Ajijic Ex-pat Liaison Héctor España.
Patrick O’Heffernan, Ajijic. In a normal year, the Technical College in Ajijic certifies over 100 students for good-paying jobs in a variety of fields, but this year, because of the Covid-19 economic slowdown, there are no jobs and the usual part-time employment many students rely on to p[ay tuition have disappeared, leaving any students stranded without tuition or living money. Ajijic Ex-pat Liaison Héctor España Ramos has started a fund to support them.
“You may not be aware of our Technical College in the Libramento. It prepares and certifies youths for high paying secure technical employment and houses over 1200 students a year. However, this year, there are so few jobs that 364 students will have to drop out due to the inability to pay the $125 dollar/ semester tuition.,” said España Ramos.
There are 161 students currently at risk, he added, pointing out that $125 will pay the annual tuition for a student. Both male and female students in all majors from engineering to culinary arts are at risk.
España Ramos has set up a tuition fund to support students. Donors receive a name, picture and information on the student they are supporting. The response from the community has been strong, although not nearly enough to provide tuition for all the students who need tuition help.
“I want to thank you to all the people who have helped. We are getting good donations but we need more for all the students. If we can do this for pets, why not students? “he said.
People can donate at PayPal using the address ms1cb@yahoo.com for dollar donations to a friend, or they can call him at his cellphone 33 10650725 to arrange a cash donation and choose the student they want to support.
Image: BBC News
Patrick O’Heffernan, Ajijic. Vice Media ran a story recently about the US elections tearing apart Lakeside Expats. It cited complaints from a few locals and a mild incident at the Dildoria, but no fistfights at LCS (social distancing wouldn’t allow it), no table pounding at Gossips, no Pendejo Trump banners hung in the San Antonio Tlayacapan Plaza. Most expats have more pressing problems than antagonizing their neighbors over what is essentially a personal choice.
My impression is that, except for political junkies and tireless partisans in an MSNBC or Fox bubble, most folks in Lakeside don’t harass friends or acquaintances who support the other party. Their Facebook pages may be a partisan billboard, but they are quiet F2F. They do care about the election — overseas voting is breaking records, thanks in part to the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act – they just aren’t fighting about it.
But, since I am a political scientist, people ask me my prediction about the election outcome – hoping I will bolster their side. I am happy to predict, but no bolstering. Right now, I think it is 50-50. There may be a Blue Wave, but it may not put Biden in the White House.
According to today’s Washington Post/Real Clear Politics and USA Today polls, at least 9 swing states are still swinging as the gap narrows. Biden leads Trump in Georgia by 1 point. Trump leads Biden in Texas by five points – or none, depending on the poll. In Pennsylvania, Biden is up by between 5 and 8 points. And he is up in Wisconsin between 9 and 10 points and in Florida by 2. But Trump moved up in Ohio by 1 point.
So why not an edge to Biden? Three reasons: voter suppression, the Courts, and the House.
Voter suppression and vote theft has been part of American politics by all parties since the country was founded, but Republicans have raised it to a high art in the past decade. Democrats have to outvote Republicans by 3-5% to get enough votes counted just to tie. And this does not even include the Russians, the Iranians, and the Post Master General, all trying to sow chaos.
The Courts will decide at least 380 voting lawsuits by January 20, 2021. The outcomes at the lower courts have slightly favored Democrats; the outcomes at the Supreme Court have slightly favored Republicans. Bottom line: we may not know who will be allowed to vote and whose votes will be counted in every state by Dec. 12 when the Electoral College meets.
The House is Constitutionally the final decider. Trump knows this and seems to be following three strategies: (1) massively get out the base; (2) aim for a Electoral College win by one or two votes from red counties in blue states with proportional representation in the College, and if (1) and (2) fail, challenge the vote tallies so if SCOTUS refuses to step in, he can take the decision to the House where the State delegations decide – Republicans have 26 and the Dems 22.
