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| Puerto Vallarta |
| April 10th
to 16th, 2004 |
U.S Navy Paints Paso Ancho Red
Well, not red exactly - but
a nice shade of terracotta! Saturday mornings in
Paso Ancho are pretty quiet. Few people are out on
the street and you can even hear the gentle sound
of the Cuale River running through the village. Last
Saturday, though, the school was a hive of activity.
Not that there were any children around. But a lot
of sailors from the USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) were
swarming all over it, transforming its rather drab
appearance into an immaculate new look which will
doubtless seem like an overnight miracle when the
kids return.
This community relations effort marked a joining of
forces between the Puerto Vallarta Navy League and
the Puerto Vallarta Rotary Club South. Simply put,
Rotary Club South provided the paint and the Navy League
provided the painters.
Rotary Club South has a long
association with the Escuela Paso Ancho, beginning
in the mid-1980's, when the "school-room" was simply
the shade of a big mango tree. Rotary South built
a one-room school around 1986. They returned later,
firstly to add bathrooms and later on more schoolrooms.
On this Saturday morning,
among the Rotary South members was past- President
Jorge Zambrano Hernandez. It was from him I learned
about Rotary South's long connection with the school.
Among the Navy Leaguers who had turned out, I met
Jerry Lafferty, current President, Warren Johnson,
past -President, and Ed Powers, who is in
charge of these "Painting Parties."
The naval contingent amounted to some twenty-five
volunteers, who arrived in two waves.
I don't think sailors have
to climb the rigging much anymore, but these sailors
certainly figured out how to scale the walls and
clamber around on the roof to get at the places that
were hardest to paint. Hats off to them. John Becker
told me he had been all over the world on these kinds
of off-duty projects since first joining the Navy
nearly 21 years ago. " I like
to give something back to people" he said. Well, he
could have also mentioned being part of the coalition
fleet off the coast of Iraq - which was where the USS
Fitzgerald was until returning home last November!
There is no doubt that good deeds have no particular
nationality. While I was thinking that this glimpse
of Mexican village life might be an interesting novelty
for the sailors, I was told that the man in charge
of the volunteers, David Gutierrez, was borne in Bolivia.
Maybe, at least, he found our noonday warmth a bit
of a change!
When the painting was done, the Navy League took the
sailors off to a well-deserved lunch at a nearby restaurant
that nestles on the banks of the Cuale, overshadowed
by the green hills that line the valley. Hopefully,
that will be a happy memory when they are back on the
high seas again.
On the previous day, the Navy
League was honored to have the Captain of the ship,
CDR Brad Smith, the Executive Officer LCDR Chuck
Good and LT. Mike Murphy at their monthly meeting.
While there, they gave a brief talk about the role
the USS Fitzgerald had played in the Iraq operation
and their experience of the coalition in action - including
giving credit to the presence of both a French and
a German ship in addition to the more publicly acknowledged
UK, Spanish, Australian and Italian participation.
Full House at Santa Barbara's for Passover
Once again, by the time last Monday evening came around,
there were more people at Santa Barbara's than the
place could accommodate. Nevertheless, as always, where
there's a will there's a way, no one was turned away
and there was food enough for all, even leftovers!
The crème de la crème of Vallarta's
Jewish community gathered once again to celebrate the
First Seder of Passover, one of its most traditional
holidays. About 100 people gathered this year to listen
as Saul Groman of "The Real Estate Store", led the
services in English and Hebrew. He was assisted by
the members of the audience who did their best to keep
up in English as the age-old story of the Exodus of
the Jews from their slavery under Egypt's Pharaoh was
retold - as it has been for centuries.
What made this particular
Seder slightly different from previous such events
in Vallarta was that, although it was not the largest
in size (180 attended in 1999), it did attract many
Vallarta residents that had never attended before.
In addition -and this happens every
year- there was quite a number of non-Jewish guests
who expressed their desire to experience a Seder for
the first time. And as always, there were many examples
of the Jewish diaspora as it included people from Canada,
the U.S., Romania, the Ukraine and Israel.
The traditional Seder meal was prepared by Kathy Overly
and the Santa Barbara Restaurant kitchen staff who
outdid themselves with an excellent presentation from
start to finish. Congratulations, Kathy, this was the
first time that the matzo balls were truly perfect!
But then so was the entire meal. Everyone present left
delighted and impressed. It looks like the restaurant
may have to expand at the rate this community is growing!
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