Buenas! I hope everyone at home is happy and well!

I arrived in David, in the western part of the country, a couple of hours ago after spending a week in the province of Colon for culture week. I was in Colon at an Embera site with 4 other aspirantes and 2 volunteers. Before I left, my APCD told me, half-kidding (or so I thought) "enjoy your week vacation!" Well, he wasn´t kidding. I bathed in a waterfall everyday, I ate patacones and fried fish, I had my body painted in the traditional style (pictures soon to come, I promise!), I sat around and talked to my home stay family and then community members as well as the other volunteers--it was pretty wonderful. We had a pretty wonderful time.

The body painting is called jagua, and the next time I get a chance, I will absolutely post pictures of it. It´s beautiful, and they paint it in patterns all over their bodies for ceremonies and celebrations. And for tourists. A lot of what this particular community does now is for their ecotourism. But, they did jagua this week because they were having a big presentation on Friday and they were all dressing in the traditional dress. So I got painted all over my upper body! The jagua comes out dark blue on my skin, black on theirs. It lasts 8 days, or so. It´s beautiful, and I promise anyone that comes down a little paint action at my site!

This week I´ll be in the Ngabe-Buble Comarca (reservation) for tech week. Tech week will not be relaxing, but it will be informative. It´ll be the first time that I´ll actually get to do hands on stuff, which is what I´m really looking forward to. We get to build latrines and look at how to fix aquaducts. It`ll be great for me, because I don`t have any idea what that requires! I`ll report back afterwards.

Things are good otherwise. Training is flying by! I`ll be sworn in as a volunteer in just under 5 weeks, which is nuts! I feel like I just got here! Soon enough I`ll be reporting from my site in the Darien. Wish me luck!