buscadoras de peligro
(Muxes: Authentic, Intrepid, Seekers of Danger)
Teatro Santa Ana
Insurgentes 25


Thurs, Aug 7
1pm, Film
For the Bible
Documentary by Daniel G. Karslake
Teatro Santa Ana
Insurgentes 25


5pm, Film & art 
La Fonda Rosa
San Antonio Abad 17 & Canal

7pm, Party & show
Come celebrate Diversity
w/The Gustos Girls
Gusto Bar
Reloj 17



Fri, Aug 8
1pm, Film
Les Chansons d’Amour
Teatro Santa Ana
Insurgentes 25


3pm, Film
Nesio
Teatro Santa Ana
Insurgentes 25


7pm Intro Fashion Show
by Barbarita designs 
Jardín Prinicpal to Market Bistro


8pm, Blue Cocktail
Market Bistro
Hernández Macías 95
100/150 pesos 
Photo exhibition, Flor Acosta & Carlos Slim
Short & feature films
Live music

9pm, Travesti show, Natushaa and her girls, feathers, feathers, feathers

10pm, Travesti show, Magali Platino, Europe with Mónica Naranjo

11pm, Buffet fusion, with DJ music




Saturday, August 9
1pm, Conference
Sexual Diversity in Film & Video
Market Bistro
Hernández Macías 95


2pm, Conference
Sexuality, Sex and Genre 
Sexual diversity group from Guanajuato
Market Bistro
Hernández Macías 95


2pm, Movie
Les Chansons d’Amour
Teatro Santa Ana
Insurgentes 25


3pm, Short & feature films
Market Bistro
Hernández Macías 95


9pm, Pink Cocktail
Z Club
Lupita 6, Colonia la Estación


Near train station
175/250 pesos


Includes:
9:30pm: Fashion show, Barbarita boutique

10pm: “Fashion Diversity” Casa SAF’s

10:30pm: Fancy dress contest

11pm: Surprise show, strippers, strippers, strippers

Midnight: DJ’s night; Gay Daze parade and masks

Casita Linda: Building hope one house at a time
By Jean Gerber; photos by Holly Wilmeth

Antonio Vasquez Sanchez and his wife Maria de Los Angeles Murillo finally have a home—a permanent one. Vasquez had been in the US for three years, struggling to find work, but lack of any papers proved to be a daunting roadblock.

Finally he was able to find a little work and sent money home to his family in Mexico. It was through his job in the US that they were able to buy their small piece of land in Ejido de Tirado. After close to 20 years of constantly moving, living with relatives, or struggling to pay rent on a room, they were running out of options. They decided they would move onto their little lot and build a casa de cartón (house of cardboard). They were all tired, but the idea of being in one place was stronger than continuing to rent. So for over a year they lived in a shelter of paper boxes with a tin roof they were able to buy.

Then on April 8, Mauricio Magaña, a volunteer with Casita Linda, came to them and told Gloria, their eldest daughter, that they had been chosen for a house.

 “Tell me more! What else did he say, when will they start? Is this true? Did he say anything else?” Maria de Los Angeles kept on nagging her daughter.

“Mother, enough…enough! We must wait!” exclaimed Gloria.

Less than three months later on June 21, they moved into their new home. “We couldn’t believe it. We couldn’t believe we would get a house! We were so excited,” exclaimed Maria.

This was the same day their son Ricardo celebrated his first communion. The family hosted a big party for his communion that included their family and the volunteers and workers from Casita Linda who constructed their new home.

They have four children and their daughter has two. The eight now live in their adobe home, well protected from the outside elements, Vasquez enthusiastically explains, “I forget about the sounds of the outside until I go out, the sounds of the wind.”

All their children are in school and this home means more stability for their family. It means their daughter Gloria can be safe from her husband who mistreated her; it means they don’t need to worry about where to live next. Although they now have a safe and beautiful home, Vasquez speaks of going back up North. “Papa, ya vete al norte,” is what Gloria says to her father. The sad reality is that, in order to survive and provide for his family, he feels the need to go back and work in the North. He and his wife currently have jobs. He does metal work and she is a domestic worker for a Mexican family; between them they make at most US$120 a week. “We’re not where we were at before, in a crisis, a time when we barely had clothes to put on our backs. But I want to give my family more and with what we make a week I could never dream of anything. Imagine, my wife makes 350 pesos a week; that’s what a meal in the US costs for one person.”

