Bitter Sweet Day (Dec. 16, 2019)

What a day,

Start of the morning was a rough start, I was tired, congested, sore ear, throat and pressure in my sinus but thankfully got through that from hiking.  Today we went about 6 miles to collect the remaining trail cams along the Melissa Trail and Wilson Trail.  It was pretty cool because on the way Juan showed us where the Vampire Bats roosted in a tree that had a hollow center.  I also got to see capuchin monkeys up close there were about 10 around us playing and eating in the trees.

Another experience I got from the hike was to dress in my ribbon skirt to experience what it is like for Lucia to hike many miles in her traditional dress.  Well I sure did have an experience, I kept having to roll up my dress in order to have more freedom to walk, it was so got kinda just retained the heat within the dress but I was able to keep it clean just like hers.  I also wanted to experience this due to how our ancestors used to travel in their traditional clothing and do the same.  I also got to share more ties with Lucia in regards to our horse culture and how our horses become one of us, we had a similar conversation how our horses knew we were pregnant with our kids and our horses would take care of us and also our children. It was touching because I have such a huge horse culture and we got to share that with another through Juan.  It is also enriching because you see the fascination and interest Juan takes to our conversations and can really see how he appreciates that.

During the early afternoon, we all got to spend time with Armando and took us through the garden to show us what plants are used for as far as medicine which is so awesome.  Armando reminds me of my Chei who was an elder, leader and medicine man and knew what every living thing did in his area and their purpose.  I treasure that and still have yet to tell him that I have that impulse of wanting to call him Chei.  I really enjoyed his ceremony that he had for us to welcome us into the forest and the song that he shared as well.  It means a lot to me that the Indigenous Peoples do these prayers and ceremonies because they are all in good spirit for luck, protection, safety as well as all living things we will be facing.

Coming back to research and analyzing data, on of the best finds I really enjoyed on the trail cams was an ant eater and a bat that was fluttering around in our videos.  I love the interaction of my peers when they would get excited and come over because myself, Juan and Jessica would be so fascinated with what we captured.  Still have a lot of data to go over but I will bust my butt off to get that all done tomorrow as well as my poster.  I am ready for this and feel it will all begin to come along as soon as end of day tomorrow.  I want to change my color scheme though, i noticed many others are using black backgrounds and kind of want to make it different than others but still integrate Juan's favorite color green in there.

Before the night ends we go to share as a group how grateful we are for this trip and out favorite thing about this opportunity.  It felt really good to share mine which was we all empower ourselves by being an inspiration to all around us to further our education and professionalism, it is such an amazing thing to see such passion in everyone with their expertise and eagerness to learn new things.  Also being able to make these culture ties with the indigenous people relating so many things to one another's culture and we live so far from one another and that really does connect us all as indigenous people as well as individuals who may not be of being indigenous.  I had so much more to say but didnt want to take up a lot of time so everyone was able to share theirs.  But I felt we all needed this to hear each other what we're grateful for to bring us back together that we are all one people to support, help and build one another and we can all do great things together than alone.