See you at arts and cultural events around town!
When I was a newcomer to the city in 2008, I started the website “Roz in La Paz” to share my discoveries about the arts and cultural scene. I did it for fun, to learn more about my new home, to scratch an old news reporter’s itch and to practise my Spanish. One of the first words I learned was jubilada, the Spanish for “retired woman”. That was me, alright — a retired Canadian journalist jubilant to be living full-time in La Paz.
The beauty of being an English-speaking newcomer here is that everything is fresh. The challenge is that there is so much to learn. Five years later, I am still learning, and I am still jubilant about life in La Paz. But I’ve decided it’s time to let go of my online arts and cultural calendar of events.
When I started “Roz in La Paz”, there was no English-language newspaper and there were no online forums to share information about the city’s arts and cultural scene. I did a lot of walking around town. I scoured the city for posters and introduced myself to cultural organizers to learn about their events. I interviewed artists and musicians in Spanish, grateful for their patience and for my audio recorder, which I eagerly replayed after interviews to figure out what, exactly, they had said.
My pet project gave me pleasure. But it also demanded lots of care and feeding. Preparing and maintaining the website took some 50 hours a month. I spent much more time writing about events than getting out to them.
Since 2008, other resources have emerged to help English-speaking visitors and residents keep track of what’s happening in La Paz. The city has its own English-language newspaper, The Baja Citizen, which publishes every two weeks and online. Within the expat community, people exchange information through two English-language online forums — La Paz Gringos (a Yahoo group) and La Paz News Feed (a Facebook group).
Meanwhile, the city’s arts and cultural community has embraced cyberspace — most organizations now post their events on Facebook. Become their Facebook friend and you will stay up-to-date.
Please continue to use my website, www.rozinlapaz.com, as a resource. There will be no updates to the calendar of events after the end of March 2013, but the “Venues”, “Links” and “Ongoing Activities” pages list arts and cultural centre locations, online resources and repeating activities such as weekly drawing workshops and the writers’ group. The website’s “Features” section continues to be home to several stories from past years about artists and musicians.
Here are more suggestions on how to to plug into the arts scene in La Paz:
Check online English-language sites that list events, including:
The Baja Citizen website at http://www.bajacitizen.com and The Baja Citizen
Facebook page
La Paz Gringos Yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lapazgringos/
La Paz Newsfeed Facebook group
Journal del Pacífico at http://journaldelpacifico.com/blog/events-2/
Visit the public cultural centres (Centro Cultural La Paz, Galería de Arte Carlos Olachea, Centro de Artes y Culturas Populares de Baja California Sur, Teatro de la Ciudad and Alianza Francesa de La Paz, among others). Ask how to get on their mailing lists or how to find them on Facebook.
Check the privately owned galleries (Galería La Encantada and Galería de Arte Tonantzin, among others) for live performances and exhibitions. Get your name on their mailing lists or ask how you can find them on Facebook.
The Sociedad section of the online edition of the El Peninsular newspaper, peninsulardigital.com/, is a good Spanish-language resource. The newspaper El Sudcaliforniano also publishes online.
Read the Agenda Cultural de BCS (published monthly online in Spanish); one way to find the latest issue is to follow the links for “Agenda Cultural” from the state government’s website at www.bcs.gob.mx/. The calendar of events is easy to navigate with minimal Spanish and a dictionary.
Drop by the tourism office on 16 de Septiembre at the corner of Belisario Dominguez and ask about events coming up. There’s also a tourism office next to the skateboard park across from the Malecón on Obregón between Bravo and Rosales. Tourism staff speak English, and they are also helpful in showing you on a map where to find an address.
As for me, I won’t be straying far from the arts scene. With the extra free time, I hope to play more harmonica and will, of course, use The Baja Citizen and the online English-language forums to tell you about any gigs. Most of all, I plan to get out to enjoy the art shows, concerts and other cultural events that I’ve been writing about for the past five years. See you around town!
Roz in La Paz, March 2013
Read about the “Old man” sculpture (above) and his creator in this website’s Features archives.
