DAY 4 Sunday May 17:

Kate…

Today was our rest day.  We spent Saturday night in Santa Rosa, which is a nearby beach development, but not many people have built houses on the land.  But, there is one family, the Marletts, who have built a BEAUTIFUL home and have been gracious enough to let us stay there when and if we need to (Thank you Terri and Chris!).  We woke up this morning and finished our blog for the first day.  Took a little while.  Oops.  I’ve always been good at procrastinating. 

After we finished, we asked Veronica, who is the caretaker of the house, to take us back to El Transito.  Waiting for us when we arrived were Amilcar, Julio, Alminto, Ronal, and Emily, our little entourage.  Love them.  Alminto, Ronal, and Emily are brothers and sister and live across the street.  They are the cutest!  Alminto is 4 years old, full of it, loves attention (and Oreos), and sounds like a little girl still.  Ronal is 5 years old, and a little gordo (chubby).  He loves to smile and be around us.  He always calls us “las gringas” and always wants to know where we’re going.  Emily is the oldest of the three and is very quiet, but she is a sweet girl.  We already mentioned Amilcar, but Julio is our next door neighbor.  He is fourteen years old and a talkative one.  Sometimes too talkative.  But he is also a very nice boy.

After that, Amilcar and Julio accompanied us to the beach.  We ended up walking to my Mom’s friend’s hotel.  His name is Roger.  He is also a gringo from the states.  YES!  We’re not the only ones!  We stopped by to say hello and drop off some saddle soap, horseradish, and sour patch kids, things you can only buy in the US that he misses dearly.  After hanging out for a bit, we walked back with the two boys and took some fun pictures.  They were incredibly fascinated with the camera.  Amilcar took my glasses and was looking extra fly.  They were a little big for him, which only made it cuter.  Beth ended up dunking Amilcar in the ocean in all of his clothes, but he didn’t seem to mind.  He actually quite enjoyed it.

When we got back, we rested for a little bit, and then made our way up the “painfully,” said Beth, HUGE hill to the 5 PM church service.  Their service is very different from what we’re used to.  There were about 20-30 people there.  They sang a lot, clapped a lot, and when the Pastor was praying, each person was also praying out loud.  Something very different and new for Beth to see.  They also stood up a lot, which for a two hour sermon, was not so much fun.  The Pastor gave a sermon on the story about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden from Genesis.  I forgot to mention the pronunciation of Beth’s name by the Pastor.  Basically, can’t describe how he said it.  He was not even close.  At first, he actually didn’t attempt to say her name, but after Beth was like, “Pastor, what’s my name?”  he tried but struggled and it came out as a grunt.  Perfect.  Right before the service was about to end, the Pastor asked us if we wanted to sing a song?  Haha me and Beth sing…  That’s funny.  We said maybe next time.  Which you will hear about later. Beth would like to add that Emily held her hand the whole walk back from church, and she thought it was adorable.

After church, we had a quick round of cards with the Pastor and the little ones.  I decided to bring out a bowl of oreos.  Funny how Alminto thought de deserved three and everyone else only deserved one.  He grabbed those things so fast!  No one else even had a chance.  Too cute.

Overall, a relaxing beach day with an awesome church service.