ME = STUPID

Me. Sweaty. Humid. No shower. Don't judge.

Yes. That's a semi-permanent tattoo. And yes, it is on my face. Actually on my nose, the part of my face that sticks out for everyone to see. Yes, I might be just a little bit stupid. But before you judge me too harshly let me tell you how it happened, and neither alcohol nor roofies were involved. Just my own lack of judgement. So, last week I was in Panama (don't worry I will blog about the whole trip in DETAIL later). We were in Kuna Yala, an area of Panama where the Kuna Indians live. We were staying in the village of Irgandi, part of San Blas, for those of you who know your Panamanian geography. Oh, and I should mention that they don't speak Spanish in Irgandi. They speak Kuna or Tule or Dule or Tulegaya or Dulegaya, depending on who you ask. It is all the same language, it just has many names. And it isn't at all related to Spanish. It is a Native American language and basically sounds like "boogidy boogidy boo" over and over when they speak. I'm sure it makes sense to them though. So one day my new found friend Whitney and I were walking in the village and we passed a group of women all congregating outside one of the huts. One of the women looked at me and said, "igi be nuga?" Which I got mixed up with the word "nuedi" which means hello/goodbye, like aloha. So I waved and put on a big cheesy smile and said "igi be nuga" back. Unfortunately however, "igi be nuga" does not mean "hello" but instead means "what is your name?" So basically this lady said to me, "what is your name?" and I smiled and waved and said "what is your name?" right back to her. Oops. Well, that got the women laughing and so we stopped to "talk" using sign-language, body-language, a little Spanish, and the few Kuna words Whitney and I knew. And we found out the reason that they were congregating in front of the hut. They were painting each other's noses, as is normal to do in Kuna Yala. And they asked us if we wanted our noses painted too. I thought, can't hurt, right? I should fully immerse myself in the culture I guess. So, we said yes. I sat down and one of the ladies started painting my nose. They do lots of different designs on their noses but it usually consists of a long line down the bridge of the nose and then smaller lines crossing that line. Sometimes they paint little asterisk or star looking things that are super cute. The lady painting my nose however COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING (which I didn't understand why until later.) So she was a little shaky to say the least and so her mom came over and grabbed the brush and took over. The mom however was a little old and therefore shaky too, so the neighbor lady comes by, and disapproving of their work, grabs the brush and finishes painting my nose. I'm not sure what they were using to paint us but they had these little medicine man type bowls and were adding a black powder to the mixture. I just thought the powder was ash and thought to myself, 'Well, this isn't going to last long on my nose. Especially with how humid it is and how much I'm sweating. It will be fun for the few hours it lasts.' Well, I was WRONG because as soon as Whitney and I met up with the rest of our group, one of our group members who had been to Kuna Yala several times before informed us that what was "painted" on our noses was more like a tattoo than paint and would probably last 3 to 4 weeks. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! It would have been one thing if the ladies had done a good, non shaky job, and I had some cool little star looking thing on my nose, but instead it looked like an evil kindergartner had gotten a hold of a black sharpie and done some work on me while I was asleep. I instantly grabbed a cotton ball and some astringent and went to work on shortening the lifespan of my tattoo. And, the black did fade a bit after a good scrub with astringent. But, a few hours later, the black resurfaced, darker than ever. However, I persisted and, thanks to half a bottle of astringent, the sun, salt water from swimming in the ocean, sweat, humidity, and sunscreen, what was mean to last 3 to 4 weeks only ended up lasting 3 to 4 days. Yay! So, in conclusion, the lesson learned here is... Don't let a Kuna paint your nose, especially if they are laughing in the process. The end. But more to come soon on my adventure in Panama.