San Miguel's mayor inspects the paving project on Sunday.
San Miguel de Allende Mayor Luis Alberto Villarreal said Sunday the public works project on the Avenida Guadalupe is 85% complete.
Accompanied by the local director of public works and infrastructure, Antonio Soria, Villarreal spoke with constituents who live in the area and listened to their opinions on the project.
The repaving of the street with stamped concrete will benefit the estimated 5,000 students who attend the area’s five schools, as well as over 700 local businesspeople who make a living there, he said.
It will also improve transportation for thousands of people who use the avenue daily, as the area is home to around 20% of the residents of San Miguel.
“What we want to do is make the people of San Miguel proud, tell them that they can and should live under the same circumstances as people in the historic center or other areas,” said Villarreal.
“Here there are more than 700 businesspeople, several schools with two shifts, and each day over 5,000 students walk this street that didn’t have any sidewalks. We can’t continue to allow this to happen,” he added.
He also emphasized that they are not only laying pavement for the road, but also laying the foundations for the second stage in the project, an arcade that will be completed in 2020.
Villarreal added that the arcade will be similar to that of the city’s main square, the Plaza Principal, which will stylistically integrate it with other key areas in the city.
The project also includes painting of facades, restoration of cantera limestone and the installation of new awnings.
The mayor repeated his promise to have the project completed in less than 90 days, and announced there will be an inauguration ceremony on December 12.
It was a rainy day in Mazatlán – unusual, especially at this time of year – and then the power went out. What to do? Finally make those Jamaica tacos, I thought.
I’d wanted to share a recipe for a taco filling made from flores de jamaica, the dried red hibiscus flowers more commonly used in agua fresca, and had scoured the internet in search of one that made sense to me.
The few times I’d had these tacos in restaurants I’d loved them, and I appreciated the idea of using Jamaica so creatively, as a sort of contemporary Mexican take on a very traditional local ingredient. I found some recipes but wanted to try it myself before sharing it here. So I’d assembled all the ingredients a week or so ago and there they sat, untouched, on my kitchen counter.
Back to the rainy day. I started tweaking the recipe I’d found, substituting coconut oil and adding more garlic and fresh ginger. As the flowers and onions cooked and the kitchen started smelling really good, I thought the brightness of some fresh flavors and crunch – carrots, cilantro, avocado — would be good too.
Then – no tortillas! And now it was raining hard. I did have a ciabatta roll, though, and thought, what the heck, I’ll just make a sandwich.
Fresh Jamaica flowers: once dried, they can flavor water or fill tacos.
Because the filling was so soft, I toasted the roll then put a thick layer of mashed avocado on the bottom. Then I added a big dollop of the fragrant, colorful filling, piled the carrots and cilantro on top, drizzled some salsa verde over it all and quickly clapped the top on. Sat down to eat — and my, oh my. Very messy – but very yummy.
So what are we talking about here? Flores de jamaica are hibiscus flowers, but not the big, colorful, decorative ones you have in your garden. This is a different variety, roselle hibiscus, or Jamaican sorrel, and the fresh flower is small and white with a red center. The plant is kind of a leggy bush and after the flowers drop off, the rubbery, ruby-red prehistoric looking pod that’s left is what’s dried to make Jamaica (pronounced hah-my-ka). And yes, they also make an iced drink with the flowers in Jamaica, usually with cinnamon and fresh ginger added.
Making a beverage from Jamaica flowers is so easy there’s really no reason to buy a packaged mix. And please don’t even consider a powdered mix! The flowers have lots of natural vitamin C and that pretty red color is natural too, although some packaged brands will add dye. Better to buy from a local grower if you can, in bulk. One more thing – the juice or wet flowers will stain, so do be careful.
Flores de Jamaica Taco or Sandwich Filling
The combination of coconut and olive oils makes for a delicate, special flavor, but you can use all olive oil if necessary. Much like a stir-fry, experienced cooks will have fun experimenting with other ingredients — bell peppers, fresh jícama, chipotle, shredded potato, even Italian seasonings — to make their own signature flavor.
