We had the privilege yesterday of travelling to Guanajuato (pronounced, approximately like "wanawhato") with Justo and his wife Elia, and their infant son, Luca. He had mentioned that it was one of the most beautiful cities in Mexico, and they would be willing to go with us on a Saturday, to show us the place.



What an amazing place!!! Full of history, the Spanish were here by the mid-1500s, and the native tribes had been there long before - how do you explain to people with such history around them that our country is only almost 140 years old, and our province barely more than 100? That there are no buildings 500 years old, and 500 years ago there were no buildings at all in Manitoba??

Well, back to Guanajuato - it is nestled in some hills/mountains, and the range of elevation from one section of the city to another is very broad - however, no problemo - the streets simply rise and fall with the angles of elevation - some streets seemed to climb at incredibly sharp angles - and turn with any degree to the next street - the Suburban did admirably, but Herb had to navigate some corners with multiple moves (causing some irritation to the locals - which we were quick to hear).



Guanajuato is also famed for its narrow streets - yes, we had to pull in the rear-view mirrors to get through a few tight places, and watch for the front steps of some homes, as they were right up near the tires - the speed at which you navigate under these conditions is fairly "carefully". Our guides said we had a few more inches of room than the orphanages' vans do, so that was plenty of room. How some of these incredibly narrow, winding streets could be open for two-way traffic was highly questionable to us!



The city also has a mining history, and many of the underground tunnels have been converted to traffic thoroughfares, and so we spent some time driving through this maze - complete with merging traffic, from any direction, and parking areas underground. There are numerous access points, both for traffic and pedestrians, and so if you are new to the area, getting lost is pretty much a given. We were ever so appreciative to have local guides for navigating - and still had to back-track once or twice.



Tourism is a major industry here, and there were many, many shops and stalls to see. There's a great picture of the Street of the Kissing Balcony, where, in fact, the second floor balcony from one side of the street is close enough to the balcony across the street that you could, theoretically, kiss across the street. Only one balcony was open to tourists, so we were unable to test the theory.



The city is also important in their quest for independence, and there is a large fort in the centre of the city bearing gun-shot marks from a battle when the peasants tried to throw off the Spaniards (in the early 1800s?) - while the peasants did gain independence for Guanajuato for a time, they were not successful in that attempt to gain freedom for the whole country - this did come later. With the Spaniards locked securely within the fort, Pipila, the hero of the battle, immortalized in a statue overlooking the city, gained hero status by strapping a rock to his back so that he could not be shot and carrying a torch with which he burned the gates to the fort thereby sealing the Spaniard's fate.



A large church in the centre was hosting weddings, as it was a Saturday, so we witnessed a bride arriving with her family, for the 2:00 wedding.



The city has a delightfully colorful amount of houses, and the view from the statute to Pepila (the hero of the battle mentioned above) you can see marvelous vistas of colour throughout the city, interspersed with the beautiful green of the trees in the plazas. We enjoyed a wonderful snack of "fresas con crema" which is strawberries with a rich cream and sugar - we shared one for $1. A truly delightful adventure.

It's time to introduce you to some of the foods we have recently been having - some with greater and some with lesser degrees of success. Saturday evening Herb and I and Rey took in a supper downtown, at one of the restaurants offering the 4-5 course "cena". This includes a tiny appetizer taco (taquito) with an ounce of lettuce, a half ounce of a cream-cheese like filling and a half teaspoon of refried beans. This was followed by a soup serving, a cold serving of spaghetti or rice, then the main course of meat, (we had a choice from numerous), followed by a small slice of a nut coffee cake. All of this was $4.20 per person, and we added a Coke each, for $1.20, for a total, with taxes about $5.50 per person.

Then on Monday, we were included in a boys outing to a "rancho". All the boys, the boys' houseparents family, and our family climbed into 2 fifteen passenger vans. The one we were in had about 26, near as we could count. Thankfully I elected to hold a small boy named Daniel on my lap, and so my ride was still relatively comfortable. After quite some while travelling, and a few stops to confirm where we were going by the drivers, we arrived at a small village where we met up with another family, and then proceeded to what looked like a community soccer field, out among the mountains. There were no "facilities" or amenities, but the adults had packed a picnic lunch - which means rice, eggs with chiles, and tostados in large pots.



