January Jam Soars to New Heights

   Photo by Tony Ballesteros

The 10^th Anniversary of Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers' January Jam, recently held over MLK Weekend, brought together three blistering nights of rock, a giant birthday party, fireworks, a sunset beach bash, a tequila inspired golf tournament and record charitable donations for the City of Puerto Penasco.

"January Jam was the best birthday weekend of my life," wrote Roger Clyne on the band's social media pages.  The party started Friday evening on the patio at JJ's Cantina where the band played Turbo Ocho, their only album recorded in Choya Bay in its entirety to celebrate the 10^th anniversary.  Following the eight day recording session in 2008, the band decided to announce a patio show at JJ's and see if anybody would come.  A few hundred drove down and January Jam has become a tradition ever since.

The annual Mexican Moonshine Tequila Golf Classic teed off at 10am Saturday morning to a record number of 88 golfers at The Links at Las Palomas.  Each year an amazing raffle is organized to complement the fundraising efforts of the golf tournament with a record amount of money raised that will be included in Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers' annual donation back to the City of Puerto Penasco.  Beneficiaries include scholarship programs through D.I.F., La Casa de Esperanza, Men's and Women's shelters, and the Tourism Assistance Unit among others.

Banditos hosted night two with The Johnson Twins, Bro and Walt Richardson opening the show for RCPM.  Several hundred packed the parking lot and patios with birds eye views of the stage where RCPM played everybody's favorites until after midnight.  Jim Dalton brought blurry visioned loyalists back for Bloody Marias Sunday morning for his solo series dubbed Borracho Domingo.  The party finished Sunday afternoon on the beach at Wrecked at The Reef where a sold out crowd was not only treated to an extended set with a surprise appearance by The Black Moods, but one of the most amazing sunsets ever.  Roger even stopped the show to pay homage.

Organizers would like to thank RPR Mexico, Las Palomas Resort and The Links at Las Palomas, The Sonoran Resorts, Penasco Luxury, JJ's Cantina, Banditos, Wrecked at The Reef, Rocky Point 360, Ammex Insurance, Sanderson Ford and the City of Puerto Penasco for supporting such an amazing weekend.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers now turn their attention to Circus Mexicus, a four day celebration being held June 7-10, 2018 throughout Puerto Penasco.  Circus Mexicus has become one of the largest 100% band produced music festivals in North America attracting visitors annually from as many as 36 states and 5 countries.

Line up and ticket on sale dates will be announced in early March.  The festival will expand the number of venues holding events this year in part to show visitors more of what Puerto Penasco has to offer.  Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers will headline both Friday and Saturday nights supported by other bands playing various types of music.

VIP tickets are expected to sell out first as they do each year.  Fans are encouraged to buy their tickets in advance at www.circusmexicus.net and book their accommodations through RPRMexico.com, LasPalomasResort.net, PenascoLuxury.com or any of the other sites booking other parts of the city including Las Conchas and Choya Bay.

The Day of the Child, a National holiday here in Mexico, is celebrated each Spring on April 30th.  This holiday is special for all children as we celebrate their joy, happiness, lives and spirits!  For the last three year, Friends of Esperanza , have been embracing the children of Esperanza Por  los Niños Children home here in Rocky Point by having a Beach party fundraiser! Volunteers, friends and family have united to ensure each of these children are made to feel special by enjoying a days activities of fun and sun on Sandy Beach, while raising money to assist the children and mission throughout the year. April 29, 2018, will mark the third year the, Day of the Child Fundraiser,  event will take place for Esperanza Por Los Niños!

Esperanza means hope, and the Esperanza children's home located 18 miles out of town is the hope for many children whom are left without parents to care for them. These children live with two set of missionary families in a complex located 15 miles north of Rocky Point and about 3 miles off of the main highway. You might recognize the sign which leads down a dirt road to the facility that houses anywhere between 25-50 children.

The children reside at Esperanza, but go to school in Rocky Point and participate in the local Puerto Penasco community. Their ages range from 3-21 and their needs are as varied as you can imagine. Many of them have lived through very difficult challenges and situations. These children are not adoptable because they have not been legally severed from their families. They each live in the I hope that one day their family will return to bring them home.

This year we will be celebrating the Day of the Child, at Sandy Beach, in front of the Sonoran Sky resort, from 2-6 pm on April 29th. There will be games, food, fun, and Fundraising going on! All the children will participate in beach games, prizes and competitions! Volunteers will help with games, food prep, awards and raffles.  We are looking for local support for prizes, donations, food and games. This support will aid in providing five children with braces, buying two new cars for transportation to schools, and repairs needed on windows and walls at the missionaries homes.

Volunteers and coordination efforts through Michelle Auer at: [email protected]

Donations can be given at Go Fund Me: https://www.gofundme.com/2018-day-of-the-child 

In 2018, CEDO's New Year's Resolution is to double our efforts and better communicate the exciting and unprecedented work that we are doing in the northern Gulf of California, and beyond, to our friends, followers, and supporters. We are moving fast and leaving wakes, so read on and don't get left behind!