Casita Linda is a nonprofit organization whose primary goal is to provide low-cost, decent housing to the most disadvantaged families. For more information, visit www.casitalinda.org,  contact Jean Gerber at jean@casitalinda.org  or call (415) 154-9446.
 
Jean Gerber is the director of Casita Linda. Holly Wilmeth is a freelance photographer based in San Miguel. For more of Wilmeth’s work, see her website at www.hollywilmeth.com. 

Casa de los Angeles opens second center
By Donna Quathamer


Grand Opening & Auction
Casa de los Ángeles
Sat, Aug 9, 6pm
Calle Enrique Velazco Ibarra 9
Colonia Santa Julia
Auction of decorated chairs by local artists

Anne Lamott says, in her book Traveling Mercies, “If you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans.” I think there must have been some snickering in heaven the day I told God what I was about to do.

Casa de los Angeles began as a free daycare center almost eight years ago. It is located in the heart of San Miguel, in colonia San Antonio. It is a safe haven for the children of mothers who come from the outskirts of town to work as domestics or to sell their wares at the local mercado and in the streets of town. Often these children were being left home alone before this center was established. Casa de los Angeles has grown to be a community center in which mothers find the support they need to make a better life for their families. Besides help with their children, these families receive medical care, home and bathroom construction, transitional housing, emergency shelter, summer camp, food bank—all done in a relationship of mutuality that respects the dignity of each individual.

From 1995 to 2000, I worked at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. During that time I was responsible for outreach, serving the needs of people in Chicago, Appalachia, Arkansas and Querétaro, Mexico with groups of university students. Each time I traveled to Mexico, I felt the need to consider what I could do to help those less fortunate of this beautiful and compelling country. During 1998 and 1999, I traveled San Miguel de Allende and asked more than 100 local women, “What would be a helpful program offered to your family?” The answer every time was, “Daycare. I need a place for my children so that while I am at work they aren’t locked at home alone.” The work was decided by the women of the community.

In the spring of 2000, having decided to make the move, it was now time for to search for a building. An old restaurant in the neighborhood called San Antonio was found. Some of you may remember the restaurant, El Ranchito.

 A huge pepper tree in the courtyard seemed to say, “This is just the right place for children. Let them play in my shade.” The woman selling the property said that since the building would be used to help the community she would take a US$10,000 down payment with the remainder paid in one year. That was a little problem, since I didn’t have even the US$10,000. Traveling back to the states, thinking of ideas to raise money, I realized that a miracle was needed right about now. Upon returning, there was that familiar beep of an answering machine. The message was from my friend, Pastor Kelly Fryer, of Cross of Glory Lutheran Church, Homer Glen, Illinois. “One of my parishioners would like to donate US$10,000 start up money for your project.” Off to Mexico!

Now almost eight years have passed. It became apparent from the very beginning that the need for daycare among the population we serve is imperative. Our first building initially held the daycare and space for volunteers. Within seven months the children took over the whole building and volunteers were moved to a building which we rent. During the last two years our waiting list consistently held 50 families.

On one of our home visits we met Teresita. Her two daughters, Lucia and Matilde, were enrolling their three children at our center. Besides those six people, their small two room house sheltered four other family members. When asked who all the land behind their home belonged to Grandma Teresita told us that it was her husband’s.

He died in the last year and Teresita was unable to prove that she was his wife, and her name was not on the escritura, so the land was headed for public auction. With the help of Casa de los Angeles, Teresita’s back taxes were paid and the land was titled and then divided into equal parts for her children. When we were at the lawyer’s office Teresita said that she would like to divide the land into five pieces, giving one to Casa de los Angeles. What a gift! That is the land of our new center. A piece of land donated by one of the many families that we serve.

The next year was spent fundraising for the construction of our second center and in January of 2007 we broke ground. That brings us to our grand opening which is a celebration of women who expressed a need, a celebration of miracles, a celebration of families that are working to improve their lives, a celebration of children who make us smile each day, a celebration of all who have supported the work that Casa de los Angeles does. We have so much to celebrate. We have so much to look forward to.

