The Teatro Juárez in Guanajuato city. Instituto Estatal de la Cultura Gto.
An emblematic 120-year-old theater in Guanajuato city is getting a makeover in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary edition of the International Cervantino Festival (FIC), the largest performing arts festival in the Americas.
The refurbishment of Teatro Juárez began in March and is now 20% complete, according to the state government. Work is not expected to conclude until late 2023 but the first stage of the project is slated for completion in October, to coincide with the staging of the FIC, which attracts performers and spectators from around the world. The theater is the principal venue for the festival, which is inspired by the literary work of Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, best known for the early 17th century novel Don Quixote.
Funded by the state government, the approximately 160-million-peso (US $8 million) refurbishment – carried out under the watchful eyes of National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) officials – will ensure that the historical building can continue hosting the FIC and other events for many years to come.
The theater’s fire protection system is being upgraded, improvements are being made to its facade, its lighting system and mechanics are being modernized, original paintwork is being restored and an emergency exit staircase has already been repaired. Work to make the theater more accessible for people with disabilities and the elderly is also being undertaken. Ramps and a new elevator will make it easier for those who are less mobile to access the different parts of the building, and theatergoers in wheelchairs will have a designated section from which they can watch the action on stage.
Guanajuato’s iconic Teatro Juárez was built more than a century ago. Pictured: an undated historical photograph of the theater.
Built between 1872 and 1903 and officially opened in the latter year by then president Porfirio Díaz, Teatro Juárez is certainly in need of the makeover. Cracks have been found in some of its walls and other signs of wear and tear have been detected, according to the state Infrastructure Ministry. If the refurbishment hadn’t begun when it did, the theater would have sustained even greater damage, said Infrastructure Minister Tarcisio Rodríguez Martínez. It’s the first time in almost 20 years that the building has had any significant restoration and modernization work.
Amalia Velázquez de León Collins, a restorer working on the project, said that some interesting discoveries have been made during the refurbishment process. One was the uncovering of an original European floor covering in one of the theater’s rooms.
Velázquez told the news website Zona Franca that when carpet was removed in the Salón Tocador, the original German-made linoleum floor covering – still in reasonable condition – was found.
“It’s a great discovery for the city of Guanajuato, the state and heritage in Mexico. We aren’t aware of [any other] cases of such large 19th century floor coverings [being found],” she said. “… It’s a representation of modernity at the end of the 19th century.”
A chilango possum makes good use of a concrete wall. Photos by Tamara Blázquez
If you don’t want to notice birds everywhere you go, then don’t go on an Ihuitl birding tour.
Weeks after my trip with them, I still obsessively scan trees next to my rooftop and have my Merlin app ready to record and identify birds in my neighborhood. I see them when I am running in the park; I hear them when I sit near the air shaft of my building.
I’ve become a little bird crazy.
At the crack of dawn on a recent spring morning, Rafael Calderón and Isain Contreras, two of Ihuitl’s founders, took my uncle and me on a birding tour to see some of city’s spectacular winged species. As we drove bleary-eyed to Mexico City’s Parque Las Maravillas at 6 a.m., I doubted just how amazing birding in the city could be.
It ‘s just another day at work in the big city for this industrious acorn woodpecker.
An animal lover from childhood, Calderón stumbled into birdwatching when, as a biology student, he took an inspiring class taught by Alejandro Meléndez, an ornithology professor and researcher at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM). It didn’t take long for birds to become a full-blown passion: Calderón joined up with other birders in his free time and began working for bird conservation projects around the country.
“There is a famous saying that goes, ‘You can only conserve what you love, and you can’t love something you don’t know,’” Calderón tells me. Many Mexico City residents don’t even understand what birding is, much less that they can do it right where they live, he says.
“They think that there’s not much to see in Mexico City, that they will have to travel long distances to see a lot of birds, when in reality you can find distinct species right in your own backyard or in nearby parks.”
Mexico City is full of wildlife. At the entrance to Parque Las Maravillas, for example, there’s an expanse of shrubland that’s home to the Sierra Madre sparrow. Mexico City hosts 80% of this bird’s population worldwide.
Calderón explains how important it is that this special environment — high-altitude grasslands found only along the Mexico volcanic belt — is preserved to ensure this and other species’ survival.
“Here in Mexico City, we have the great fortune of having all kinds of different of habitats right at our fingertips – the wetlands of Xochimilco and Tlahuac, the brushlands of Pedregal de San Ángel, oak forests like the Bosque de Tlalpan, pine forests in Ajusco and the meadows of Milpa Alta,” Calderón says. Some of these birds only live in this tiny part of the globe.