The other family had brought corn on the cob - served Mexican style, which means you slather mayonnaise over the whole cob, then roll it in some grated hard cheese (wasn't quite parmesan, but somewhat like that texture), and then, wait for it, sprinkled with chiles and lemon. In the picture above Pancho is enjoying his corn on the cob. When I had previously seen these corn cobs in the downtown region, I had wondered if they were rolled in coconut, but not so, it was a type of cheese, and Yes, I ate one. The other family members were not as committed to the corn as I was, so I was on my own.



Snacks seemed to come out every half hour, including Kelloggs nutri-grain bars, then some pomegranates (look like red kernels of corn, but with a tiny seed inside), sprinkled with, wait for it, chiles and lemon. The ladies serving the food started to snicker when I repeatedly declined the chiles, but I tried the pomegranate anyway. Not bad. Rey enjoys them. They also brought out cheezies, similar to ours, but, you can guess what they like on top of them - Hot Sauce. All the while, the boys, from small to large, (probably ages 3 to 43) were engaged either in soccer, or "wrassling". They don't need much sports equipment beyond a soccer ball. It starts to darken by 5:00 p.m., so everyone was packed back into the 2 vans, and we started the almost hour-long trek back to the casa. A good time was had by all. When we returned to our rooms, Herb headed straight to the local grocer to pick up ground beef, potatoes and cream, so I could make Menno style meatballs, potatoes, and schmauntfat for supper. We thought it only appropriate to balance out the cultures for the day.

Tuesday morning we were invited by the boys' houseparents couple to join them for a Mexican style breakfast, so off we were again - not knowing where we were going, or what was coming our mouths' way. In a part of town in which Augustine grew up, he took us to a street vendor for "atolle and empanadas". The first is a warm drink, which I discovered later is based on the sugar made from maiz, and tasted like a brown sugar, or a mild molasses. The drink is very thick, and dark. I could enjoy some, but the others, again, were cool to it. The empanadas are tortillas with a cheese filling (not like our cheddars), and then deep-fried. I don't often have a deep-fried breakfast, but we all tasted them. Suffice it to say we didn't ask for seconds. A third item for sampling were the sweet tamales, which looked like a rice and flour mixture, with a bit of sweetened flavouring, in pink, wrapped in corn husks and boiled. Thankfully our hosts were gracious and gathered up the left-overs to take home to a more appreciative audience. We also toured a large Catholic cathedral across the street, the kids climbed a very large tree, and we dropped in at a small out-door market, to browse. Here, Augustine purchased a few of the "tun" from a cactus - they grow a form of fruit, which is edible (actually, the plates of cactus, when fresh are also edible, but that's another story). These came in a red, blanco, and yellow form. Again, quite good. I purchased 5 mandarin oranges for 60 cents, so you can tell some foods are very inexpensive. We appeared to be heading back to the casa, when he pulled in at one more shop - the Donas y Churros. This brought the first smile to Jeff's face, as we picked up fresh doughnuts and churros - each rolled in sugar and cinnamon. This will be our Tim's for the next while. Unfortunately we forgot the camera for this outing, so you'll have to use your imaginations.

This morning (Wednesday) we joined the vegetable run team, which means you leave fairly early, approx 6:30 (which today was almost 7:00), picked up the lady in charge of the kitchen for the casa ("File"), and headed to a LARGE outdoor market. They take the older van and numerous empty crates, and then about 5 of us follow File around, while she inquires at the various stalls who will donate vegetables and fruits for the casa. The van keeps moving, in order for the distance to be kept to a minimum that you are lugging the crates full, and File keeps moving to another aisle everytime you turn around, so it's a bit of a circus knowing where you were, where you need to be and where you are going. This market takes up at least a whole city block, and there are many aisles, all with vehicles out front, the road left to maneuver in is just inches larger than your vehicle, and people are everywhere. Rey asked an apt question "how many onions stores could they need?" Every manner of fruit and vegetable is available, usually by the truck-load.