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup packed dried hibiscus (Jamaica) flowers
4 cups water
2-3 onions, julienned fine (you need 2 heaping cups)
2-3 big cloves garlic, minced
1-inch piece of fresh ginger, minced
2 ripe avocados or fresh guacamole
½ cup cilantro, chopped
1 carrot, grated
Salsa verde (or whatever you like)
6 corn tortillas or crusty whole grain bread or ciabatta rolls
Salt to taste
Rinse flowers well to get rid of sand and grit. In medium saucepan bring water to boil, add flowers and boil for five minutes; cover and let sit for another 10 minutes. Using a colander, strain liquid, which you can use for agua fresca. (See next recipe.) Set flowers aside.
Heat oils in a frying pan at medium high. Add onions, garlic and ginger; cook, stirring, till translucent and a little browned. Stir in the flowers and cook for about 10 minutes more, stirring to keep from sticking. Add a little salt.
To serve, use as a filling for tacos or sandwiches. Garnish with fresh avocado or guacamole, shredded carrot and chopped cilantro. Drizzle with your choice of hot sauce or salsa. Makes about three sandwiches or five or six tacos.
Jamaica Agua Fresca
Besides being a beautiful ruby-red color, Jamaica is rich in vitamin C and so easy to make. Change it up by adding sparkling water or a cup of pineapple or orange juice at the end.
5 cups water
2 cups (packed) dried Jamaica / hibiscus flowers
¼ cup fresh lime juice (optional)
Sugar or honey to taste
Rinse flowers well to remove dirt and grit. Bring water to boil in large pot. Add flowers; remove from heat, cover and let sit overnight. (No need to refrigerate.) Strain into pitcher, add sugar or honey to taste and lime juice if desired. Serve cold over ice.
Dried Jamaica flowers.
Agua de Jamaica (Hibiscus Tea) Concentrate
This colorful syrup is also great to use in making cocktails. The flowers have a fair amount of pectin, and if you don’t add enough water or too much boils away, it may thicken or gel a little.
1 cup packed dried Jamaica / hibiscus flowers
7 cups water
1½-2 cups sugar (or to taste)
Rinse flowers well to remove grit. Place in a pot with the water and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes, remove from heat, cover and let cool. Strain through a colander or mesh strainer, saving the liquid. Add liquid back to the pot, add the sugar and bring to a boil again, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool. Pour into a container with a tight-fitting lid and refrigerate. Keeps for up to two weeks.
To serve, dilute the concentrate with still or sparkling water with one part concentrate to three or four parts water. Makes about four cups.
Janet Blaser of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life, and feels fortunate to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her work has appeared in numerous travel and expat publications as well as newspapers and magazines. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.
Gangsters left their mark on Villa Unión's municipal offices.
Clashes between police and suspected members of the Northeast Cartel left 22 people dead in Coahuila after gangsters attacked a small town in the northern border state.
The Coahuila government said that eight gunmen and four state police officers were killed in clashes on Saturday in Villa Unión, a town about 65 kilometers south of the border city of Piedras Negras.
Police killed seven more suspected cartel members early Sunday as they traveled towards Nuevo León after fleeing Villa Unión, the government said.
The other two people killed were unarmed civilians who were kidnapped by criminals. The newspaper Milenio reported that that two municipal Civil Protection workers and a 15-year-old boy were abducted in Villa Unión on Saturday.
The boy is believed to be one of four minors who were kidnapped but subsequently rescued by authorities.
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Governor Miguel Ángel Riquelme Solís said Monday that the death toll had risen to 22 after the discovery of the body of one of the attackers. He also said two people have been arrested.
The deaths of the cartel sicarios and police on Saturday occurred during a confrontation that lasted more than two hours.