The timid, nocturnal cacomixtle takes its name from Náhuatl and means either “half cat” or “half mountain lion.”
A born and raised chilango, Blázquez found photography young but discovered as an adult that she had a heart for conservation as well. It all started 5 ½ years ago when she found a poisoned possum in her neighborhood.
“It was because of ignorance, because people don’t really know anything about all the species, all the animals that coexist here in the city with us,” she explained. Some people thought they were rats,” she says. “But now the people that I have had contact with, especially my neighbors, they now know that [possums] are marsupials, not even rodents, and that they are very important for the ecosystem.”
Blázquez began to dedicate her time to photographing the wild creatures of the city, as well as providing easy access to conservation science to regular folks through workshops, exhibits, and kids’ classes, where she explains that these creatures are necessary, endangered (by us), and — maybe most importantly for some hard-to-convert conservationists — beautiful.
Mexico City’s wealth of wildlife includes possums, barn owls, pelicans, ospreys, rattlesnakes and even bobcats, at the city’s edge. One of the coolest animals Blázquez photographed has been the coyotes in the more rural parts of Mexico City. During the pandemic, they started moving even closer to the human population. As humans encroach further into the city’s wild spaces, there’s bound to be more contact between us and the capital’s wildlife.
A gray silky flycatcher finds a perch in a Mexico City tree.
Not all of the interesting mammals are in the outer reaches of the city limits. During the pandemic, Blázquez photographed a cacomixtle, a native nocturnal animal somewhere between a cat and a raccoon, with a camera trap right in her backyard.
“I started observing him from my kitchen window every single night. He was very punctual and came to my yard every night right at 8 p.m. and would leave at 9 or 9:30 p.m. After a few months, I started going out every night at 8 p.m., hiding nearby; after two months, I was able to catch him on film,” she says.
After she took that first shot, she wanted to get another, so Blázquez left the camera for one more night, but that night, when the camera was supposed to shoot, she didn’t hear anything. “So I left my hiding place to see what was happening, and I didn’t see him,” she says. “And when I turned to my right, there he was, standing right beside me, like, ‘Oh hey human, there you are. I know what you are doing.’”
She laughs. “I was never able to take another shot of him, he was so smart; I wasn’t able to trick him anymore.”
Learning about so much wildlife living in her native city made photographer Tamara Blázquez “want to work harder for them, to conserve everything in the city.”
Blázquez hopes that with her project Mexico City’s Wildlife she can start training people to see the nature around them, even in a place that we think of as a concrete jungle. “I also used to think that [the city] was barren, that you couldn’t find anything else but humans here,” she says. “But knowing that all the other animals make their homes here, it’s hopeful and inspiring; it makes me want to work harder for them, to conserve everything in the city, even if it’s a small local park that’s an ecosystem, and we have to fight hard for that.”
Both Blázquez and Calderón agree that the most important step we can take as humans is to start observing and appreciating our natural fauna, as well as understanding our impact on their environment and survival.
So if you are in Mexico City and want to help conserve some of the many glorious species that the city contains, Calderón recommends joining local birding groups or supporting the work of Grupo Monitoreo Biológico de Milpa Alta, a conservation group working to safeguard species endemic to the Milpa Alta.
Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of Mexico City Streets: La Roma. Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at www.mexicocitystreets.com.
During Mazatlán's busy Holy Week festivities, "Doc Burritos" made free meals to thank the health workers he hopes to one day join. Facebook / El Doc Burritos
A medical student short on cash in Sinaloa has found a novel way to help fund his studies: making and selling burritos.
Ángel Santoyo, 21, better known as “Doc Burritos,” is in the ninth semester of a medicine degree at Sinaloa Autonomous University in Mazatlán and started selling burritos to his classmates to keep up with his costs.
Santoyo wants to specialize in family medicine and is inspired to give back to society, but still has six years of study and medical practice before he will be fully qualified. “I started selling in the school for three semesters, until the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. There was no class and so there was nowhere to sell, so I started offering them online,” he explained.
Doc Burritos offers home deliveries and recently started selling on an avenue in Mazatlán. He was initially sent home by authorities as he was selling without the requisite permission, but returned soon after with the correct paperwork before going viral on social media. “I took my cool boxes there and this explosion happened on social media that gave me a big bump, which I didn’t expect,” he said.
