Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review

Page 6 Lake Chapala Review
February 2008
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Dear Readers
by Louise Drummond, Editor lakechapalareview@yahoo.com
THE BOOK COLLECTION eventually
called the Lake Chapala Society library
was started in 1972 in a hole in the
wall in Chapala. That fledgling effort
developed into LCS. I was here in those
days and I remember driving from
Jocotepec, and borrowing Mahatma
Gandhi’s autobiography. There might
have been one thousand residents in
Ajijic including foreigners, and few could
have believed that that dusty village would have become
Lakeside. Foreign residents prepared the way for the future
by learning Mexican ways of thinking and behavior.
We now have the same opportunity to build the great city
that Ajijic will become. Realtors are saying that there will
be 1,000,000 people here in twenty years. We can use the
present to plant the seeds of a great city. Each of us needs
to ask him or herself, what kind of heritage would you leave
to future residents. As with our library, those dreams could
nurture us all, in real time. Those who prepared the way for
us, through establishing the institutions that contribute to
our way of life, gained more than they ever gave.
In Santa Barbara, there is an architectural review board
that was established after an earthquake destroyed the city.
That body has been responsible for much of the rise in area
property values. The same kind of commission could be
started here. We have had devastating flash floods here,
mostly because of residences which interfere with natural
drainage. The Racquet Club recently had problems that
many can recall. It is not nice to mess with Mother Nature.
A group of people calling themselves the Chapala Green
Group have formed around Barbara Harwood, and Donald
Aitkin, and we have the chance for the same kinds of
visionary minds that started the Lake Chapala library to make
impressive demonstration projects for the city that is to
spring from our blessed village. As Gandhi’s autobiography
has inspired generations of to lead more powerful lives, so
could our own vision, applied to real life situations, inspire
future generations. The great thing about being retired is
that there is time to do the things that we always wished we
had during our working years.
ACA is doing very worthwhile work too, teaching and
demonstrating the benefits of organic farming, and now are
taking surveys to know the health of the soil in different
areas around the lake. We have a great base from which to
make a lot of benign changes to our environment, instead
of passively allowing our technology to ruin this Garden of
Eden. Not everyone will be interested; only five or ten per
cent of any group will actually do the needed work. But
the foreign colony is now thousands strong, and the five or
ten per cent would add up to hundreds of people building a
community well worth living in.
Will you be among them? If not now, when?
I AM PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE the Lake Chapala Review’s
annual short fiction contest. This year there are two
categories of stories: Mexican Fables, and Romance Stories.
Contestants may enter one or more compositions in either
or both categories. All stories are to contain within 650 and
1,500 words. Entries shall be delivered to the office of the
Lake Chapala Review by the close of business, March 20.
THE LAKE CHAPALA REVIEW owes all of our writers a
warm thank you, and to that end we shall have our first
annual Writer’s Party, open to all who have been published
in the magazine, to be held third year on April 10. Winners
of the short story contest and their runner ups will be
announced at the party, and their work will be printed in
subsequent issues of the magazine.
Good luck and happy writing.