So, if Trump doesn’t win enough red states and counties for 270 in College, he can count on SCOTUS or the House for victory. Biden must win every blue and purple state by at least 6 points and win over as many red counties in blue states as possible to overwhelm the Electoral College, forestall a Supreme Court loss, and stay out of the House. Either candidate could pull it off. Hence, 50/50. Whoever wins, I can say with confidence the Expat community will be watching Social Security and Medicare very closely- that is something they will fight about.
Dharma’s on the Ajijic Malecon will have to discontinue its popular Sunday afternoon concerts, like this one last week with Lete Gibney.
Patrick O’Heffernan, Ajijic. Governor Alfaro of Jalisco pushed the red button Wednesday with an announcement on the state’s website https://botondeemergencia.jalisco.gob.mx/. The restrictions will last for 14 days but may be extended if Covid cases don’t level off. Practically this means his measure will take effect throughout the state of Jalisco as of Friday, October 30 and last until Friday, November 13. During two included weekends there will be a stoppage of activities from 6:00 in the morning on Saturday and until 5:59 in the morning the following Monday.
The website lists events that can and can’t be held, times that events and restaurants and other establishments can be open, and protocols required. The restrictions vary somewhat with the location – different rules apply in Chapala and Puerto Vallarta– but in general, commercial activities must close by 7 on weekdays and cannot continue on weekends. This includes restaurants bars, buses, and private social events. (our thanks to Kerry Watson of Chapala Health Talk Facebook group for her excellent reporting on the announcement)
In Chapala (including Riberas, San Antonio, Ajijic, etc), the main areas and activities that will be shut down during restricted hours include plazas, the Lakeside malecons, public markets and tianguis ,flea markets and organic markets, sports areas/teams and urban forests, religious ceremonies and meetings of more than 10 people, and open or closed event centers.
This will be a blow to the restaurant and entertainment sector in Lakeside, but the impact will vary. Laguna conducted a nonscientific telephone survey of music venues to get an idea of how they plan to respond to the two week-long – and possibly longer – red button restrictions. In general, many venue owners looked for ways to continue providing live music. These efforts ranged from concerts at Casa Domenech from 5 -7 on the nights its is open – Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Fri, to Adelita’s in San Antonio Tlaycapan which will offer music only one night a week, on Thursdays.
Venues like Gossips that only had music on weekends, will eliminate music for the red button period. Others like Meraki’s will continue their weekday music schedule, but just move it earlier, to 4 pm to 5 or so. Meraki’s has the flexibility to move its music completely outside, which it will do, to insure social distancing, an option not available to all venues.
Some venues will have to postpone live music, but will draw business with open mic nights, like La Bodega . The venue hopes a 25% discount on drinks will make up for business lost because of the lack of live music.
Dharma’s may be the local venue most impacted because it is the only music and food venue on the Ajijic Malecon and will lose its popular Sunday afternoon concerts, although it will offer music on Wednesday nights.
Owner, Ayrton Adrian lamented the impact of the closure of the Malecon, saying. “yes, this will totally hurt business. We are the only place on the Malecon with music. Shutting down from the Malecon will hurt us, especially because we will lose our weekend business. We will alert your customers that we are open and that take out is available on weekend, but no music.”
The general consensus of the venue operators Laguna talked with is that they hope it is only two weeks; they will lose business without the music and weekend business, and will try to make it up with take-out and deliveries, but for two weeks it won’t be fatal. Ray Domenech of Casa Domenech pointed out the impact on the music community and mentioned that one reason he was determined to offer music on the nights he was opened was to keep supporting the artists that support him.
John Kelly and his friend Snoopy from Candian Legion Branch 182.
Patrick O’Heffernan, Ajijic. Fire departments, paramedics and civic organizations in Canada have pulled together three shipping containers of valuable and badly needed fire fighting equipment for bomberos in Mexico, including three fire trucks and dozens of protective suits for firefighters. But the equipment is mired in Mexican Customs red tape, with one container being held up for three years and even AMLO could not dislodge it.
John Kelly and Branch 182 of the Royal Canadian Legion are on the job.