Ángel Santoyo poses with a flyer and a cooler full of burritos. Facebook / El Doc Burritos
Santoyo added he that his upbringing provided him with a strong work ethic and that he has his parents to thank for his success: his mother used to make the marinades for his burritos.
“I was a person who was dedicated to studying. Previously I worked on many things with my dad who is a teacher, but he also works as a builder and a plumber. I used to help him on weekends … My parents are very proud. They are the first people who share my posts and like them, and tell people everything I have done. They support me a lot and help me, I am very grateful to them,” he said.
The young entrepreneur plans to keep selling from a fixed point in the city on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and to continue with home deliveries on Saturdays. During the week, Santoyo offers three burritos and a flavored water for 60 pesos (US $3); home deliveries on Saturdays are 60 pesos for a pack of four burritos.
Doc Burritos can be found on social media where orders can be made for the Mazatlán area.
A major upgrade to Line 1 of the Mexico City Metro – the system’s oldest and busiest line – will commence next month and keep the 20-station subterranean route partially closed for over a year.
A Mexican subsidiary of Chinese state-owned company CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive has been contracted to carry out work on Line 1 tracks, trains and communication systems. MEXIRRC has a contract worth 37 billion pesos (US $1.85 billion) to carry out the upgrade and other work over a period of 19 years, the newspaper El Universal reported.
The first stage will start July 9 and is scheduled to conclude next February. The section between Isabel la Católica, a station in the historic center, and Observatorio, on Mexico City’s westside, will be closed for two days in order to isolate it electrically from the other half of the line. The section between Pantitlán, an eastern station where four Metro lines converge, and Salto de Agua, in the historic center, will subsequently close on July 11 and remain shut until February, a period of seven months.
Some 290,000 daily users of the line will be affected by the closure of the section, which includes a station – San Lázaro – at Mexico City’s eastern bus terminal, known as TAPO.
Metro director Guillermo Calderón presents a design for the new Line 1 Metro cars. Twitter @Hans2412
Once work on the Pantitlán-Salto de Agua section is finished, the second stage of the upgrade will begin. Work during that phase will close the stretch between Balderas, a downtown station, and Observatorio – where Mexico City’s western bus terminal is located – until August 2023. Once Line 1 reopens in its entirety, 29 new trains with greater passenger carrying capacity than those currently in use will run along it.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum told a press conference Monday that the upgrade was necessary. Line 1 was extended in the 1970s and ’80s but no major improvements have been carried out since it opened in 1969.
“We could not do [the upgrade] and leave things as they are but Line 1 of the Metro is 53 years old,” Sheinbaum said.
“A process of renewal should have begun more than 10 years ago but it’s only now that we’re taking the decision to do it. There will be an impact on [Line 1] users, although we’re doing everything we can to minimize it,” she said. “… The fundamental objective is to reduce [safety] risks and deliver a line … that is completely modern,” the mayor said.
Construction on Line 1 of the Mexico City Metro began in 1967. Gobierno de la Ciudad de México
Transport Minister Andrés Lajous said 220 city buses will provide transit services between Pantitlán and Salto de Agua while the 12 stations along that section are closed. He said they will have designated lanes to ensure they are not held up by traffic and will run during the same hours the Metro operates – 5:00 a.m. to midnight.
The number of trains operating on lines 5 and 9 will be increased to help compensate for the partial closure of Line 1, and additional buses will run on some existing routes, Lajous said.
Some Line 1 users who spoke with El Universal expressed concerns about the partial closure. Longer commute times, more expensive fares, robberies on buses and dismissals for arriving at work late were among those raised, the newspaper said.
It normally takes Jazmín Ayala 30 minutes to get to San Lázaro from Observatorio but she predicted her commute will take up to an hour once the upgrade begins. The replacement bus services “won’t work because there are so many of use who use the pink line,” she said, referring to Line 1 by its alternate name.
“In addition, the cost will increase,” Ayala said, noting that riding on the Metro – a ticket costs 5 pesos – is cheaper than traveling on buses.
José Paniagua said he had little faith that the closed sections of Line 1 will reopen according to the government’s stated timetable. He noted that President López Obrador promised in June 2021 that Line 12 – on which an accident that claimed the lives of 26 people occurred in May 2021 – would reopen within a year, but that hasn’t happened.