Let's start with the basics; CEDO, the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans, is a non-profit organization, operating both in the U.S. and Mexico, with the mission of fostering vibrant communities and resilient ecosystems. We tackle pressing socio-economic and environmental problems by integrating people with knowledge and solutions. Namely, we are helping coastal communities on the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez, to better manage their marine and coastal resources. We work primarily with artisanal, or small-scale, fishermen, and also with the wider coastal community, as well as with students, teachers, scientists, businesspeople and decision makers on both sides of the border. CEDO believes in building bridges, not walls, and our programs include environmental education, capacity building, collaborative research and monitoring (with fishermen and local people), and "ecosystem management" through collective action. Ecosystem management refers to a holistic process that takes into account individual species as well as habitats, natural processes, and human communities with unique needs.

CEDO's working table is round, and has a place open for all the people whose participation is needed to improve ecosystem management in the northern Gulf of California, including representatives of conservation, government, large-scale industry and big fisheries, small-scale fisheries, and economic and community development. Through our leadership, these representatives are able to do much more than talk, and continuous, transparent interchange of knowledge and ideas, together with having the best available science at hand, is charting the course for greater sustainability in northern Gulf fisheries and other industries such as mining, coastal development, and tourism. By fostering and working closely with government representatives we are able to actualize accords and place them into a nationally recognized legal framework. This "bottom-up" approach is more successful than previous "top-down" efforts because it takes into account the experiences and visions of the people whose willing and enthusiastic participation is needed for real and lasting change to take hold. As our director, Peggy Turk Boyer likes to say, "CEDO goes deep."

This year, CEDO is undertaking two comprehensive, ecosystem-wide programs in the Northern Gulf of California, with actions being implemented at the local, regional and national level. Along the coast of Sonora, MX, in a biologically and socio-economically cohesive region that we call the "Puerto Penasco to Puerto Lobos Biological and Fisheries Corridor," CEDO is working with six artisanal fishing communities to better manage their diverse and economically significant fisheries.

Meanwhile, along the Baja California coast, CEDO is working within the context of the Upper Gulf of California Biosphere Reserve, and the pivotal conservation issues surrounding the endangered vaquita marina porpoise (Phocoena sinus) and totoaba fish (Totoaba macdonaldi). CEDO feels it is paramount to act now to save the vaquita and totoaba from extinction, AND we recognize the need to address the social and economic hardships that are at the root of this multi-faceted problem; if we want fishermen to get on board with conservation-based programs, we must first understand their needs and be able to convince them of a hopeful and dignified future. This is why CEDO has hired a social anthropologist to "go deep," and identify the best paths forward.

What our two regional programs have in common, is that they both apply a framework of "Coastal Marine Spatial Planning," a process in which conservation goals aim to overlap with socio-economic and development goals, for example by strengthening user rights, establishing community management areas, and creating fisheries refuges. Also, both programs address the compounding impacts of poorly managed and unregulated fisheries and the burgeoning impacts of climate change on entire ecosystems. Finally, both programs seek to conserve commercially and ecologically important species, whether they are celebrities like the vaquita, or overlooked, but nonetheless crucial species like the jaiba, or swimming crab.

CEDO's ability to apply over three decades of experience in order to effectively adapt to unique and rapidly shifting ecological, economic and political scenarios, in combination with our staff's passion and dedication to the people, plants, animals and habitats of the northern Gulf of California, make us the right people to take on this crucial work. We look forward to keeping you posted with regular updates about our progress to mitigate the impacts of climate change, build more sustainable fisheries, foster healthier and happier coastal communities, and protect the marine and coastal ecosystems that we all love and depend on.

Along with its penchant for polite language, Mexico makes use of a good number of euphemisms.

One example is the use of the verb regalar - which means to give as a present. If asking someone for a cigarette, a Spaniard or Argentine will say "¿me das un cigarro?" whereas in Mexico the usual way would be to say "¿me regalas un cigarro?" The implication is that of willingness on the part of the giver, and the absence of any debt on the part of the taker.

In times of crisis and other times, politicians and corporations love euphemisms. Prices never go up, they are merely adjusted. The pressing question: "¿ajustados hacia arriba?" will draw a painful look in response that says "of course, but we don't feel the need to mention it in such blatant terms."

Layoffs are "maximización de recursos humanos" or something of the sort, and the insistent "¿despidos?" (layoffs) will be considered somewhat mean-spirited.

This beating around the bush and shifting of the blame crops up in the most everyday expressions and turns of phrase.

In Spanish, you never lose anything, rather, the object "loses itself" from you. This and similar phrases make use of the reflexive "se" and the thing lost, dropped, or broken becomes the subject, while the loser (dropper, breaker) becomes the object.

Se perdió el dinero. The money got lost (lost itself).

Se me perdió el dinero. I lost the money. Perdí el dinero is quite correct, but not often heard.

Se me perdieron las llaves. I lost the keys (notice the plural form of the verb).

An illustration that this has euphemistic connotations and that the speaker isn't merely strait-jacketed by the proper use of language presents itself when someone else is to blame.

"Se me rompió tu iPhone." Your iPhone broke [in my hands?] may well elicit the outburst "¡rompiste mi iPhone!" and not the smoothed-out "se te rompió mi iPhone."

One verb that will only allow for the reflexive application is "drop."  He dropped the glass has to be "se le cayó el vaso," because Spanish has no direct verb for drop, and "dejar caer" or "let fall" is rather clumsy and could suggest that the dropping was deliberate.

The best of all these reflexive dodges refers to tardiness in a country where punctuality is recognized as a British virtue, to be admired but not really something to get worked up about or go to great lengths to copy.

"Sorry I'm late" is merely "se me hizo tarde," the lateness having crept up on the arriver.