“We did everything they demanded; they wanted us to list every item in the containers on their forms, then they changed forms, then they demanded a photo of each item, then detailed descriptions and then we had to redo the letterhead and then told us we took too long and had to start over again. It was crazy – unbelievable amounts of bureaucratic red tape,” Kelly told Laguna.
Even lobbying at the highest levels has not budged the shipment, which Branch 182 discovered when it was able to bring the problem to the attention of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
“One of our members was in a car with AMLO and told him about the customs problem and AMLO said he would fix it – a year and half later there is no change,” Kelly told Laguna, explaining that it is difficult for very high-level leaders to change local decisions in Mexico.
Kelly and Chapala Branch 182 are not giving up. They are starting over but working with lower level politicians who may have the experience and influence to move it. Kelly explained that it is necessary to work with people in the right place in the organization because “the top level can’t reach down to change things on the ground.”
Kelly told Laguna that a prime reason the members of the Chapala Branch 182 – and he himself – are determined to get the equipment to Mexico is that the Canadian military shares the values of the bomberos about community service and protecting people.
“The bomberos are amazing, selfless people. They run into burning houses with no air tanks and no protective suits to save people. Their values are almost identical to the values instilled in us by the Canadian military,” he said.
Kelly and his wife moved to Ajijic in 2013 as “economic refugees” from high living costs in Canada. He joined Branch 182 and volunteered and within a year he was asked to be President. Since Branch 182 actually represents Canadian vets throughout Mexico and is a well-run source of services for Canadian veterans, he was proud to take over its leadership. Since his election, Branch 182 has grown not only in membership, but in its relationships with the Mexican communities, governments and non-profit organizations in cities and towns where there are concentrations of Canadians. Here in Chapala, it is highly respected as a well-organized partner in community work.
His involvement with the bomberos and with bringing in equipment for them started with a request for Legion members to bring in fire suits in their luggage when they returned from Canada. When the director of LCS learned that a local Mexican, Alicia Gomez, had gotten 200 fire suits donated from firehouses in Canada and needed them shipped to Chapala, he called Kelly, whom he knew from John’s teaching English at the Wilks Center.
“We could not do that (ship 200 fire suits) ourselves at the Branch, so we put together a coalition of the American Legion, Rotary, Shrine, and Red Cross and the Bomberos to get these suits to Mexico. Then Firefighters without Borders in Vancouver had a firetruck to donate, so we figured out how to get that here too,” Kelly told Laguna.
The firetruck made it to Mexico in 2017, about the time when the red tape started for the shipping container with fire suits and other gear (including baseball team equipment) that Kelly and the Branch are working on now. But, in the meantime, Branch 182 is involved in many other local charities and events. Some of the most fun things they do, Kelly said with a smile, is marching in parades and entertaining the Cancer kids in Chapala, where members appear as Santa Claus and Snoopy. Kelly hasn’t worn the Snoopy suit, but he does bring it to the party and was happy to show it off.
Foodbank Lakeside team.
Patrick O’Heffernan , Ajijic. .- Foodbank Lakeside has only enough money to buy food for the families it feeds for two more weeks. FBL has been providing despensas to families in Lakeside devastated by Covid-19, sickness, and unemployment since April of this year, operating on donations from the Lakeside community and discounts from local food stores. But donations have fallen to a trickle and there may be no food to dispense after next week, even though there are hundreds of families who depend on it for their daily meals.
Paola de Watterlot, founder and Director of FBL, says that “many people who have donated think that families in Lakeside have returned to work and there is no more need for despensas,” she says pointing out that, “this is not true. There are still many families who need help.”
FBL serves approximately 600 families a week throughout Chapala, ranging from elderly couples to large families with many children. Each family is carefully vetted to insure they need help. Each family receives a despensa – a small one for two to four people, or a large one for 5 -10 people, each one feeding an average family for two weeks; families do not receive money. Food is bought from local vendors in each community who provide discounts to FBL.
“We know all of these families,” says de Watterlot, who was born in Guadalajara but has lived in Ajijic since she was 7 years old. “We have a Mexican member of our team who lives in each community we serve and knows the community and the families”, she adds.
