Ok, so I finally got around to taking some pictures of where I live. Alternative Missions has a base/compound sort of enclosure where Dave and Kathy and their son Jonathan live full-time. This is also where short-term teams stay when they are here. All the other staff live in houses in town, whether they own or rent. Since I'm a single woman, however, and because I'm wholly unfamiliar with life and culture in Mexico, I too live on the base. Right now I live in a room under Dave and Kathy's house and adjacent to a guest appartment, which is currently occupied by Dave's parents who come for 3-4 months at a time about once a year. They come and do projects of their own to help out the churches--building stuff, decorating stuff, or what have you. When Dave's parents (Marianne and Jack) leave in the beginning of April, I will move into the appartment, and I'll post pics when I move in. However, in the meantime, here's what the place looks like now.

This is a picture of the base from the front gate. The building straight back is the church palapa, where the Cofradia church currently meets on Sundays. My room, Dave and Kathy's house, and the appartment are all behind the church palapa. There is also another palapa behind the church palaps used for short-term teams for sleeping and also for sunday school. The structure making up the front wall where the picture is painted is the kitchen on the first floor and the gym on the second. You can see the name of the church painted on the front wall--Centro Cristiano. Off to the right behind the kitchen are two more palapas where the short-term teams sleep. The building to the left contains two showers and the workshop. Behind that and not visible is a building with two storage rooms, one of which is a dental clinic when dentists visit, and a sunday school room. The two people are Dave (in the foreground) and Jay (just behind).

This is my little room for now. There is another room in front of it, where I lived for a week when Linea was here helping to cool, but this is the room I'm living in until the appartment is vacated and I can move in there, where I'll have a kitchen and a living room as well well as a bedroom!

My current room and the appartment bedroom share a bathroom. It's actually a really nice bathroom! I do love the tiling they did in there. Much of the decorating was done by Dave's mom and dad, and they continue to make improvements while they are here--on the appartment anyway. For example, Dave's dad is a carpenter by trade, and he is currently making two bedside tables for the bedroom; he plans to have them finished before they return to Canada, so that I might use them after they leave!

And this is the view from almost my backyard...acutally my backyard is the police station which buts right up against the back wall of the base, but if I were to walk about two blocks straight down from the front gate, this is the view. Isn't it breathtaking? Pictures really don't do it any justice at all!