
Today was day four of our Panama trip. We all woke up bright and early to make best of the time that we have together. We started the day off eating breakfast which consisted of sandwiches, scrambled eggs, a fruit cup (watermelon and pineapple), and oatmeal milk. After we left our plates empty we went to a small town which was a 30 minute bus ride away, we spent our time in the bus sharing facts about the small town of Paris de Parita. We spent some time in the scorching sun walking around trying to get to know the community. We witnesed the daily lives of the people that lived in the town of Paris, how they start their day the music they listen to, and the animals that they have on their land. One of our Program coordinator, Mateo, played a wooden instrument that got everyone into a syncronized rythem while walking to the stadium that a girls futbol team was playing at the time. We were divied on who was going to win, we were cheering on both the Green and Black teams. The Black team made an outstanding goal in the first two minutes that got most of us to cheer and heard some locals become dissapointed in their daughters loss. We left shortly to continue on our journy of group activites. We stoped by Bettys hous first (One of the AMURAM members) and our us, Leaders of the Day (Muhammad, Gio, Karen) and both of our GGLs (Tess and Kim) took our lovely comrads into the activity that Betty was going to teach us. They tought us how she paints on rocks and gave us a rock to paint on which our glimpsers had fun painting on. She had a garden and invited us to look. The people who weren’t on Betty’s group continued walking until we got back to Eli’s house (Another key member of the AMURAM) and went on their own way to make it to Sonia’s house to make bracelets. She showed us around her garden and even gave us some star fruit to try. Some people were hesitant at first but most of them got the courage to try it and they ended up liking more then they thought they would. The group that went to Raquel took the bus for 5 minutes to get there instead of suffering in the blazing sun. In Raquels house we learned how to make mask using a red ant dirt and water mixture. We had to take our pointer finger and thumb and messure our faces and then mark our faces. We all had our fun and then started to make our way back to Donna Eli’s house where we ate lunch. We all got filled up by the food and the orange juice, we were given liquid I.V by Tess to refuel our electrolytes.

Dona Eli showed us how to make tamales. some of us grinded the corn. It was hard work, i dont know how she can do 200 tamales in one day. Once we gave our host gifts, we headed back to the hotel. We had some free time so most of us when to the plaza across the street and had a taste of home. We went to McDonalds. Then we went to a supermarket to stock up on snacks.

Later on some Guna people came to our hotel to facilitate a presentation on their history, culture, and traditions. We learned about their history and saw what their flag looks like they showed some traditional cloths that they made. They had some small items for sale which some of us bought.
Then we had some delicious dinner. After that we had our nightly meeting. We passed our torch to the next leaders of the day. Good luck to you Jalyn and Ariel!!!
– Gio, Muhammad, Karen