De Watterlot founded FBL in April of this year to help families whose breadwinners lost their jobs when Covid-19 shut down businesses and the economy shrank. But as her team quickly learned, it was not just Covid-19 that was the problem – there were families with other medical problems or chronic unemployment that needed help, primarily the elderly, disabled, and sick. Since they opened, FBL has distributed over 10,000 dispensas to help these people.
“We help one family in Santa Cruz where one member has cancer and another has kidney failure,” said de Watterlot, as an example of the range of families they feed. They help over 200 families in Chapala, using a team of 2 American expats and three local Mexicans. The team even prepares special food for the family with kidney disease.
Food Bank Lakeside is managed by a volunteer board and 30 volunteers, both expats and Mexicans. Many of the expat volunteers help with fundraising, registering the families and purchasing. The Mexican volunteers often deliver the food despensas because they know the communities and the families, but everyone pitches in to do everything. The result is an organization which feeds 600 families at a cost of about 280,000 pesos — less than 125 pesos per person per month, a little going a very long way.
Because the need for food assistance goes beyond families devastated by Covid-19 de Watterlot wants to make the FBL a permanent fixture in Lakeside and has structured it as a registered non-profit that can provide a tax exemption to US donors. But first, she must get the organization through the next two weeks.
People can donate online or in person. Online donations can be made to the Foundation for Lakeside Charities at https://lakechapalacharities.org/donate/. Specify that your donation is for Food Bank Lakeside. Watterlot stresses that monthly donations are the best because they allow her to project income and plan better. Donors can also contact Food Bank Lakeside through their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/FoodBankLakeside/ or call at 376 765 7084 and a staff member will pick up a cash donation. Donations are tax-deductible for US citizens and FBL will provide a tax receipt for donations. And consider volunteering.
¿Dr. Santiago Hernandez, Medical Director of the new Ribera Medical Center.
Patrick O’Heffernan, Ajijic. This past Friday the new Ribera Medical Center was inaugurated in a ceremony studded with stars of the medical establishment, including Secretary of Health Dr. Jorge Alcocer Carlos Varela, as well as local dignitaries like Chapala President Moisés Alejandro Anaya Aguilar. The two story state-of-the-art facility was envisioned 4 years ago by its investors, led by Luis Antonio Michel Ruelas of the Vallarta Medical Center and Humberto Famanía Ortega of Puerto Vallarta. The actual opening is scheduled for October 31, although it could be a few days earlier, if the final equipment is installed early and finishing touches applied to the building.
Two day before the inauguration, the Medical Center’s Medical Director, Dr. Santiago R. Hernandez, M.D. who is also Director of ChapalaMed, sat down with Laguna for a conversation about the new hospital and hospital care in Lakeside.
Laguna: How did you determine that a private hospital was needed in Lakeside, since there is a new hospital in San Antonio, a hospital in Ajijic and new cardiac center in west Ajijic.
Dr. Hernandez: Our vision started in 2016 when one of our main investors planned to open a nursing care center and we did know about the plans for a new hospital in San Antonio. In 2017, when we formalized our plans, we did quite a bit of study and we found that there is a need for a full-service hospital that could handle emergencies, heart attacks and strokes, and had the necessary ICU, labs – everything that would expect to find in a hospital north of the border, where my standards come from.
Laguna: So that capability does not exist in Lakeside now?
Dr. Hernandez: We did not see all that capability in one place in Lakeside. The other medical centers have some of it, but lack other elements like an ICU or cardiac catherization lab, or the ability to accept all emergencies, although they may add these capabilities later. The Ribera Medical Center will have all the capabilities that you would expect from a hospital up north all in one place.
Laguna: What do you plan to offer at the Ribera Medical Center?
Dr. Hernandez: At this point in time, Ribera Medical Center will be dedicated primarily for emergencies and for surgery. We will do all levels of surgery, except transplants or open-heart surgery – we need to be open for a couple of years and have our blood bank ready for those kinds of procedures – but everything else. And eventually, we will be able to handle almost all other kinds of procedures.