Armed men traveling in pickup trucks emblazoned with the initials CDN (Cartel del Noreste) entered Villa Unión at about midday Saturday and attacked municipal police and the municipal offices, triggering a state police operation that turned into a lengthy gunfight that claimed 12 lives.
Rapid gunfire can be heard on videos posted to social media by local residents, while photographs taken after the gun battle showed burned out vehicles and the bullet-ridden façade of the municipal building. A church and some 30 homes were also damaged during the clash.
A resident identified only as Martín told Milenio that he and other locals hid in a shop while the gunfight occurred.
“. . . We were told that they [the suspected cartel members] . . . came to clean out all the filth,” he said, apparently referring to municipal police.
However, the motivation for the cartel’s attack on the small town was unclear, the Associated Press reported. Villa Unión Mayor Narcedalia Padrón Arizpe said in a television interview that the town is usually very calm.
A truck abandoned by cartel in Coahuila gun battle.
Municipal public security director Jonathan Vallejo told reporters that seven of 10 municipal police officers deserted the town after the attack.
“For now, we’re focused on returning peace to the residents of the municipality, later we’ll see what we’ll do,” he said.
Sunday’s clash occurred on a road known as “La Brecha del Gas” that connects Villa Unión with the Nuevo León municipality of Anáhuac, Coahuila authorities said.
The government said that suspected cartel members were located thanks to an air and land search. Police seized a total of 17 vehicles, 18 weapons and a large quantity of ammunition from the criminal group on the weekend.
Governor Riquelme said that several gunmen stole vehicles to flee Villa Unión and kidnapped locals to guide them out of the town on dirt tracks. The Saltillo newspaper Zócalo reported that one of the stolen vehicles was a hearse on its way to a funeral.
The vehicles of two men from the United States in Coahuila on a hunting trip were also hijacked by suspected cartel members. The men were reported as missing but were later found “safe and sound,” police said.
The United States attorney general is scheduled to meet with authorities in Mexico this week to discuss bilateral security cooperation but President López Obrador has repeatedly stressed that he will not accept any U.S. intervention to combat organized crime.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from several stores in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Friday and Saturday after pepper gas attacks that are believed to have been used as a diversion by thieves.
As many as 270 customers and employees at a Liverpool department store were evacuated on Friday after pepper gas was released in the men’s washrooms on the second and third floors. One person was treated for exposure to the gas.
Hours later, an attack in a Soriana supermarket cleared out the store and led to one woman being treated for the effects of the gas.
Then on Saturday, 600 customers and 80 employees were evacuated from three downtown stores.
Some people were treated for eye and respiratory irritation after the attacks. Firefighters were deployed to clear the areas of the gas, and Civil Protection and the Red Cross were also called to the scene.
Authorities have released no information about any robberies that might have been carried out, nor have any arrests been announced.
Many people might think that the only beadwork done in Mexico is that of the Huichol (or Wixáritari) people. But that is not the case.
Inocencia González Saiz, 83, was awarded Mexico’s national grand prize in handcrafts for her life’s work in beads at a ceremony at the Los Pinos Cultural Complex in Mexico City earlier this month.
González is Cocopah, one of five indigenous groups found in Baja California. There are about 500 members of the indigenous group in the state, mostly in the town of El Mayor on the highway south from Mexicali to San Felipe.
The Cocopah have inhabited the lower Colorado River and the river delta for hundreds of years. There are some in Sonora (fewer than 100), but the largest community — with 1,000 members — is the Cocopah Tribe in Arizona.
González was born in El Mayor on December 28, 1936 but it wasn’t until 1973 that she decided to learn to make Cocopah beaded collar yokes from Juan García Aldama, an elderly man and the last person who knew how to make them at the time.
Beaded collar yokes, as made by González, right, have a special place in Cocopah identity.
The collar yoke has a special place in Cocopah identity. For many generations, it was an important aspect of Cocopah women’s dress, along with a skirt made of willow bark. The collars in their current form date back to the early colonial period, when the Spanish brought glass beads to trade with native peoples.
