• Profile of Ed Clancy
• Ask Silvia
• Coupon - The Sunset Bar

• A page about El Centro Culturál Ignacio Ramírez "El Nigromante" or, better known to most of us, just Bellas Artes. The page has some of the history of this San Miguel landmark and art center plus a few photos.



• There's a new page on Driving in Mexico, and I'll soon be adding pages with specific driving directions from several Mexican border crossings.



• Finally, I've added to the New Restaurants in San Miguel page. That's a dynamic page, always changing as new eateries show up on the scene and others move. If you've got info on any new restaurants in town, please let me know.

And speaking of restaurants, last month, I told you about an article I'd written about San Miguel restaurants for Food and Beverage Today, a slick new online magazine for foodies and food professionals. I'd been told it would be in the April issue, but they tripped me up just a bit, by deciding to make the magazine a bi-monthly. So the article is NOW online, in the May-June issue. Follow the magazine link to read the article, then tell me if you agree with my picks.

If you've been telling yourself you're finally ready to start writing that novel or memoir… but you don't really know where to start, you might want to sign up for Eva HUnter's next round of classes at the Writers' Workshop: San Miguel. The next session, beginning June 16th, is "Beginnings, Endings and Everything Between: A workshop for both fiction and non-fiction writers." Click for more information about Writers Workshop: San Miguel.

Warren Hardy
Spanish teacher extraordinaire

Most everyone in San Miguel de Allende knows his name. Many hundreds have taken taken classes at The Warren Hardy School. And their everyday Spanish is the better for it.

I'm privileged to have been a friend of Warren Hardy for close to 20 years. He's a man whose presence is golden. Just being around him is like being home. And he carries that wonderful aura into his classroom. His students seem to know instinctively that they are in the most supportive, life-enhancing place possible, and it makes the learning that much easier.

I was also privileged to be one of Warren's first "guinea-pig" students some 19 years ago. He invited 40 or so friends to a session to introduce his "Card Game Spanish" concept and ask for feedback. Then he refined and tweaked, studied and adapted it into what many think is the finest system for teaching Spanish to English-speaking adults.

"I've always taught professional highly educated adults," he explains. "My entire system has been written for that population." His approach to Spanish is especially well-designd for older learners. "Older adults can actually learn a language 10 times faster than children," he asserts, and he's designed the classes to prove it.

But he might just as easily have ended up teaching Japanese... or painting... or, I don't know... cooking? As a young Mormon growing up in Arizona, Warren applied to be a missionary. The church could have sent him to New York or Paris or Tallahassee. It sent him to Argentina. And to make him more effective, it began teaching him Spanish.

A natural at languages, Warren came home to get a Masters degree in Spanish education at the University of Arizona. While there, he got a job tutoring some doctors. "That led me to write a textbook on medical Spanish," he says, "probably the first one ever written." That book led to his first job with the Public Health Service. "I developed a program for teaching medical Spanish to doctors—for 8 days, 8 hours a day." He then went on to work for Xerox, teaching Spanish to executives heading to Spanish-speaking countries.

Finally, it was time to do his own thing. "I started my own language school in Tucson," he says. He ran that school for eight years, and he also started spending more and more time in Mexico, particularly in San Carlos, Sonora. He became involved in community work and joined Rotary International, which recognized him as a Paul Harris Fellow, an award given in "recognition of exceptional service."

Most anyone who knows Warren also knows Tuli Hardy. As the school administrator, she's the always smiling, cheerful presence who brightens the room... and is very good at keeping Warren on track. They met in California some 20 years ago, got married in 1990 and decided to take their honeymoon in... San Miguel de Allende.

And that's when Warren and Tuli Hardy became two more of what is almost a San Miguel cliché. "We came for our honeymoon and never left," he explains. "The morning we got here we said, 'This is it. We're never leaving.' We found an apartment and just stayed."

To anyone who's been in San Miguel de Allende for long, this is a familiar story, those who "come and never leave." But why, exactly? What's the magic that calls to us, that tells us we're home? I asked Warren his opinion.

"I call it a tribal thing. I really do believe that certain people who arrive here are just part of a certain tribe. I call us eccentric misfits. We arrive in San Miguel and we feel for the first time in our lives that we belong."

I'm nodding the whole time he's talking. Yep, that's it, that's perfect, I think. That's exactly what I felt. Then he makes me laugh. "We're really a bunch of aliens that have been off on a mission, and now we've completed our mission and they've sent us to SMA for R&R. At any moment they're going to beam us back up."