Laguna: What kind of equipment and facilities will the hospital have at opening?
Dr. Hernandez: We will have an ICU, a neo-natal unit, a labor and delivery room, and an emergency room; at this point we have 14 hospital rooms, a fully functioning blood bank, an infusion lab for chemotherapy, a cardiac catherization lab – a hybrid lab where we can take care of heart attacks or strokes, three surgical suits, and full imaging. We have CT and full radiology and x-ray and mammography now, and we are expecting delivery of the MRI equipment and insulation for installation in our MRI room.
Laguna: What doctors will have admitting privileges at the Medical Center?
Dr. Hernandez: We are an open hospital, which means that as Medical Director my job will be to vet the credentials of all doctors who want privileges. I will make sure they are trained and certified for the surgery they want to do here. So, if a cardiology surgeon wants to admit a patient for heart surgery, they have to be certified for this kind of surgery. In another example, we can’t have a general practitioner without certification granted privileges to do plastic surgery, which is done in Guadalajara.
Laguna: Do the high standards you describe indicate that the Medical Center will be involved in medical tourism?
Dr. Hernandez: We intend for this hospital to be one of the main hubs in for medical tourism. I am member of the Congreso de Nacional Turismo Medico in Mexico; we promote medical tourism on a national and international basis. We want to promote that the doctors at our hospital have full credentials and respect here and abroad. Plus, our telemedicine partnerships should give patients additional confidence. And it is convenient that the Radisson Hotel is right across the street.
Laguna: Will you take Medicare from the USA?
Dr. Hernandez: The short answer is no…there is no legal way to take Medicare in Mexico. I know the hospital in San Antonio says they work with Medicare, but “working with” and taking Medicare insurance are two different things. There is no legal way for us to take the insurance. Usually in cases where an American has been out of the US for 16 days or less, Medicare will reimburse for emergency care. That is the one way we can do it.
Laguna: You are “inaugurating” the medical center this week, but not opening it? When will it be open for patients?
Dr. Hernandez: Right now, I can tell you that we will open by October 31, but it could be sooner.
Laguna: And who will be managing the hospital?
Dr. Hernandez: The Director will be Julio Carbajal from San Miguel de Allende, and the Administrator is Roselda Dominguez.
Foto: Patrick O’Heffernan.
Ajijic’s own global music radio program, Music Sin Fronteras, hosted by music critic and writer for the English page on Semanario Laguna , Patrick O’Heffernan, will now be available at semanariolaguna.com/. Each week, Laguna readers will get an advance peek at the upcoming guest and a phone number they can use to call in live on the show.
Covering every facet of popular music, Program Host Patrick interviews artists and plays cuts from their albums, EP’s and singles. He talks with artists from the US, Latin America and sometimes even Europe. All interviews are in English, although the song lyrics are often Spanish or Spanglish.
Host Patrick focuses on rising singers and bands, local talent in Lakeside, and artists who are at the cusp of going big time, with the occasional famous guest. While his specialty is fusion music –Latino/gringo– he plays virtually anything you can dance to from cumbia to hip hop to blues and jazz and rock and even folk and electronica. He also covers local live music – it’s coming back!– and the FIMPRO Latin Music Convention in Guadalajara, the Latin Alternative Music Conference in New York, and the Latin Grammys.
On the air for seven years in Los Angeles as Music Friday Live radio, Host Patrick changed the name to Music Sin Fronteras when he moved to Mexico last year and set up a broadcast studio in downtown Ajijic. He broadcasts every Friday at 1 pm CT on stations in the US and the UK. Semanario Laguna readers will get the broadcast link, the weekly lineup, and the talk line to call in and talk with the artists.
Chapala Expat Liasion Hector nEspana helping families.
Patrick O’Heffernan.- As the Lakeside community begins to up from the quarantine to stop the spread of Covid-19, both Mexicans and Expats are working to help ease the impact on the local families in need, but the help provided by Expat organizations and businesses to the local communities needs to remain strong.