While relatively cheap to make in Europe, glass was previously unknown in Mexico and beads were made laboriously one by one from stone, shell, bone and clay. The abundance of the European beads allowed the Cocopah to create much more elaborate beaded adornments, including collars that could extend down over the chest and back.
González was in her late 30s at the time of her apprenticeship, but had no experience with the making of beaded ítems. Since then she has dedicated her life to preserving this art, along with the Cocopah language, rites, dances and traditional cuisine.
Since her maestro died in 1990, she has become the expert on the collar yokes, along with daughter Antonia Torres González. Inocencia González is the only artisan in the community that uses the old weaving method, and her pieces take up to a year to make.
The making of small beaded jewelry items and other trinkets is widespread among Cocopah women in El Mayor, mostly to sell at markets and to tourists. But it is the work of women like González that ensures its cultural roots stay intact.
Christmas lights will adorn the city of Querétaro beginning Monday.
The streets and parks of downtown Querétaro will be well lit up this holiday season.
An event called Querétaro Lights Up will fill the state’s capital city with thousands of bright lights from December 2 to January 12. It will be the first time Querétaro has welcomed Christmas on such a grand scale.
Over 1,350 ornaments will decorate the city streets from the Plaza Mariano de las Casas to the Plaza Fundadores, and over 350 ornaments will hang along the neighboring major avenues.
The centerpiece of the event will be in the Jardín Zenea, where visitors will see a monumental nativity scene and a host of decorative stars to light up the tableau.
Some of the most spectacular displays will be on the Andador Madero pedestrian street, between Juárez and Allende, where visitors can pass beneath baroque arcades of lights that will fill the space.
Other pedestrian streets, such as Matamoros, Carranza, 16 de Septiembre, Pasteur and Libertad, will also be elaborately lit.
Coordinator and spokesperson Adriana Vega said the festival of lights is just one of a number of attractions for tourists in the state this holiday season.
There will also be an ice rink and a giant Christmas tree in the Jardín Guerrero. Skates will be available for rent.
Each night there will be a videomapping display on the walls of the Santa Rosa de Viterbo church. It will be shown every half hour from 8:00pm-10:00pm during the week, and 8:00pm-11:00pm Friday-Sunday.
A Christmas play will be performed on December 23 at the corner of Guadalupe and Reforma, and there will also be a number of concerts, movie showings, theater productions and open-air parties.
The event kicks off with an inauguration ceremony at 7:00pm on December 2 in the zócalo of the downtown historic center. Entrance to all shows and cultural events is free.
More than 800 authors will present their work at this year's book fair.
The 33rd annual Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) kicks off Saturday and will run through December 8.
More than 800 authors from 37 countries will present their books at this year’s event at the Expo Guadalajara convention center in the Jalisco capital.
Among the best-known authors who will be in attendance are Peruvian Nobel Prize in Literature winner Mario Vargas Llosa, Argentinian Luisa Valenzuela, Spaniard Javier Cercas, American Siri Husvedt, Canadian Dacre Stoker (great grand-nephew of Dracula author Bram Stoker), Mexican icon Elena Poniatowska and U.S. comic book writer Frank Miller.
In addition to presenting their latest work, many authors will also offer conferences that are open to the public.
Vargas Llosa, one of Latin America’s most important novelists and a presidential candidate in the 1990 election in Peru, will speak about his latest book Tiempos Recios (Fierce Times) as well as his classic 1969 novel Conversation in the Cathedral.
American novelist Siri Husvedt will be among the writers at the fair.
Although authors from around the world will descend on Guadalajara during the next eight days, India will have the special distinction of being this year’s guest of honor.
Guadalajara FIL director Marisol Schulz said that India is the second biggest “editorial power” in the English-speaking world. However, she pointed out that literature is written in almost 200 different languages in the south Asian nation.