“The government tells lies. It promised that Line 12 would run again and that hasn’t happened. Now I very much doubt that they will comply with the date [they said] the pink line will run again. This [closure] means traffic chaos, travel times doubling and more suffering [for passengers],” Paniagua said.
Guanajuato has been the most violent state in the country in recent years.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has strongholds across almost all regions of Guanajuato, according to a security analyst based in Mexico’s most violent state.
A “cartel war map” drawn up and published by David Saucedo shows that the only region of Guanajuato where the CJNG doesn’t have a permanent presence is the northeast, which borders both San Luis Potosí and Querétaro.
However, the cartel has made an “offensive movement” into the northeastern municipality of San Luis de la Paz, where the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel (SRLC) has – or had – a stronghold.
Saucedo’s map shows that the CJNG – one of the two most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico – has strongholds in Guanajuato city, León, the state’s largest city, and other important cities, such as Irapuato, Salamanca and San Miguel de Allende.
Security consultant David Saucedo’s map of cartel conflict in Guanajuato. Twitter @david_saucedo_
The newspaper El Universal reported that the Jalisco cartel has made incursions into 10 additional Guanajuato municipalities this year to become the dominant force in 25 of the state’s 46 municipalities. The SRLC – which began as a fuel theft gang but has diversified into other criminal activities – has increased its area of influence from eight municipalities to 16, El Universal said.
The cartel war map, which Saucedo published on Twitter Monday, notes that the CJNG’s “invasion” of Guanajuato began in 2014. It is allied in the state with the Arellano Félix Cartel, according to the security analyst, who describes the partners as “invasion forces.”
Identified as the “allied cartels” are the SRLC, the Unión de León, the Sinaloa Cartel (via an affiliate called Gente Nueva de los Salazar) and the Viagras. The SRLC’s notorious former leader, known as “El Marro,” was captured in August 2020, while his successor, “El Panther,” was arrested last October. Saucedo said on Twitter that the Sinaloa Cartel sent support to the SRLC when El Marro was arrested to stop the CJNG from taking complete control of Guanajuato.
A man known as “El Chago” – identified as the CJNG’s leader in the municipality of San Francisco del Rincón – was arrested in April, but the Jalisco cartel’s head honcho, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, has evaded authorities for years.
Authorities in both Mexico and the United States have been searching for El Mencho, the leader of the CJNG, for years. U.S. DEA
Saucedo also identified 16 “combat areas of greater intensity” where higher numbers of violent incidents and/or cartel clashes have occurred. Among the municipalities in that category are León, San Miguel de Allende, Celaya, Irapuato, San Luis de la Paz, Salamanca, Pénjamo and Villagrán.
Saucedo said that cartels are fighting in Guanajuato over the retail drug market as well as trafficking routes to the United States. Another reason for the high levels of violence is the state’s location next to Jalisco, he added. “It’s a natural state for the expansion of the CJNG,” Saucedo wrote on Twitter. He also said that “some National Guard commanders collaborate with criminal groups” in the state.
Guanajuato was the most violent state in Mexico in the first five months of 2022 with 1,292 homicides for an average of 8.5 per day. The Bajío region state has been the most violent in the country in recent years.
Local residents help recover goods that spilled from a truck after an accident.
Some citizens in Oaxaca showed their scruples earlier this month, helping a truck driver to recover products that had spilled onto the roadside rather than looting them.
The truck veered off a dirt road and rolled on June 20 while delivering dairy products in the tourist destination of Puerto Escondido. Most of the cargo was scattered on the side of the road, but local people arrived to assist the driver, who appears to have been uninjured, and helped him to right his vehicle and collect the products to return them to the truck.
There were no reports of any looting, according to the newspaper El Heraldo de México.
A photo of the incident showed cardboard boxes neatly piled behind the toppled truck, while another photo showed the truck back on the road and local people loading the boxes into the back. The images of the citizens’ courteous actions went viral on social media. “People like this should be rewarded and supported … with an act of honesty like this they make their values and principles clear,” one user wrote.
“Inhabitants of the Oaxaca coast set an example of values, civility and honesty,” wrote another user.
Looting is common when trucks are involved in accidents in Mexico. In December, people in Veracruz emptied two semi-trailers of food, electronics and more than 2,000 live chickens. In general, there are many such incidents a year.
The dancers performed to a live version of "Juan Colorado," the state's unofficial anthem. Mi Morelia
Michoacán one-upped the neighboring state of Jalisco on Sunday, beating its 2019 record for the largest Mexican folk dance.
