Conde Nast Magazine Feature on Baja California and Juanita...
The current June issue of Conde Nast Traveler magazine has a feature article with the author's two week roadtrip taking us through some of the
peninsula's highlights. She's a newbie to the area and gives an overview of the peninsula's past and present with the discovery of a first timer's
impressions...do some of you remember those moments?? The article should still be on the newstands and you can also read it online at www.concierge.com and it shows a kayaker in the photo with the title, Baja Fresh.
The article also includes some very scenic photos which I appreciated since I'm here in San Diego and the images are always good for enhancing some
"Baja daydreaming". Anyway one of the highlights and surprises of this article was when the author describes her visit to the town of San Ignacio on
the way to the whale lagoon. She mentions a Bay area transplant named Juanita Adams who now lives in the town. Well, when I saw this name, I did a
double take and realized that I knew this retired woman from my days at the Mulege museum. So, here's a little story about the Juanita I met back in
1999....
As some of you know, sorry if I repeat the same ole info, I was asked by my friend Susie, who was a zooarcheologist consultant at the San Diego
Natural History Museum, to be part of a binational team of museum professionals and educators that would help renovate Mulege's community museum (the
former prison) as well as develop various educational programs in the community. Specifically, I would work with a Mexican colleague to train local
high school students to be bilingual guides in the museum.
So, here's where Juanita comes into the picture. Twice a year during my time in Mulege, Susie would arrange for various museum professionals from San
Diego and Mexico to meet in Mulege to do renovation projects on the museum. These projects would be an incredible gathering of diverse people who were
ready to get down and dirty working at the museum but by night we had great times hanging out at the beach, toasting a hard day's work and plotting
our next day's projects with our local hosts & museum volunteers.
Back to how Juanita enters the scene!! Susie tells me that for her April 1999 working group week, a woman from the Bay area is coming down and she
wants to donate a shell collection similar to one that she has designed and organized at the Bahia de los Angeles museum. She is friend's with the
museum Director, Carolina Espinoza, who also was a wonderful contributor to various Mulege museum projects. In addition, Susie tells me in a fax
outlining all this information that Juanita wants to bring some books to donate to the local schools and was wondering if I might assist her with
distributing them. Sounds great and so my Mexican colleague and I await Juanita's arrival with the other volunteers.
The day that the group caravan arrives in Mulege we greet all the returning team with hugs and kisses and welcome the "rookies" in kind. Juanita
emerges from one of the van's and is a tall, toned and tanned (T-cubed in this description of adjectives) woman, in her 60's I imagine, whose smile
and eyes twinkle with grace and kindness. She tells me that she is excited to take the books that she has brought down to the local schools. She asks
if she can show them to me so I can assist her with distributing them to the appropriate schools based on age ranges. When we open up the van, I
realize the enormous generosity of this woman's gift. In my mind, I was expecting a few boxes of books maybe used ones...instead I see about 10 boxes
of books, all in Spanish, all brand new covering history, natural history and other wonderful selections.
It turns out that Juanita is a lover of books and reading. She, if memory serves me correctly, had worked for libraries at one point in her life in
the Bay area. She was now retired and loved to share her passion for books with others, particularly children. So, as one of her projects in
retirement, she created "La Biblioteca Magica"...The Magic Library. Through her donations, thousands of new children's books have been distributed to
schools throughout Baja California. If you ever visit one of the local schools in Mulege or the Casa de la Cultura in town, you will see some of
Juanita's gifts to the kids in the shelves. Another image of her unique spirit came through in the book distribution itself. She was truly interested
to talk to the teachers and directors of the local schools about their work and asked some of my students to come along with her to be part of the
distribution process. She gave without asking for personal recognition or honors but only out of a love of the written word and the power of
imagination that a story can inspire in children. When you go to the Mulege Museum, you will also see how Juanita's gift of giving is on display
through the beautiful shell exhibit she set up in the museum's entry way.
As the cliche goes...it's a small world and who would have thought that a casual glimpse at a travel magazine in the supermarket would reaquaint me
with Juanita after over 5 years since those Mulege days. So, if any of you pass through San Ignacio and come across Juanita at the Casa Leree where,
according to the Conde Nast article, she tends the gardens...say "hola" from Lindsay and days gone by at the Mulege Museum then thank her for all her
gifts given with such a quiet and genuine grace.
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