“It’s a subcontinent . . . Every state has its own identity,” Schulz told the newspaper Excélsior.
A total of 35 Indian authors, including award-winning children’s books writer Anushka Ravishankar and novelist and scriptwriter Advaita Kala, will present their work in Guadalajara.
Mexican author Pedro J. Fernández, who will present his novel Morir de pie about revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata, described the Guadalajara FIL as the “most important book fair” in the country.
“. . . A lot of writers come into contact with their readers and you can find books that are not easily found in bookstores . . . It’s a very rich cultural event . . . There is a lot to see, there are always [book] presentations and signings . . . You should go with an open mind because you can find everything,” he said.
Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa will talk about his latest book.
There will be ample entertainment for children including clown performances, puppet shows, dancing and live music as well as academic forums more suitable for older attendees.
Some of the issues to be discussed at the 28 forums are gender-based violence, the dangers of being a journalist and migration.
Lydia Cacho, a journalist who has first-hand experience of the risks faced by media workers in Mexico, will be among writers and artists who will be formally recognized at this year’s FIL.
She will receive the inaugural “Tribute to the Fight for Women’s Rights” award for her defense of the rights of women and girls.
The Guadalajara Book Fair, which is staged by the University of Guadalajara, is the largest book fair in the Americas and the second largest in the world. More than 800,000 visitors are expected to attend the nine-day event.
Customers line up to pay their electricity bills in Tabasco. But many are still not paying.
Electricity customers in Tabasco whose 25-year-old debts were forgiven thanks to an agreement supported by President López Obrador continue to refuse to pay their bills.
Governor Adán Augusto López Hernández announced in May that his government had reached an agreement with the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) for a “clean slate” to apply from June 1 for customers who had joined a civil resistance movement against the utility.
That movement was initiated by López Obrador after his defeat in the 1994 election for governor of Tabasco, allegedly due to electoral fraud.
The agreement, which the governor said wouldn’t have been possible without the president’s support, stipulated that in order to have their debts waived, customers must sign a contract to commit to paying for their electricity use, although they would get the cheapest rate offered by the CFE.
The customers, who collectively owed the CFE 11 billion pesos (US $562.5 million), were given a 180-day period within which to sign an Adiós a tu Deuda (Goodbye to your Debt) contract.
However, only 170,000 customers signed the contract during the period that ended Thursday, Energy Development Secretary José Antonio de la Vega told the Tabasco Congress.
As a result, the governor made an agreement with CFE chief Manuel Bartlett to extend the period by an additional six months, he said.
Juan Manuel Fócil Pérez, a federal senator for Tabasco, said many people have refused to sign a contract because the cost of electricity is still too high.
He said the Democratic Revolution Party, which López Obrador represented at the 1994 election, will encourage Tabasco residents to continue with their civil resistance. The state leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, Pedro Gutiérrez, said the same.
De la Vega explained in Congress that 34,000 customers who did sign the contract have once again fallen behind in the payment of their bills.
The secretary said the CFE could seek to recover debts by obtaining court orders that authorize the seizure of indebted customers’ assets such as cars and televisions.
Youth aligned with the Fridays for Future climate change movement held a protest against the Grand Island megaproject in Cancún on Friday.
The Grand Island resort is a 3,000-room hotel and convention center planned for the tourist zone near the Nichupté lagoon system.
Yesterday’s march against the development was the fourth organized by Fridays for Future members in Cancún since March.
But as they marched down Tulum avenue, the youths were met by opposition: over 1,000 workers and their families who gathered to show their support for the jobs the project is expected to create.
Upon arriving at the esplanade of the city’s municipal palace, the pro-development contingent countered the climate change protesters with signs and T-shirts reading, “Yes to work, yes to developing Cancún.”
‘Yes to work:’ supporters of the 3,000-room hotel.
With union leaders at the head of the demonstration, the pro-development crowd included students, women and workers escorted by a line of trucks sounding their horns in unison.