We work to help those less fortunate to help themselves. That is the passion that drives us each day to work with the mothers who have been left behind, who have been abandoned. They are the ones who are willing to enter into the scary world of making a change, of moving to a place in their lives where they can provide fully for their children. They are the heroes.

Please join us at the grand opening of our second center in colonia Santa Julia, Calle Enrique Velazco Ibarra 9 at 6pm on Saturday, August 9. As part of the Casa de los Angeles celebration there will be an auction of rocking chairs. Not just any rocking chairs, but rocking chairs painted, decorated and otherwise made interesting by 30 of the greatest San Miguel artists. Be sure to come early to see the chairs and bid on your favorites.

Donna Quathamer is the founder and director of Casa de los Ángeles.

Making a beautiful difference
By Deb Hall and Mary Gonzalez Rivera

Reception & Sale
The Engraved Glassware Project
Tue, Aug 5, 4–7pm 
Zócalo Folk Art
Hernández Macías 110

This elegant glassware is expertly engraved by local disabled participants in the Engraved Glass Project, the brainchild of Charles Hall, who is severely handicapped. Charles Hall launched the project in San Miguel with the help of DIF Estatal, Secretaria de Desarrollo Económico del Estado de Guanajuato, the program Bécate, and the expert guidance of Centro de Crecimiento’s Lucha Maxwell.

This stunning glassware would be considered beautiful by any measure. Artisan-made, hand blown from recycled glass and expertly engraved, this glassware has all the hallmarks of fine Mexican craft. And while this beautiful product speaks for itself in the marketplace, Zócalo Folk Art, Exportadora Camino Norte, S.A. de C.V., and Rose Ann Hall Designs wish to share the story of this inspiring project with our friends and neighbors in San Miguel during a reception celebrating the success of the Engraved Glass Project.

Eighteen months in the making, the Engraved Glass Project in many ways began 47 years ago in Dallas, Texas, when local entrepreneur Charles Hall was born with only partial arms, without hands, and with facial and other irregularities. Through a lifetime of overcoming physical challenges and prejudices in the workplace, Hall knew that he would one day help others to conquer those same prejudices by providing real jobs to this often forgotten and untapped workforce that simply needed a chance rather than charity. What he did not know is that his vision would become a reality in Mexico.

Upon moving to San Miguel to assume management of his mother’s already established wholesale company Hall immediately connected with María de la Luz “Lucha” Martínez Maxwell, and began to envision training and utilizing local disabled workers to engrave hand-blown glass. As founder of Centro de Crecimiento, Lucha Maxwell quickly introduced Hall to key state and city officials. Soon conversations became reality and a separate training and manufacturing concern was founded, but not without considerable accommodations being made.

Charles Hall and manager Mary Gonzalez Rivera of the Engraved Glassware Project at Exportadora Camino Norte, S.A. de C.V. Camino Norte currently employs 21 skilled workers, nine of whom are disabled.

Special workstations were built, equipment was modified to accommodate individuals in wheelchairs and local officials augmented these efforts with counseling, guidance and by providing outstanding candidates for training. Today, Exportadora Camino Norte employs 21 individuals, 9 of whom are disabled. Not only does Camino Norte provide jobs to the disabled, but the time-honored art of glass engraving is being preserved as part of Mexico’s craft heritage.

Today, the future of the Engraved Glass Project is bright and although strictly a wholesale venture, the glassware is being retailed exclusively at Hall’s brother’s shop, Zócalo Folk Art, so that sanmiguelenses may share in the triumph that each glass represents. Yes, there are challenges ahead, including the ongoing search for funding for vans and modified transportation, but for now, it is time to step back and applaud these individuals and the beautiful glassware they create. It is glassware that would be beautiful by any measure, but is all the more beautiful knowing the skilled jobs, self-worth and dignity that each glass represents.

For more information, call Zócalo Folk Art at 152-0663.

Planting the seeds of entrepreneurship
By Dianne Walta Hart

The students in the Los López Videobachillerato lean back in their seats, stretch out their legs, and watch Ezequiel Mojica warily.