Herb took many shots, of pineapple (Yes,that's a whole truck full of pineapples in the picture), sugar cane(which he is carrying in the picture), onions, carrots, etc. It was a successful run, the van was almost full in an hour, and then we were off to check at the "chicharron" place, which is a large meat store, a ways from the market, where they boil pig-skin in oil - for human consumption. We picked up 4 very large bags full (about like your large-sized garbage bag). These are best fresh, by the way. A very large barrel of pork lard was available for purchase, but we didn't need any. Next, we stopped at a chicken place and received 6 chickens. All are gratefully received, and it was finally time to head back to unload the haul - virtually all the food the casa serves comes through donations, and some days the food is plentiful, and other days it is meager. Dario, the director of the orphanage, mentioned that in all of the years he had been here, they had never missed a meal. Prayer meeting is Tuesday nights here, so I know that there is some "divine guidance" in the provisions for the orphanage.



On the weather front, you won't believe this, but it has been COLD. Night-time temperatures have been near zero celsius, (there was frost on the vehicles and roofs this morning) and when the windows are drafty, and the doors have at least an inch of room to allow for cockroaches and other guests to come and go at will, and there is absolutely no heating facilities, and it's in a concrete building - indoors has been very chilly. Once Herb was sleeping in sweats and a shirt, I suggested we head to Wal-Mart, where they have, bless Wal-Mart, an electric heater for $20.00. Now, I have only to wear my jacket all day, over my long-sleeved shirt, over an undershirt, over ...., you get the picture. The boys slept in our room with us, so that we only heated one room over-night. Hannah has a smaller room on her own, and was comfortable with two blankets. The boys room, on the other hand, is an outer-corner room, has two windows, two concrete walls, and was quite cool. So, we are cozy. And this afternoon warmed up nicely, so that it was more comfortable to be outside than in. Normal lows are +10, and our local Mexicans are complaining just about as much as we do in Manitoba, about cold. Herb was adamant, however that under no circumstances were we heading home for Manitoba, because it was too cold in Mexico!!!!

Well, it's Saturday morning, the boys are at football practice, Joan is doing Saturday work and Hannah is moving into her own room - the first time she's not shared a room with her brothers and/or parents in over a month. The room became available when the two women who were visiting from Manitoba went home and as far as we know no one who will need the space is coming before we leave.

Our Internet connection here is quite sporadic so I'm not sure when this will get posted.

We think we have settled into a routine here in the last week. We still have our moments where we feel that we don't belong or that we're not sure we'll make it but those are becoming less frequent. But I do still notice that often when I wake up in the morning I have to remind myself that I'm not at home in Winkler.

In one of our blog entries I mentioned that we were planning a big concrete pour for Friday November 10th. That particular pour went sideways in many and varied ways. As we you can see from the picture the first task was to make sure the troweller was lifted up to the second level. I don't think they do it that way in Canada.



The concrete truck and Concrete pump were supposed to arrive at 2 PM. At 3 PM the pump arrived. At about 3:15 one of the pump operators cell phone rang and we were told that the concrete truck would not arrive for another hour. At 4:45 the first truck arrived. We emptied that truck and waited for the second truck to arrive. It arrived at about 5:45 just after it got dark - the driver had gotten lost. In the meantime the first load had begun to set and we could hardly mate the new concrete to the previously poured concrete. We tried the power troweller but it just chewed it up and then the throttle cable broke. Some people began to try to fix the troweller and the rest of us continued to pour but by then it was looking fairly bleak.



