I woke up at 6:30 and went out to read on the balcony. Amber and Lauren appeared around 7. We wrote in our journals for a while. I ate cornflakes, and then Amber showed me how to cut mangos and we ate two. Afterwards, we put on our swimsuits and sunscreen. However, when we looked outside, the church party had already started at 9am! Tato had told Lauren that there was going to be a retiro of the church at the beach house on Sunday. We thought that there was going to be a retirement party. However, the people outside were all teenagers. Later, we figured out that “retiro” means retreat, not retirement. We decided to go to the beach instead of the pool. The sun was very strong (bien fuerte) and we were hot. After an hour, we put our stuff back in the house and we went swimming in the warm ocean. Later, we returned to the house and I showered for the first time at La Ceiba. With all the extra sunscreen, my body felt very dirty, so I was thankful that we had water working. Next, we ate sandwiches with some questionable lunchmeat that we had purchased at the grocery store. We also ate carrots (some of the biggest carrots I had ever seen, I might add) and apples with peanut butter. We relaxed a while and then we went to walk on the beach, looking for a place where we could buy water. We were nearly out of bottled water, and it is not safe to drink the tap water. We left a note for Tato in case he came over. The sun was still quite strong, so I was glad that I had put on more sunscreen. We found children selling pan de coco (coconut bread) and we bought two for 20 lempiras. They were in the shape of a spiral (kind of like a flat version of a cinnamon roll) and very sweet. While we were walking, we came across the woman who had made the bread. She noticed us eating it and told us that it was her grandchildren who had sold it to us. We talked with her and then we continued on our walk. Someone had told us that there was a shop nearby where we could buy water. We walked to a restaurant that was similar to the one at which we had eaten on our way to the beach house and then we turned around, still looking for the illusive shop. There is a picnic area near the beach house with lots of tables and grass. Families come and hang their hammocks and enjoy the weekend at the beach. We asked a family about the shop. The mother offered to drive us in their truck. We couldn’t exactly understand her directions about the location of the shop, so we took her up on her offer. We awkwardly climbed in the back of the truck (as some of us were wearing skirts) and the man drove us. It was farther than we had anticipated. We drove by a soccer field filled with people. We were the only people that I saw who were not Garifuna! We bought a bottle of water, four bags of water, and three granizados (icy fruit drinks) that were delicious. We offered to buy something for the man, but he refused our offer and bought beer. He drove us back to the beach. We returned to the house and Tato was there. He had brought us lunch (it was probably about 4 at this time). Although we weren’t very hungry, we ate chicken, tortillas, beans, and Coca Cola. Sam and other friends came also. Lauren asked Tato if there are any hammocks at the beach house because she remembered some from the time before. He ordered the man who cares for the beach house to get out the hammocks. When it started raining, we relaxed in the hammocks under the house. Tato and his friends sat out under the roof by the pool. Lauren and Amber shared the big hammock and I lay in the other. I continued to copy Amber’s Spanish notes for almost two hours. The man left at 6:30. We played Rummy on the floor under the house. Sandra, the woman who cares for the house, came over to talk to us. She has two children, Susana (~4 years old) and Fernando (~2 years old). After they went back inside, we played a bit more, but the bugs started biting us and we decided to go swimming before going inside. I was surprised that the water felt warm, or maybe even cool. The teenager who lives here (some relative of Sandra?) stayed out near us because of the danger of bad people passing by on the beach. We returned to the house and rinsed off. We gave each other massages. I read for a little and went to bed at 10:45.
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