12/17/19 Tues.  Monday evening, we did a sharing or talking circle with the whole group and the tribal people from Panama.  Everyone talked about what they were grateful for and it was very special.  Today was spent working on the Poster Presentation of our team’s research.  There was a large downpour of rain around noon which stopped by 1:30 and then started again around 5 and continued all evening.  We had a dry week thus far with some afternoon showers of 20 min. just a few times.  This afternoon around 1:30 we met with the visiting Panama tribal people and had a demonstration by the woman of how the leaf fibers extracted last Weds. were used to make string and then how the string was woven into hand bags. We also had a presentation on the environmental issues that face the Panama tribal people.  They too have large foreign companies who are mining on the land and polluting it and a dam was built that flooded their land and they were not provided with compensation or electricity.  Interesting parallels to issues faced by many tribes in the U.S.A.  This evening we did a good-bye party for the Panama group and basically shared some songs, stories or gifts from each of our cultures.  Nicole and I gave the woman from Panama some Ojibwe beaded earrings and birch bark/bead earrings.  She seemed to really like them.  Nicole and I practiced how to speak in Spanish so we could present her with the gift.