Eventually, at about 8 PM, well after it had gotten dark we finished pouring, with another significant break between truck number 3 and 4. By that point the troweller was fixed and Malchor started to trowell and wet some of the concrete in hopes of fixing the ridges. He did amazingly well and I tried to stay out of the way and hold a light for him at the same time. The light I was holding was one of those halogen lights flood light things that are usually mounted on a stand. Like many things here it is no longer in its original condition and like all things in Mexico it was wired with single strand wires that were marretted together and maretted to the main cord that plugged into the extension cord. It's important to know that there were only two wires - no ground wire. At various times during the trowelling process it had rained a bit - with wind coming from two different directions - but about 30 - 45 minutes before we quit trowelling it began to rain with a stiff breeze from the northeast. My hands were wet and I was holding this light by the two wires in the rain waiting for a jolt of electricity. I got several imaginary shocks but thankfully no real ones. For the first time I can remember I was cold in Queretaro when I was somewhere other than in the shower.

Unfortunately the rain didn't let up and our newly poured concrete got rained on and the finish is not that great - "Mase Meno" Malchor politely calls it. They had hoped to get a good enough finish that they wouldn't have to tile the floors. They'll be tiling. Malchor's son Juan and Nico, the other construction worker, spent all of this week attempting to repair the finish to the floor. I got inside, "Pluetz Noat" after 10 PM. Justo, the director's son was on the roof holding the other light and he said to me, "What a job and you don't even get paid for it." I told him that I might get paid some day in the future.

This week Malchor and I worked at building a set of stairs to the second floor. On Friday, once again we poured concrete only this time instead of trucks and pumps we used a more traditional and more commonly used Mexican method of concrete pouring - the five-gallon pail. As you can see from the picture Rey helped with this pour and it turned out quite nicely. While this method is more labor intensive and harder on the body - I have bruises on my forearms from the pails - it has the advantage in that the concrete arrives when it is needed.



Joan has been busy teaching English Tuesday and Thursday mornings, working in the kitchen slicing everything from cactus to lettuce to peeling potatoes. She also began a project that has ignited a passion within her. As you can see from the photo below she is organizing the school library here at Pan de Vida. There would be more than a thousand books in the library, and while some of the books were set up according to theme, many, many have been added or mis-filed, so it's pretty much a disaster. She has also found such useful library equipment as a deflated basketball, and a length of one-inch chain, discarded textbooks (half completed), a box of elastic bands, and goodness knows what else, in and among the shelves. They will need more shelves in order to get all of the books onto the shelves (numerous boxes are strewn throughout). They are using the Dewey Decimal system, which puts all the world information into categories, by number (000 - Encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.), 100 is philosophy & psychology, 200 is religion, and so on, til 900. So far they have one stack of encylcopedias on the right shelf, with a label for its number, as well as they have been typed into a master list on the computer, which can be sorted by the number category, author or title. She has had Hannah, Rey & Jeff helping, as during the afternoons they have time, and that gets it done much quicker. Her aim is to get through the whole library by the time we leave, but we're not sure if that's feasible. We also shudder to think of what will happen to the organization they have worked on once we leave as there is no librarian here to ensure that the system is continued. Well, like everything else we do here we do the best we can and give it to God and the people of Pan de Vida when we leave to do with as they see fit.



Last Sunday afternoon and evening we had some neat tourist experiences. Queretaro is a city with a great deal of history. It was the seat of the Mexican Revolution against the Spaniards as well as figuring prominently in the authoring of the Mexican constitution. One of the outstanding features of Queretaro is an aqueduct that was constructed between 1726 and 1735. It stretches over a mile and consists of 74 arches that are as high as 28.5 meters at their highest and the bases of which are 20 meters square. It is a beautiful and impressive sight.



After we had been to Los Arcos we went downtown into the oldest part of the city. We were unable to park in a parkade downtown because the streets were blocked off. The reason, as near as we could figure, was that there was a cross Mexico car rally in the area and the cars were on display in the square downtown. So we parked our Suburban on one of the narrow streets downtown. The streets are so narrow that most of them are one-way streets where large vehicles like ours park with the side mirrors folded in so as to leave more room for travel. We had not realized that the mirrors should be folded in but someone did us a favor and folded ours in for us while we were away. On the way out of downtown we were driving down one of these streets when we came upon pick up truck that had parked a bit too far from the curb. We couldn't back up and go a different way because there was impatient traffic behind us. So we folded in both mirrors, I drove close enough to the curb that the tires were rubbing against the curb and I had about 4-6 inches of space between the pickup and our Suburban.

