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.