Another important role of the Warren Hardy School is to serve as a sort of clearing house for cross-cultural understanding. "Helping Americans be better guests, better visitors in Mexico is a major part of my life." His cultural differences lecture, explaining many of the core values of Mexicans and how Americans should act in this country, should be on every visitor's "Must Do" list.

He is also on the board of advisors of the Frank Evans Center for Conflict Resolution in Houston, Texas. "I work in international mediation, lecture on core values and how to apply that to international mediation."

For anyone in San Miguel, hear "Warren Hardy" and you immediately think "Spanish language." But that's not all there is to know. Few of his students realize that he is not only an artist in the classroom, but also on paper and canvas. In fact, his undergraduate degree was in Art. He's a wonderful draftsman and an accomplished and emotionally powerful painter.

"Painting has always been part of my life," he explains. "Even early in high school, I was the guy that always made the posters."

Watercolor is his best medium, though he also paints in oils and acrylics. "Painting for me is an expression of my soul. I've always wondered why I was given this tremendous gift. A psychic in L.A. told me I'd been a painter during many lifetimes."

He still paints between class sessions but, says Warren, "I never had a passion for painting like I have a passion for teaching."

Today, after 40 years of teaching Spanish, Warren is beginning to look at life beyond the Warren Hardy School. "I still like doing it," he explains, "but I'm slowly making a transition away from it. I'm looking at the retirement years." The school, he explains "has grown to the place where I have six master teaches. They've all been with me for years. I'll continue to work in the school for another 3-5 years, but then they will take over."

At 62, Warren is feeling that inevitable sense of mortality, that time is flying. "The key is to make change. You can get in a rut, not making new experiences."

And he knows the direction he wants that change to take. "I'm a big meditator," he says. "As I make this transition, I want to become a teacher of meditation. The technique I use is called Ascension. To teach it, I'll have to go meditate for six months, 10 hours a day. My whole energies are now going more towards spirituality and teaching meditation and becoming a painter."

So there are plans and thoughts of the future. But if you ask Warren Hardy about where he's been and where he's going, his bottom-line answer is a humble smile and a slight shrug. "I'm just along for the ride," he says." I just try to live life at my highest level knowing I'm being guided."

How fortunate for us that he was guided to San Miguel de Allende.

"Ask Silvia"

Silvia Cadena
of Friday Services

Silvia Cadena loves San Miguel. Like so many of us, she fell in love with SMA at first sight, when she visited as a very young woman. It was a few years before she made her way back. But then she knew she was home.

A: This can be hard sometimes because it's not always that they advertize so well the coming bullfights. You can learn about them on the radio if you listen, but that is in Spanish. One way to usually find out is to go to the restaurants where the bull ring aficionados hang out. One of the most popular is La Mesa del Matador. Their phone number is (415) 154-6134. (Closed Mondays. The main owner speaks English.)

Now, where you buy tickets all depends on the corrida. If it's a big one, then tickets are sold in different restaurants. If not so big, you buy the tickets at the Plaza de Toros on Recreo. The posters are often sold at the entrance to the bullring. Sometimes you can get them at La Mesa del Matador very cheap or free.

A: It depends on the season they are coming. If it is school season, they can be a visitor to a school, and then make friends there. Many schools in SMA are bilingual, so language wont be a problem. There are also art classes to join and a summer day camp at Centro Bilingué. The Biblioteca usually has children's programs. Parque Juarez has swings and games; kids often gather there with parents...in both languages.

The Jardin is also a nice place to spend time with kids. They can hang out, it's safe, there are other kids. They can buy balloons, eat corn on the cob, candy, jicama, etc... they enjoy it for awhile. Finally, there are several places to ride horses, either in a ring or on trail rides.

Saludos,
Silvia


Photo of the Month

With the recent re-opening of the Museo Casa Allende, this seems like a good month to share my favorite photo I've taken there. This stairway is in the back part of the house, leading out from the former stable.


Photo © Donna Meyer. All rights reserved

Have you got a favorite photograph of San Miguel de Allende? Share it with us! Send us your best shots. We'll pick one to include in the newsletter each month. And, if you give permission, it might also be included on the site.

Coupon of the Month

Here's a chance to save a little money on an old favorite… or try a new one. Juan Villaseñor, owner of Restaurant El Ten Ten Pie at the corner of Cuna de Allende and Pila Seca, has taken over the restaurant on Stirling Dickinson that used to be Chimichurries. It is now renamed Ten Ten Pie al Carbon and features really excellent grilled meats, with arrachera being a special favorite.