We were able to have pizza for supper that was excellent and after supper we wandered into one of the squares where there was a bandstand set up. We found that there was a concert going on. The band was excellent and the people were having a wonderful time. They were dancing and enjoying themselves. It was a beautiful sight to behold. It was just a wonderful time to enjoy people in a different place.

Just want to spend some time on this blog, now that I've been able to attach pictures, showing you some of the buildings and areas of the Pan de Vida site here in Queretaro. Actually we're technically not in Queretaro but somewhere in the vicinity of three villages: Los Angeles, Babinara and Santa Barbara which are all to the west of Queretaro even though it's tough to tell where Queretaro stops and these villages start.



The above picture is of what will one day be the Gymnasium/Auditorium that will facilitate Phys. Ed. classes for the students as well as providing a meeting place for the church that gathers at Pan de Vida Sunday mornings and Thursday evenings. The church now meets in the Dining Hall and that means that after church the tables have to be set up before they can eat lunch on Sunday or supper on Thursday. Just because there are no walls doesn't mean that the kids can't use this space. There is usually a soccer game of some sort going on with nets that looks suspiciously the size of hockey nets.



This picture is of the existing school building. This building had been started the last time that Joan and I were here in 2003. Classes are held from 8AM - 12:30 for the High School students and 8AM - 1PM or so for the younger students. There is also a university class the meets to equip some of the teachers and I believe they are able to grant a B.Ed. degree. They have teachers who come from Mexico City and other places to teach in the university program. One of these rooms is the space in which Joan teaches English classes and we just found out that there is a library here that needs some organizing and Joan is eager to begin that project as well.



This building really isn't a 7-11 store as the sign might lead you to believe. It is in fact a small snack shop that stocks chips, pop and Ice Cream. It is open at recess time in the morning as well as at set times in the afternoons. It seems to be run by some of the older children of the orphanage, but who orders stock and what happens to profits, if there are any, I don't know.



This building is the boys' dorm. This is the first building that was built here at this site. Pan de Vida used to be in the city of Queretaro - again I'm not exactly sure if it was technically Queretaro - in rented facilities that were quite run down with a school property some blocks away. Through a series of God events they were able to acquire this property and have been able to, over the course of the last 6 or 7 years develop this site. All of the money has been donated either by work teams that come here to work or from the Mexican government which in and of itself is a miracle that the Mexican government would support non-Catholic Christian facilities. When we were here in 2003 we slept in this building in two of the rooms and the oldest boys occupied a third room while the house parents lived in a small suite on the right hand portion of the building. You can't see the courtyard between the two sides of this U-shaped building but it is made up of interlocking brick which was one of our projects in 2003.



This is the newest building here at Pan de Vida and it is the Guesthouse. That name is somewhat misleading in that only the top floor is guesthouse. We occupy two rooms, whose windows are on the back side of the building, on the left hand side. The left hand brown door opens into a kitchen area and the right hand brown door opens into a Living Room area. One of the upstairs rooms is used as a classroom as well for High School and University classes. Right now we share this building with 2 women, Val and Mel, from Manitoba who are here for two weeks, Paco, the Maintenance man, Mattias, a German volunteer, and this past week two workers who were installing the equipment for a range hood and walk-in cooler in the kitchen. Earlier this week another German volunteer, David, moved into the city to take Spanish classes at the university having been here since July. The lower floor consists of a mechanical/welding shop - with the overhead doors - a carpenter shop, a storage room that is also in need of organizing and a general office.



This is the girls' dorm. This was the building on which our team poured the footings and foundations when we were here in 2003. In addition to the girls rooms there are rooms where some of the teachers stay. These teachers, who serve without salary, also give oversight to groups of girls in the dorm. On the main floor on the right hand side is a small apartment that is occupied by the director of Pan de Vida and his family. Darrel Hillbrands, the director of Pan de Vida, was born in upstate New York, married a Mexican woman, and became the director of Pan de Vida some 12 - 14 years ago. You may have noticed wheelchair ramps in some of the pictures, which is unusual for much of Mexico. The reason for these ramps is that Darrel is in a wheelchair having lost the use of his legs in an accident which occured before coming to Pan de Vida.



