Seducing the Spirits

When Jenny, a graduate student in ornithology, is assigned to a birding project in a remote area of Panama, she is given one directive by her superior: Don't piss anyone off. Almost immediately, this proves difficult, for the study site is located near an indigenous village. At first, Jenny finds the Kuna people to be a prickly lot, quick to take offense. But as the weeks pass, she becomes better acquainted with the natives, including Pedro, a man cynical and detached from his own culture; shy Iris, who married and then was abandoned by Jenny's predecessor; and Ceferino, with whom Jenny shares a passion for the natural world. She also encounters outsiders with their own agendas for the Kunas and the surrounding rainforest. Jenny becomes drawn into the Kuna culture as it struggles to retain a traditional identity in the face of erosion from both without and within.