#1-the arrival

Today was poster day!  The students did a great job on the poster and I'm looking forward to them presenting.  They came through in a big way, and I was really excited for them to show their great work.

Working on the poster today and continuing some data analysis.  Kate and Shaniah are reading the literature for last minute connections to make with our data.  Excited for tomorrow!

Un dia de analisis de data.  We stayed most of the day in the lab working on data today.  Getting some interesting results.  We saw some awesome tucans today. 

Yay I got back on my blog! - Tuesday!

Good day to dial it down slightly.  Our free day!  We went for a walk with Armando, and he showed us some wonderful plants and how he uses them.  These spiny palms are used for fibers to make the hat he was wearing (pic).  Victoria shared with us how the Ngobe people process a large bromeliad for fibers for making cord and thread.  I was excited to try translating for the group for her, and it went pretty well.  Scott is an awesome translator, so he helped out when I got stuck on a concept.  It was fun to see the students try out scraping the leaf with a wooden bamboo tool.  Victoria is so talented.   After this, I rested some, and then Kassandra, Michael, Secily and I took a taxi into San Vito to shop and meet everyone at dinner.  Good pasta and company:)   Thank you so much Jessica and Scott for organizing this week, and orchestrating all the taxis and pizza.  I know it's not easy to get us all to where we need to go safely and comfortably.  Big round of applause to you!  

Today, moving a bit slower... Still feeling extremely fortunate to be at this beautiful place, but not getting as much sleep as I'd like for all the hiking and activity we are doing each day.  We worked through a few samples today, and identified some interesting invertebrates.  There was a rat-tailed maggot in our sample!!  Love that name.  Plenty of beetle larvae and mosquitoes, too.  We had looked at one of the camera traps earlier, and saw an agouti.  When we collected the other camera traps, nothing but people were on there - bummer.  We left two cameras out until Monday so hopefully we will find something on them.  Saturday night, the cultural exchange was really beautiful.  I loved Jayden's song.  It took me somewhere else.  The rest of the exchanges were really wonderful, and I really appreciate each of you sharing from the heart.  I would like to share a song from my family, but feel a bit too shy right now.