Walking around Chacala

I walked around town this morning, after having breakfast at Casa Pacifica. First time I have eaten there in a couple of months. Had a nice breakfast and visit with the people there. Went looking for Trini and the Rotary folks who are working on the Kinder. Found the kids and teacher having classes outside the Kinder building, while the Rotaries fixed the roof and other things. The new room is lovely, and, according to Trini, the State offered new desks, which might be a first for the Chacala Kinder (getting State support, I mean) . The parents group had painted a new mural on the Kinder wall. The bano was fixed up, and things looked great. It's great that the parents group is so active.

Went by Casa Azul after hearing from several people that the construction had started there and that the noise was very disturbing. It looks like the whole lot will be filled. It's hard to see where the path down to the patio overlooking will be located. It's really hard to get used to changes I guess. Oh well. Life goes on I guess.

I have been thinking alot about what kind of people enjoy being in Chacala. Some people that usually go on to somewhere else are people who want to eat late, after dark, and party, and dance and have loud music in the evening. My opinion is that this is not a party town. Because this isn't that kind of town, except during Semana Santa. I think that in the past Chacala has mostly drawn (tourists from the US and Canada) social services type people who would like to "make a difference" on their vacation in Mexico. But lately I have thought that has been changing for awhile.

One of the residents of Chacalila (Marina Chacala) has been offering internet classes to some of the local kids on Saturday morning. Which may explain how it was that yesterday morning Mario, son of Leo of KoKo Bongo's, who is about 10, was Googling Chacala and looking for their restaurant and his friends, etc in the pictures that he found. I suppose the kids take it for granted that they and their town in on the Internet. The computer guy spent last Saturday taking digital pictures with the kids, and now they are probably going to open a blog about their life in Chacala. I really like the idea.

Blogger, the blog site I use, is free and is also run in Spanish, so the kids can easily put their pictures up, etc. It reminds me of the FoxFire project in Appalachia in the 70's, where kids from rural areas interviewed the elders in their communities and wrote magazines with the articles in them. Then eventually books were published with their interviews and articles about old-time skills, etc. Very neat and perfect for Chacala kids maybe.

The road that cuts down from the paved road down into the beach road has reopened after being closed for a couple of weeks. The cobbles have been cemented in place now on the top 30 feet or so. Much easier to walk on. It's the road that is at the corner of Concha's Techo de Mexico place.

The weather is horrible, with earthquakes, and the Las Cuevas volcano is oozing lava tonight, and a hurricane is expected tomorrow, so if you were planning to come down this week, you should probably cancel. Just kidding, but I am startingto wonder if it is a bad idea to be promoting Chacala this way. My original idea was that this was for my friends and people that had visited Chacala and wanted to hear about what's going on here.

But I think who reads it has changed. Alot of people who are googling Chacala because they are planning to come down are reading this blog now. I love the idea that some people are reading and enjoying this blog, but I know there are people who consider themselves to be "oldtimer" visitors to Chacala who think it's a bad idea to promote the rentals owned by local people here in Chacala.

It IS my intention with the Chacala Budget Rentals blog to promote Chacala, because I hate to see nice, affordable rental units empty during the off season (mid-April thru mid-Novemeber), when local people could be making some income. So I am having mixed feeling about this blog business. And then there is the phenomena where the last person who arrives here doesn't want anymore people to come. Oh well.

You can provide feedback by emailing alatawah at yahoo.com or going to "Friends of Chacala" to leave your opinion. You can use the User Name of chacalaplaya and Password of chacalablog to voice your opinion about whatever.