This is the the Dining Hall/Kitchen building. As you can see by the rebar sticking out of the roof it is technically unfinished and may some day have a second floor attached to it. This is also the space in which the church of Pan de Vida meets. The open cement area, that is to be the Gymnasium/Auditorium is on the left hand side of this building and there is an opening, now boarded over, between the east wall of the Dining Hall and what will one day be the Gymnasium/Auditorium.

Hallelujah! I was able to get a photo to load to the Blog!!

The above photo is of the construction site at which I (Herb) am working and the picture was taken from the edge of our balcony. The concrete area you can see is actual a form of cinder block that is notched on each end so that it will fit onto a precast concrete "girder". These blocks are relatively fragile and we ought not to walk in the middle of the block lest we break them. Yes, I've broken some blocks. The plan is that on Friday afternoon we will pour concrete on that floor. Malchor (our Mexican Construction Foreman) and I figured out that we will need 22 cubic meters of concrete to cover the floor to a depth of 10 centimeters. Construction here seems to be peculiar mixture of metric and SAE measurements. We went to a Home Depot in Queretaro this evening - I was looking for new work gloves, mine are almost worn out. You could tell it was a Home Depot but it was very obvious that this particular Home Depot was in Mexico!

Yesterday and today I have been feeling much better. My stomach seems to have become aclimatized and the same is true for the rest of the family. If we continue to feel this good we may venture into the Orphanage Dining Room for a meal in the next while.

Joan and I realized that now that we have arrived and settled into life in Queretaro there will be less 'news' to share with you. We do become somewhat routinized no matter where we might find ourselves, don't we.

I have tried not to comment on the weather here mainly because I never appreciate it when people brag about how hot it is where they are travelling when they know the weather is colder in Manitoba. However, in case you are curious you can read on. If you don't want to know about the weather in Queretaro, Mexico this time of year just skip to the next paragraph. Over the weekend the days were pleasantly cool -about 20-22 degress and somewhat breezy. This week the wind has died down and the temperatures have risen - today was about 27-29 with little or no wind. I found it quite hot working in the sun - I got my first heat related headache. The forecast is that it will remain hot tomorrow and cool for Friday and the weekend.

Tomorrow, Thursday, there is a worship service here at the orphanage at 6 PM, so we need to finish supper in time to get to worship. Unlike stories we hear of Mexico, church at Pan de Vida starts on time - the director is an American, born and raised in upstate New York. We have been blessed that, Eileen, a young woman from Texas who is one of the teachers here at Pan de Vida has agreed to translate the services for us. This makes it so much easier to follow along and look interested. My favorite part of the worship times here are the singing. The children sing with amazing enthusiasm. Occasionally they sing a song in Spanish that we sing at home in English and that helps us out. It's quite fun trying to keep up singing the Spanish lyrics from the Overhead, learning how to pronounce words as we go along.

Joan agreed to teach English to a class of 12 children Grade 3-4 who range in age from 8-15. Her first experience in classroom teaching was enjoyable for her and she is planning to go back again tomorrow as the English classes meet on Tuesday and Thursday. During her first class on Tuesday she was able to teach some English words and pronunciation to her students while writing down the Spanish equivalents of what she taught them. It seems that learning goes both ways here. Malchor, wants to learn English for when the work teams come in February so it takes us longer to find tools, nails and rebar etc. because I have to teach him the English word and learn the Spanish word for the tool we are using. I learned the Spanish words for nails, and two tools that are commonly used. The problem is I have forgotten those words as quickly as I have learned them.

Well, I think that's all I have to say for now. It's almost time for bed and it looks like the Skip-Bo game at the table where I'm writing this is winding down. Thanks for reading. Thank you so much for your prayers. They have carried us to this point and we trust they will continue to carry us. You have blessed us as you have prayed for us.