Boys have gel in their hair, girls have theirs pulled back in the traditional Mexican style and all are in black and white uniforms and sweaters on this hot muggy day.


“I’m with Apoyo a Gente Emprendedora,” Mojica says with a broad smile on his narrow, elegant face.

Mojica represents a micro-finance organization, so small that it has no webpage, no fax machine, and not even internet hookup at Apoyo’s office, which is in Mojica’s home.

However, with the help of donors in San Miguel and shored up by matching grants from the San Miguel Community Foundation, Apoyo has made 130 loans averaging US$90–270 from 2004 to 2008. The recipients’ businesses are humble—they sell handicrafts, handmade clothing, personal care products, food, school supplies, groceries and shoes. 

Part of Mojica’s dream, however, is to talk to students and plant the seeds of entrepreneurship early, which is why he’s in the village of Los López on the outskirts of San Miguel. He looks around the classroom. “We all want to be successful in our lives, right?” 

The students, who are almost ready to graduate from high school, respond with, “Sí.” 

Mojica explains what the word emprendedor means, quickly adding that it’s also for women—emprendedora. “Is Bill Gates an emprendedor? Is Carlos Slim? What about the people who have sandwich shops all over San Miguel? Pizza places? Are they emprendedores?”

He looks at the students. “Want to be rich?” 

They sit up and yell out, “Sí!” 

“But what does being rich mean?” Then he starts to sing: “Cristina era tan pobre que no tenía más que dinero.” The students immediately react to Joaquín Sabina’s song about poor little rich girl Cristina Onassis who is so poor that she has nothing other than money. 

The class follows him and belts out: “Cris, Cris, Cristina, suspira y fantasea con que la piropea un albañil,” about her hoping for a street compliment from a bricklayer.

Mojica, 35, is a natural teacher, working the classroom like an expert as he pushes the students into re-thinking being rich. 

Then he becomes more serious. If their parents are interested, he tells them, Apoyo can help with a business plan, with money, with advice. When they reach 18, they can apply, too. First they need the idea, but the plan, even if it’s small, has to be on paper. Hand in the application, follow through and pay back the money from the profits on a monthly basis. But there is help, he reassures them. If their goods are not selling, why not? If they’re selling but produce no profits, why not? 

“The idea is to move forward, to make progress, to be able to actualize your dreams by preparing for them. Start now, when you’re young.” The students nod. “And being rich,” Mojica pauses, “is also having the liberty to decide your life, more a way of thinking than having.” 

The students who moments before were laughing are now watching Mojica intently. He talks about his village on the other side of San Miguel. He mentions how the old ideas are changing, how today students need an idea of what they want to do, but to do it, they have to be prepared. It’s all right if they plan to continue their parents’ work in the fields, but if so, they should learn new ways of doing it. They can work in the US, but they should do so legally. It’s good to have dreams, but they need to think how they’re going to achieve them.”

“I’ll be here every Friday,” he says as he writes his telephone number on the board. The students copy it down.


Ezequiel Mojica and Apoyo a Gente Emprendedora

In 2002, Mojica met Elliot Aronin and James Wittliff, US businessmen who had been discussing how a micro-finance program might help San Miguel’s poor. Wittliff was being tutored in Spanish by Mojica and mentioned how Mojica would fit into their burgeoning idea. 

According to Aronin, “We started with Mojica's mother as our first attempt to apply the theory of helping people.”

Mojica says, “When my mother started her business, she had a small stove and one old manual tortilla machine. With a grant of US$200, she was able to buy a bigger stove, a new machine and she made more tortillas in less time.” 

With Mojica’s mother’s success behind them, Aronin and Wittliff expanded, still using their own funds as they developed a program of interest-free loans. “We found that [when the recipients] started businesses of all kinds, the vast majority were successful. The results have been very encouraging and these young people are demonstrating that with just a little bit of help (some money plus some business advice), people can become much more self-reliant.” 

One of Mojica’s friends, Fred Stresen-Reuter, eventually questioned loans being interest-free. “When I pointed out that other micro-credit organizations charge interest, Mojica countered with, ‘Look, these are the poorest of the poor. They simply cannot afford it right now; maybe when they get more successful.’”

