Weather: Sunny and 85, very humid

Today I had class at 9am and we started class with a trip to the water treatment facility. It was about a 10 minute drive from campus and pretty cool. I thought the landfill was more interesting because it's such a huge process. Here it's a bit weird that they have the water treatment facility because people don't drink the water here. My host family has a separate faucet I use to get my water, and some families use refillable water jugs. They had different tanks for the levels of sand that's pulled out of the water at different steps.

After that we went back to the school and I gave my presentation on an article we had to read. It went well, although I was really unsure how it would go because I had no motivation to work on the presentation. I got it done yesterday but didn't put as much effort into it as I should have. I'm glad it's over and my professor liked the presentation so it was a success in my eyes. I headed to lunch afterwards with some friends, and then we all treated ourselves to candy since it's valentines day. After eating the candy, I had a slight headache and didn't feel well at all. I will not be doing that again. It was super weird (as I've never felt that awful after eating candy), and way too much sugar for me.

I headed back to campus and talked with my professor about doing research with her. I don't know that I am up for it because she wants me to go door to door and have locals take a survey about cultural ecosystem services. This means like which beaches they use, and how they view them. Things like that...my professor has data on the tourists so I think when she gets data on locals she is going to compare the two. The problem is I don't know Spanish well enough to help them if they don't understand the survey. As a foreign white girl it's probably not the best idea to be going to strangers houses. The good thing about this opportunity is that I would be able to analyze the responses as my capstone as long as my advisor approves. As of now, I'm waiting to hear about the other opportunities available because I'd rather do something else that doesn't require such a big time commitment and involve going door to door.

At 4:45, Lucy, Lily, Raina, and I headed to the yoga studio up the street from campus. The yoga studio is also a house and the woman that runs the whole thing is named Stine. She's a vegan on this island and from Denmark. She was here volunteering 5 years ago and fell in love. Now the two are married and they have a baby boy. Anyways, Stine is very into essential oils and she offered us all a free workshop. She introduced us to common oils and told us about what they are used for. Since I've been having trouble with my stomach she showed us one that helps with digestion and getting rid of gas. I rubbed some on my stomach, and shortly after leaving I was less gassy and bloated. It was truly remarkable. She also said that using lavender and tea tree can help with acne and act as a cleanser. She uses the oils for everything and she makes her own cleaning products with them. I never thought I'd be into it but I was impressed, and when I get back to the states I plan on buying myself some.

I headed back home after that because I was pretty tired. I got back to Ana and Helena. It was fine but then Helena was moving this small table and chair set around and it was making a fingers against chalk board sort of noise. I was slowly losing my mind...then the cousin Chino and his daughter came back and he put on a gallon of cologne so I had an immediate headache. He then turned on the TV full blast and then proceeded to watch a movie on his phone at full blast. It was comical and annoying all at the same time. It's funnier now that I'm writing this but in the moment I was not a fan. I eventually couldn't take all the noise so I headed to my room and then all of a sudden Helena started screaming bloody murder. It was a lot and I miss the peace and quiet I was able to get at Ines's. I love this family a lot but it is a big adjustment. I think once the cousin and his kid leaves it will go back to being better. There's just a lot of people packed in a tiny house right now.

After I had dinner made by Anahi I went with Sara and Audrey to the boardwalk to see what was going on. Our friend Nicola was on a date with a local boy so I offered to be in the vicinity in case she wanted an out. Their date ended up going really well and I think he's really nice which is refreshing because there are a lot of land sharks here. It was a much needed relaxing evening and I was able to get some souvenirs as well.