More than 900 dancers from over 20 Michoacán municipalities danced in the historic center of Morelia to a live version of Juan Colorado, a son calentano song considered an anthem of the state. One report put the number of participants – all of whom were dressed in traditional outfits – at 1,100.
In any case, the number was sufficient to break the Guinness record set in Guadalajara in August 2019 when 882 dancers whirled to the Mexican folk songEl jarabe tapatío. Guinness World Records is expected to formally announce the new record in a week’s time.
The record attempt was organized by the Artisanal, Touristic, Cultural and Agro-Industrial Group of Beautiful Michoacán and supported by the Morelia municipal government.
Esto fue un poco de lo que se vivió esta tarde en #Morelia, en busca de establecer el Récord Guiness del mayor baile folclórico mexicano con “Juan Colorado”
The state capital’s culture minister congratulated and thanked that group as well as the dancers and the musicians who played and sang.
“Thank you to everyone – with your participation you highlight one of the traditions that characterizes our state,” Fátima Chávez Alcaraz said.
Rocío Vega, who sang Juan Colorado to music played by two local bands, said the performance wasn’t just about breaking a record but also about “sending a message of peace and showing the world that Michoacán has valuable people, such as the bailarines michoacanos.”
While Sunday’s performance broke the record for the largest Mexican folk dance, bigger folk dances have taken place in several countries including Austria, the Philippines, Peru and Greece. However, Mexico holds world records in many other fields, including that for the largest boxing lesson, set in Mexico City earlier this month.
The head of the Nuevo León Fuerza Civil police said the attack wasn't directed against the state government, but rather was "a direct attack on the Fuerza Civil." Fuerza Civil
Six police officers were killed and three more were injured in an ambush in Nuevo León on Sunday.
A convoy of 10 armored pickup trucks attacked the state’s Fuerza Civil police unit in Anáhuac, 200 kilometers north of Monterrey near the Tamaulipas border.
The head of the Fuerza Civil in Nuevo León, Gerardo Palacios Pámanes, said the attack was part of a long running battle against a criminal group. “This is not an attack on the state of Nuevo León, but a direct attack on the Fuerza Civil … we had 14 clashes against them and in all of them we’d won … we will continue,” Palacios said.
Palacios added that one of the three injured officers had been discharged from hospital, while the other two were receiving medical attention, but he confirmed their lives were not at risk.
The Fuerza Civil said in a statement that it “reiterates its commitment to protect citizens in Nuevo León and commits to ensuring these acts do not go unpunished.”
Governor Samuel García also emphasized that those responsible would be punished. “My condolences to the families of our colleagues. The full weight of the law will be applied to those responsible for this regrettable act. Right now, all of Nuevo León is with our Fuerza Civil,” García wrote on Twitter.
In his regular morning news conference on Monday, President López Obrador said the group responsible for the attack had been identified and added that they had previously been active in the area.
Members of the Motonetos detain two police officers in Chiapas a year ago.
The southern state of Chiapas has been plagued by violence in recent months, carried out by a type of criminal group not usually associated with Mexico: a motorcycle gang.
On June 14, videos circulated on social media of clashes between heavily-armed men in San Cristóbal de las Casas, a major city in the southern state. Two groups exchanged fire as they reportedly sought to control a local market, which has also turned into a distribution point for “illegal merchandise,” according to the local news organization Chiapas Paralelo.
At least one person was reported to have been killed during the shootout, which lasted several hours and forced residents to seek shelter in their homes and shops. Several roads were blocked and a number of cars were burned. The police and National Guard allegedly only arrived on the scene after the gangs had left, according to local media reports.
Several vendors in the market, according to an investigation by El País, named the group behind the violence as the Motonetos (Scooters). One expert stated that the group’s members largely came from the indigenous Tzotzil community. “Those who call themselves the Motonetos are children of … displaced Tzotzil [living] in the poorest outskirts of the city,” Marina Page, coordinator of Sipaz, a human rights non-profit working in Chiapas, told El País.
This was not the only recent incident attributed to the Motonetos. On June 17, a group of hooded gunmen opened fire on police and overturned a trailer along a main road in the town of Oxchuc, 50 kilometers east of San Cristóbal. Local media reports alleged this was carried out by the same gang.
InSight Crime analysis
The Motonetos are a unique type of criminal group in Mexico, allegedly recruiting heavily from local indigenous communities, profiting from local criminal economies and acting as a link to larger criminal players.