Aronin says that today the founders continue to “make annual contributions toward the support of Apoyo, which includes Mojica’s salary.” Later, “we solicited funds from friends, etc. Mojica became proficient in approaching potential donors and I understand he is doing quite well.” 

To make all this possible, Apoyo obtained legal status as a Mexican nonprofit organization in 2005. Now Mojica is president of a board consisting of five Mexicans, two of whom are former recipients of grants. Co-founder Aronin sees Mojica “as an entrepreneur who is directing all the aspects of the group. This includes policy making, screening applicants for the non-interest loans, fundraising, etc.” 

Today he’s married, has a three-year-old daughter and is the leader of a musical group called Ruta 66, all of which balance out a life that’s not all work and no play. He’s doing what he loves to do—helping people of all ages prepare for life—while also fully living his own. He lives what he teaches—the liberty to decide your life is more a way of thinking than having.

For more information, contact Ezequiel Mojica at apoyoemprendedores@yahoo.com.mx  and the San Miguel Community Foundation at http://www.smcfnd.com. 

Ice cream fiesta raises funds for local patrol
By Beverly Russell; photos by Judith Anderson

A crowd of about 150 residents of Los Frailes, El Canada and El Mirador community gathered for a fun-filled, sunny Saturday afternoon fundraiser in one of the Los Frailes parks, Plaza de Los Enamorados, to benefit their local police patrol.

The event, initiated by the local group of Vecinos Vigilantes, set a new standard in community activity by inviting the local police patrol and Comandante Mario Monzon to attend Police Appreciation Day, to thank them for their excellent service to the neighborhood.

Two particular agents, José Manuel Cabajal and Ricardo Santos, were singled out for their good work in arresting two criminals in the area who were running a scam selling carpets door to door.

Vecinos Vigilantes president, Robert LeVine, and past president Enrique Orvananos handed out official certificates to these officers.

Patrolmen who attended the fiesta with their families were invited to enjoy free ice cream, cookies and soft drinks. Residents paid 50 pesos for a raffle ticket that entitled them to as much ice cream as they could eat in four different flavors (purchased from Senora Gaby, the ice cream queen of La Reijna de Michocán, on Ancha de San Antonio). Raffle prizes included an Ipod Nano, dinner for two at Vivoli restaurant and a 500-peso gift certificate for Romanos restaurant.

The afternoon raised 7,400 pesos which will go toward equipping the police patrol with Maglites and other items they need to do the best job for the neighborhood.

 La Tuna Tradicional provided the guitar music which heightened the warm neighborhood spirit of goodwill, cooperation and friendship.

Join in supporting Tibet

Demonstration
In support of peace in Tibet and China
Sat, Aug 2, 5pm
Jardín
Wear white, bring nonviolent posters

With the upcoming Olympic Games in China set to begin on August 8, we want to invite the community of San Miguel to unite in a prayer chain.

No matter what creed, religion or belief, let’s pray or meditate together and send our blessings to both the Tibetans and Chinese in hopes that nothing negative will happen during these Olympic Games.

Meet in the Jardín’s esplanade and, if you can, dress in white, bring your children and nonviolent posters (how you see peace in the world).

Mattresses and beyond
By Jean Gerber

For over two years, St. Paul’s Church has been giving mattresses stuffed with recycled plastic bags to Casita Linda. The volunteers meet every Wednesday morning to make them, using 1,000 plastic bags for each of the mattresses. They are not only beautiful, but also comfortable and hygienic.

The children’s eyes open wide when they see the colorful patterns and the minute they are set down on the wood planks of the sleeping area, they jump on them with glee. This is the finishing touch when the volunteer construction workers have completed the casita and the family is ready to move in. The mattresses are in keeping with the goal of Casita Linda to make the houses environmentally safe and use indigenous and recycled materials whenever possible. 

St. Paul’s Church now has reached out even more to help the children and families living in extreme poverty by giving a generous donation to Casita Linda. How fortunate for residents of San Miguel to have a church that strives to meet the needs of their community. Our heartfelt gratitude to the parishioners and volunteers associated with St. Paul’s Church.

Jean Gerber is the director of Casita Linda.