And now, a traffic report for Friday, Nov 3, @ 5:00 p.m. In the rush-hour this afternoon, seen outside the Pan De Vida casa, one pick-up, two girls, and three pigs. And that's it for the traffic, back to you, Herb.

Hola,

If we had somehow forgotten that we were in Mexico, our digestive systems have reminded us that we are definitely not in Winkler anymore. But such is life on the runs - ha ha, I thought that was too funny not to include.

We arrived at Pan de Vida in Queretaro on Tuesday in the mid-afternoon and ate our first meal at the orphanage. By Wednesday lunch our digestive systems had begun to assert their wills and while we took food from the orphanage we didn't eat much of it. Mostly the smells just turned our stomachs. At that point we decided that until we feel better we will do our own cooking in our guest house kitchen.

On Wednesday I (Herb) tried to work with Malchor but I just couldn't do it. I felt light-headed, my legs felt weak and my stomach was upset. I made it until coffee time and told Malchor I wouldn't be able to continue.

Joan worked in the kitchen that morning and had the good fortune to cut up cabbage that had been donated to the orphanage, worms and all. She also cut the spines off cactus leaves so that they could be cooked or something to be eaten. We didn't stick around to find out what they would use the cactus for.

After lunch we went into town and found a grocery store called Superama that seems to be run by Wal-Mart. Then we went to Wal-mart and Costco and felt a little better about our situation. It's amazing how much like the Wal-Marts and Costco's at home look like the ones here. We ate at McDonald's in the Wal-mart and never has McDonald's food been enjoyed as much by our family as it was that evening.

Thursday was a holiday in Mexico. It's sort of like All-Saints Day with a Mexican twist. As I understand it people get the day off work and they go to the cemetary to visit with their loved ones who are buried there and bring them (their dead relatives) their favorite foods to enjoy. We noticed in the grocery store that they sold bread that was in a unique shape and with our limited Spanish we were able to decipher that it was some type of bread for the dead. It reminded me that while we miss our loved ones who have died, our hope in Christ is that one day we will see them face to face in heaven, not in a cemetary leaving them "bread for the dead".

As a result of the holiday on Thursday we didn't have to feel guilty about not working. Joan didn't work in the kitchen and Malchor, the construction foreman, didn't come to work so I didn't have to worry about not going to work.

On Friday I was able to work all day with Malchor, his son Juan and a helper named Nico who seems to have somewhat impaired mobility in his right hand and leg. I acually made it all day with only a slight lie down at lunch time. We placed steel mesh and rebar for the second floor of the new wing of the school which they hope to have completed in approximately four months.

This morning the boys - Rey and Jeff - went to American Football practice. They came home having run/walked the equivalent of 2 kms at an altitude of approximately 6000 feet above sea level. They were pleased that they were the biggest kids in their age groups - the Mexican people here are not very tall of stature. Needless to say they didn't have much spunk when we were walking around downtown in the historic part of the city.

This morning Paco - a Mexican man who works at the orphanage - and I went into town to pick up bread and milk donations for the orphanage. It turned out that we didn't get to the bread store on time but we were able to get a donation of milk from Leche Queretaro one of the local dairies. It is rather a peculiar feeling to know that the place where we live relies so heavily on donations from others.

One the way home from the historic district we stopped at Superama to buy more groceries. There was much rejoicing in the family as we were able to find and purchase Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. The Superama only had four boxes so we bought them all in case some other desparate ex-patriot American or Canadian got to them before we did and, who knows, the Superama may have a manyana attitude toward restocking. We also bought a pizza for supper.

Tomorrow is Sunday and there is a church that meets at the orphanage, so we don't have to get up early for church - nor is there any way we should get lost going to church. In fact I have decided that I will try very hard not to set an alarm the whole time I am here. Joan observed that the only time pressures we are under are the ones we place on ourselves.

Joan has been asked to help with teaching English and Computer to the students at the Pan de Vida School. She is mulling over whether or not to do that and if she does consent, how would she go about doing so having never taken any TESOL classes.

I will try once again to add pictures to this blog to get you all up to date. If it doesn't work you will have to imagine what all of this looks like.

Grace and Peace to all.