Meanwhile, the Fridays for Future protesters displayed signs reading, “The mangroves give us more than Grand Island,” “Just because they have permission doesn’t mean it’s OK,” “We must change the system, not the climate,” and “Your mistakes are my future,” among others.
Protester Ana Fernanda claimed that documentation shows the company behind the project was fined for illegal deforestation in the mangrove forests.
She also cited local hotel owners who have said the megaproject will put a strain on the water supply and other public services in the area, and make traffic worse.
“People go out and protest honestly for what they believe in and love, but how many hotels are there in Cancún? They’re always expanding and there’s never enough work. They must study the way these projects affect quality of life beyond the issue of employment,” she said.
Another member of the protest felt intimidated by the pro-development march.
“It was overwhelming to see so many people supporting [the project], while we are against it; but even still, we won’t give up because this is something that . . . can affect everyone in the world, not just people from Cancún.”
The president predicted it would give a boost to the economy of the state of Quintana Roo. The developer said it would create 12,000 jobs.
The Fridays for Future protesters are part of an international movement of students who are demanding action on climate change. It was founded by Swedish student Greta Thunberg.
More than 2,000 women protested against gender-based violence in Mexico City on Friday by replicating a performance originating in Chile that condemns rape, sexism, impunity and the “oppressive state.”
After rehearsing the choreography and learning the words of the performance in the Alameda Central park, women from several feminist collectives marched in the late afternoon to the zócalo, where the rendition of “Un violador en tu camino” (A rapist in your way) took place.
Blindfolded and in long lines that stretched across much of the central square, the women chanted the words written and first performed by the Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis.
The patriarchy is a judge who tries us for being born and our punishment is the violence you now see.
It’s femicide, impunity for my murderer, it’s disappearance, it’s rape.
And it wasn’t my fault, nor where I was, nor how I was dressed (x4).
You were the rapist, you are the rapist.
It’s the police, the judges, the state, the president. The oppressive state is a macho rapist (x2).
The rapist was you. The rapist is you.
Sleep calmly, innocent girl, without worrying about the criminal because your policeman lover is watching over your sweet and smiling dreams.
You are the rapist (x4).
CDMX canta la Intervención un violador en tu camino en el Zócalo
The powerful performance came four days after the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which was commemorated in Mexico City with a march by more than 3,000 women.
In addition to participating in the choreographed performance,the woman called for justice for 48-year-old Abril Pérez Sagaón, who was shot and killed in the capital on Monday. Her ex-husband is suspected of ordering the murder.
The National Autonomous University in Mexico City and Ecatepec, México state – which is notorious for femicides – also saw renditions of Un violador en tu camino, which was first performed in Valparaiso, Chile, earlier this week.
Beyond the metropolitan area of the capital, women in states including San Luis Potosí, Oaxaca, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Hidalgo, Quintana Roo, Coahuila, Jalisco, Chiapas and Michoacán participated in the same performance as did women in cities abroad including New York, London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Bogotá.
“I’m fighting for myself, for my generation of young people and for the generation of my daughter,” Belifet Antones, who participated in the zócalo performance with her two-year-old daughter, told the newspaper El Universal.
“. . . I believe that women carrying out these kinds of protests can achieve something better for us women . . . I don’t want to leave this violent Mexico to my daughter . . . I don’t want anybody to murder her, to rape her,” she said.
Acknowledging yesterday’s protest in a twitter post, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum reiterated her government’s commitment to do everything possible to ensure that the capital is a safe city for women. The mayor last week issued a gender alert for Mexico City, activating a range of measures to address violence against women.
Also this week, Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero insisted that “not a single” femicide case will go unpunished. “We are going to go after those who commit femicide. There will not be a single incident that goes without punishment . . . let’s make that loud and clear . . .”
Ten women are killed on average every day in Mexico, making the country one of the most dangerous for females in the world.
