Nothing unsaid (Dec. 17, 2019)

Good Morning All once again,

I know it has been a few days, it has been from this day and so forth where days went by fast with so much to do and be crammed into a day.  Woke up this morning to see the sunrise and it was beyond beautiful.  Super cloudy almost looked like there was an ocean over San Vito as the clouds layed over the valley.  Myself Luke and Jameson were able to witness it together.  

After such a great morning watching the sunrise we got straight to work since we were able to collect all of our cameras and successfully went through them once and just to make sure we got every ounce of data I double checked all the cameras, marked the gps points, how many files were in each one and all the detections that triggered the camera then recorded all animal classes out of those detections.  Juan and I from there were able to put some graphs together and decided that we were going to do our research based on the amount of animal species we caught on camera in the primary forest and secondary logged forest.  It had turned out that we set up our cameras pretty perfect we had deployed half of the 21 cameras we put up in the primary and other half in the secondary.  

At this point Juan and I had a draft outline of how we wanted the poster but not super solid until I played with 2 different layouts.  I still decided that I wanted to go with a green color scheme because I wanted to share Juan's favorite color and something that was appealing on a black background which was green.  

Everyone took a break to hear Celestino's presentation on being a community leader and what it is they struggle through with the government when it comes to their own natural resources, way of life and politics.  It is super saddening to hear that they have almost no rights to anything on their own land without having to ask permission from the government to even cut a tree down if they needed to and just like Native Americans, dams were put up to benefit the people but it certainly didn't.  Lucia was also able to finish her class on getting the fibers extracted from a leaf and turn those fibers into thread in order to weave a little bag.  It was amazing to see what it takes to make the bags she and her community had been selling in order to make their income this way for their homes and life.  She had students participate with her and I could tell she was having a great time teaching as well as entertained by the learning process of the students trying to make ends meet on the making of a little bag.

Lazaro was able to speak to all of us that night about what it has taken him to be chief of his tribe and how he is always still learning, humble and committed to his people.  He explained that this was passed down from his father and took that role on and also chosen by their elders, it sounds that his father was a very respected man.  At this time we were asked if we wanted to share anything before they departed the next morning,  I had promised Lazaro that I would explain my tattoo as a cultural exchange and so I did as well as speaking of the relation between our cultures and theirs that we do things very similar although we are thousands of miles apart.  I also went down the line of each leader and let them know what most had inspired me about them.  I never like to leave things unsaid so I'm learning to say what I need to in the time that I have so I'm not leaving with any regrets.  I feel that I was able to accomplish that.