By Natalie Taylor
Rafael Franco’s life journey placed him at various crossroads, each defining the next stage in his life. But there always seemed to be a singular purpose, one particular direction—helping others.
Like a dragonfly—with which he strongly identifies—his life has taken him through many migrations. Born in the city of Córdoba, Spain, he was raised by aunts and uncles because his parents separated when he was a child. He moved to Madrid, to Paris, to the United States, and finally San Miguel de Allende. This fascinating trek began when his mother remarried an American; like a dragonfly seeking a mate to take her far away from her original home.
When he was ten, his stepfather got a plane ticket for him and his mother—eight months pregnant with his step-brother—and an address for a hotel in California. Eventually he joined them, and they moved to LA. Franco hated his step-father, and one night when he was twelve he grabbed his backpack and sneaked out of the house intent on going to Mexico to make a life for himself. He carried a knife which he intended to use for hunting rabbits.
As he walked through the dark suburban landscape, a police car pulled up, and the officers began to ask him questions. They eventually convinced him this was not a good plan, and he quietly sneaked back in the house before the family had any idea about his departure. The next phase in his young life was transformative—he was placed in the Don Bosco boarding school and absorbed the powerful message of Salesian values—to live a life of purpose by serving community. After high school he went into the Marine Corps for four years, then the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and finally he got his architecture degree at the Polytechnic Institute in San Luis Obispo.
In 2012 his wife, his high school sweetheart, passed away after 48 years together, bringing him to another crossroads. Friends invited him to visit San Miguel de Allende, and as soon as he arrived he thought: “This is just like Cordoba!” Life had brought him full circle to his own beginnings. He sold his property in LA, and moved here. Soon he discovered another amazing coincidence—a Don Bosco school in the rural community of La Medina, founded by Italian immigrants in the late 19th century. The people here are poor and this brought back to Franco the principles he had learned in boarding school, and he asked himself: What would Don Bosco do for the children?
He decided to build a kitchen adjacent to the school, to provide meals to the children who often went to school hungry. The school is located on a dairy farm with over 2000 cows, and flies were ever present. How can you prepare meals in such an environment? Franco learned that flies do not like reflective surfaces and this prompted the idea of building all the kitchen surfaces—the counters and dining tables—out of glass. Using glass left over from the construction, he had pieces stacked and laminated to make strong, useable surfaces. They planted lavender and rosemary bushes around the parameter to keep flies away.
That kitchen led to many others through joint efforts with Feed the Hungry, an organization dedicated to providing food and kitchens to poor communities around San Miguel de Allende. Franco made the plans and brought in much of the material needed to build kitchens for several such schools. Once built, nutritionists teach the mothers how to prepare healthy foods, and horticulturalists help create vegetable gardens maintained by the community and a continuous source of nutrients. With a properly run kitchen, children are fed a complete, nutritious meal mid-day, five days a week.
Eight years ago Franco bought a former grocery store on Stirling Dickinson, and converted it into a classroom for US and Mexican architecture students. When Covid stopped that project, he turned it into a museum dedicated to the history of Mexico, filled with material he has been collecting for years—a copy of the Florentine Codex is just one example. Los Arcos is open, free to the public, and contains replicas of ancient maps created by indigenous people, which combine topography and history.
In 2014 Franco remarried, and now lives on a large parcel of land in the campo with his wife. His dream for the land is for architecture students to build diverse buildings, implementing ecological principles. However, it was halted by Covid and is now part of future plans. Rafael Franco’s life is an ongoing project; a dragonfly’s long trajectory imbued with a clear sense of purpose—providing education to the young, and community participation—two of the many values he learned at the Don Bosco School.
Comentarios