Pinal Villa's yearly fiesta

Pinal Villa on the outskirts of Melaque has a yearly Peregrinacion or Pilgrimage party.   Families and organizations from neighboring communities organize the dancing and parade to the Church in Pinal Villa.   Fireworks follow the parade, dogs run and hide and children smile.   The last night, Monday the 7th of October, there will be a castillo or tower of fireworks.

The Peregrinacion, which is the interesting part, starts from the community of the group at about 6PM to arrive here at 7. General activities are from 5AM to 7PM+. Jaluco was here last night.

Schedule
Sunday - Jaluco
Monday - Barra de Navidad
Tuesday - Villa Obregon
Wednesday - Ranchito
Thursday - Melaque
Friday - Bario de la Prepa
Saturday - Lazaro Cardenas
Sunday - Young people
Monday - Floats, cars, dancers and castillo

And the road grader hasn't been out so the road is crappy

Jaluco dancers arriving

Being blessed by the father in front of the church

Villa Pinal Primary School

A group in the Melaque area that doesn't seem to need to broadcast it's good deeds to the Gringo community is San Patricio by the Sea, an interdenominational church located bewteen San Particio and Villa Obregon. This project particularly interested me because this school is about three blocks from the house I'm building in Pinal Villa. A link to their web site is below if you want to look further into their projects.

Villa Pinal Primary School:

The Community Support Fund task force, with church board approval, agreed to take on the 4 priorities that the 3 teachers at the school determined to be of high priority:

1. A consistent water supply. A new water pump was installed by the principal and a teacher

2. Ceiling fans for one of the classrooms. A new ceiling fan was installed

3. Paint for the existing classrooms. Paint was purchased and the actual painting was done by volunteers from the community

4. Improvements to the open, tin-roof, cardboard walled "classroom".

The task force and church board deemed the classroom unsuitable for repair and recommended replacing it with a new classroom.

Preparations, plans and permits made with the approval of educational authorities led to the building of a concrete, post and beam classroom, with a reinforced roof which will allow for a second story classroom at a future date.

Original classroom

Building the new one

Offical opening

Inside new classroom

Kids lined up for inauguration 
San Patricio by the Sea