Among the businesses and organizations who have been “angels” are Operation Feed in San Juan Cosalá, Super La Huerta Market in West Ajijic, which has been providing food despensas, Programa de Niños Incapacitados, Lake Chapala Center, Foodbank Lakeside, and many others.
Many Expats have donated to these organizations or taken personal responsibility for supporting local individuals they know or who work for them, even when they must stay home. Local restaurants, which are themselves often in a difficult situation, have been feeding families in need. Casa Maybella Test Kitchen and La Bodega are two of the many restaurants that have provided meals to families devastated by the quarantine.
But the need will not diminish immediately as restaurants and stores open. Chapala Expat Liaison Héctor España points out that and almost every neighborhood in Chapala has families that are stressed for things beside food and that there is a great need in many neighborhoods throughout Lakeside.
The towns of Santa Cruz de la Soledad and San Nicolás de Ibarra have no economic activity and are especially hard hit. “The people there need more than food – they need money and medical care and everything required to support families,” he said, noting that “even in Ajijic with many gringos, there are hungry families because people like waiters and dishwashers and cooks have been out of work.”
España himself goes out and delivers despensas and knows of families that have not been helped, so he tries to see to it that they get what they need. On his Facebook Page he complements the Expat “angels” who go out on a second round of deliveries with more despensas including visiting families who tell him that they have been missed by all others. Some “angels” also continue his second round with other families.
Some families do get government assistance he noted, from the several million pesos the Federal and Jalisco governments allocated for relief and small business help. But it was far too little for
Starting on the 21st, the President announced the tightening of the containment strategy. In the photo, the President of Jocotepec, José Miguel Gómez (center), with municipal government officials.
Miguel Cerna.- Citing a lack of compliance, Jocotepec Municipal President José Miguel Gómez López announced a tightening of the government’s strategy for the containment of the coronavirus.
As of May 21, the Municipal Government will closely monitor compliance with sanitary provisions, including detaining people who ignore them and put the population at risk. This strategy will be implemented by the municipal corporation of Public Security in conjunction with the National Guard, Civil Protection, Paramedics and other officials to ensure that people do what they have to do.
Gómez López stated that “I am going to start proceeding to arrest those groups that are meeting without responsibility and putting the population at risk. I have tried to be very flexible in all aspects, I would allow them (the shops) to work with a curtain in half, with slats and many activities were done in a way that people understood and I tried to take many actions within the criteria so as not to hurt the economy and not hurt people in their ordinary life. «
Locations where large numbers of people have been gathering, such as the Libramiento and the vicinity of the boardwalk, will be closely monitored for violators… Find the full story in this week’s issue.
The public areas of the municipality have been closed.
Manuel Jacobo (Chapala, Jal).- In its Thursday, April 23, briefing the municipality of Chapala reported no confirmed cases of Covid-19 virus and, no cases of dengue fever. At that day in total, 254 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in the state of Jalisco.
Seventeen cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Health Region IV -four in Jamay, seven in Ocotlán, four more in Tizapán el Alto, one in La Barca and one more in Poncitlán- however, Chapala registered only two suspected cases of Covid-19, both of which tested negative.
However, a Chapalense residing in the United States has died from the virus. Salvador Rodriguez Medina, 47 years old -a 17 years resident of Santa Ana, California-, succumbed to Covid-19 on April 13 in the US. Additionally, an Ajijic woman and her spouse now living in Santa Ana California, home to a large community of Jalisco and Michoacán-born residents, are also reportedly fighting disease.
Miguel Zermeño Castillo, Regional Director of Jalisco’s dengue vector control program told Semanario Laguna that to date there have been no infections in the municipality of Chapala, but that -as a prevention- there were 180 ovitraps used to trap mosquitoes and collect their eggs to maintain surveillance. Castillo reported to local officials last October that the program had found no dengue at that time. In addition, the City Council of Chapala has started a campaign, to reduce the mosquito population by removing breeding areas, and if necessary, use fumigation to reduce the risk of contagion in the municipality. (translated by Patrick O’Heffernan)
© 2016. Todos los derechos reservados. Semanario de la Ribera de Chapala