Rocking in the rain again today. We collected gravel and rocks and passed them minga style to the work site.

This afternoon, we visited a women's group at the artisan market. The women make jewelry, baskets, and pottery together from natural resources. They get string from a local plant and beads from tagua, tree nuts. The profits help the women better contribute to supporting their families.

When we returned to Minga Lodge, I led a ballet/yoga session. Interesting? People said it was very relaxing. 

Tomorrow, we will visit a food market to discover how the average indigenous family living in the Amazon region buys food to feed many people on less than $1 per meal.

There is rain in the rainforest. Word.
All morning it poured here at the lodge. We continued to work despite the weather in the village. Eventually, the sun did come out but the work conditions remained very muddy.

In the afternoon, we had a traditional cooking lesson. As expected, one of the foods we prepared was yuca. Yuca is a food staple here (similar to a potato in texture) and we have eaten it with every meal so far.
Let's see...there's yuca potatoes, yuca soup,  yuca fries, yuca honey desert, yuca chips, yuca pancakes, and just plain yuca. Yuca seems to be a constant - more yuka to come.

In the cooking session some people also ate grub (live). I personally didn't try it, but for the people who did, grub was eaten by biting the head of the bug first, chewing, then swallowing.

Night shenanigans:

We rock'n. It's a rock'n day because...today we crossed the river to collect large rocks to take back for cement at the site. The shuffle:

After we finished rocking out, we joined the village children in a game of soccer. The children are very talented! It's a good thing we played with and not against the children - no doubt they would've won.

The cacao plant is important - from it chocolate is made. This afternoon, we met a local cacao grower and made our own chocolate - yum? The cacao farm owner taught us about the process of making chocolate - it takes about 30 days from beginning to end.