The group obtained its name through its members’ mode of transportation, traveling by motorcycle and scooter with armed passengers riding behind the drivers. The Motonetos have been blamed for a slew of crimes, including kidnapping and murder, among others.
However, according to Carlos Rafael Coutiñ, a local journalist, the Motonetos mainly draw their income from local drug trafficking, control of prostitution and the production and sale of what has become known as “ethno-pornography.” This type of pornography, according to a BBC report, exclusively features people from indigenous communities and is often created via coercion and blackmail.
Coutiñ told InSight Crime that the violence in San Cristóbal de las Casas was due to a split between two Motonetos leaders, who were fighting for control of the market to sell this pornographic material, as well as drugs.
Coutiñ added that the Motonetos came from the Tzotzil community in San Juan Chamula, just north of San Cristóbal. He stated that they had also in the past been referred to as the San Juan Chamula Cartel.
Chiapas consistently ranks as the poorest state in Mexico, with its indigenous communities having been particularly disadvantaged due to a long history of marginalization.
However, Coutiñ dismissed the idea that the Motonetos were simply a motorcycle gang made up of impoverished youths with nothing to do. According to him, while the group has no formal alliances to larger cartels, they have regularly been recruited by groups such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel to aid in drug trafficking operations.
Additionally, he warned that the Motonetos wielded large influence in local politics. The shootout in San Cristóbal de las Casas was “nothing out of the ordinary.”
“This is an everyday occurrence,” he said.
Reprinted from InSight Crime. Peter Appleby is a writer with InSight Crime, a foundation dedicated to the study of organized crime.
Volunteers at work in the chapel. Yo Restauro Patrimonio
Restoring a 16th century chapel in southern Puebla that partially collapsed in an earthquake is the goal of a team of volunteers that that has been working on the project for the past month.
The vault and arches of the so-called Capilla Enterrada (Buried Chapel) collapsed during an earthquake in the 1970s. It has remained closed ever since.
But in late May a team of archaeologists, restorers, architects, historians and others began the arduous task of restoring the chapel to its former glory – and the first stage of the project has now concluded.
Located within the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve – a UNESCO World Heritage site – in the municipality of Zapotitlán, the Capilla Enterrada is now in a much better state than it was a month ago, although there is still plenty more work to do.
Volunteers inside the Capilla Enterrada. Facebook / Capilla Enterada Restauración
Led by the restorer Norma García, the volunteer team has removed rubble from the chapel, disinfected it and carried out work to strengthen the structure. It has also begun the restoration of the murals on the chapel’s walls and installed mesh to prevent birds and bats entering via a previously-installed provisional door that was removed.
The second stage of the project, which will entail additional reinforcement work, will begin at a later, as yet unspecified date. Members of the specialist team are looking at historical images of the chapel that will help them restore elements of the structure that have been lost, the newspaper Reforma reported.
García – founder of Yo Restauro Patrimonio (I Restore Heritage), a civil society association dedicated to raising funds for restoration projects – said the chapel’s function as a religious location will be recovered once the restoration work concludes. Before its partial collapse, the chapel – located about eight kilometers northeast of the town of Zapotitlán Salinas – was frequented by people participating in religious processions, especially during Holy Week. Centuries ago, it gave shelter to people traversing a colonial area trade route.
After it was built in the 16th century, the structure was initially used as a storehouse for salt, which continues to be mined in the area. It subsequently became a chapel replete with murals that were painted in the 16th century on the instructions of a Spaniard who owned the land on which it was built. It was repainted with new religious scenes in the 19th and 20th centuries, said Jesús Joel Peña, a historian who carried out an iconographic analysis of the murals.
Project leaders pose outside the entrance of the chapel. Facebook / Capilla Enterada Restauración
While the members of the expert team are donating their time, the restoration project – which is endorsed by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) – has received financial and material support from private companies including Oxical, a supplier of restoration and conservation materials.
Local authorities have also supported the project, but Yo Restauro Patrimonio is nevertheless seeking additional donations of money and materials as well as more volunteers. García told Reforma that the project could be finished within three years if all the required support is found. Allowing the local community to use the chapel is crucial to ensuring its long-term survival once the current conservation efforts have concluded, she added.
“It will be hard to maintain a building that has been restored if it doesn’t have a function within the community – it doesn’t matter if you’ve invested millions of pesos,” García said. “In this case, the [local] people really value it and once some of its religious functions resume, [there will be] all the more reason for it to be preserved,” she said.
