Birthdays, holidays, anniverseries and funerals...Oh my!

 

 

 

The month of October and November have been slow in regards to work, but busy because it is a time full of activities. It is a time of holidays, dance, games, and food. In other words this ex-vegetarian has seen more animals slaughtered these past 2 months than she’s ever seen in her life.

There has been 3 birthdays this month; one in particular I helped in the slaughtering of a pig. It’s quite the task and felt myself a little queasy at moments but I did learn a lot of new anatomical vocabulary in Spanish. In sharing my culture, I have been teaching families how to make brownies and “no bake” cookies.  There is an abundant amount of cacao here, but since most only sell the seeds, many do not take the time to enjoy the chocolate themselves!

 

Birthday Pork hanging from the patio



Mickey Mouse pinata! Unfortunately no one knew who he was...

 

The teachers decided to celebrate the school anniversary for the first time since the school’s history. Every class put on a presentation, sharing some aspect of Panama’s culture. There was dance, songs, and plays. Other schools from surrounding communities also attended and after the presentations the students played volleyball and baseball.  

November is a cluster of important holidays in Panama. I present a very short yet ”accurate” history. The Great Nation of Panama was founded in on November 3rd, 1903 when the occupants of a tiny isthmus said, "Hey, cut it out" to some Colombians. The Colombians were angry, and I'm sure put up a fight, but the end, the Panamanians won their independence. 4^th was put as Flag Day.. which was just another excuse to continue the celebration. Then, the province of Colon was like, "Hey, and us?" And so they named November 5^th Colon Day. 5 days later the province of Los Santos also wanted their own independence day. The 16^th of November the province of Bocas also wanted in on the fun.  Finally on November 28th, Panama finally won its independence from Spain..even though chronologically speaking, this happened way before the rest of the holidays.

So much pork

Everyone got to enjoy the food

2^nd of November was the killing of the cow and so began the eating. On the 3^rd of November the community saluted the flag and sung the national anthem. Then we ate more cow and I tried to persuade the community to dance (Ngäberes are known for being very shy). Ate more cow. 4^th of November the teachers and I finally got the students to dance.. which led to a 5 hour dance marathon. We took a break to eat the last bits of the cow, then the adults continued to dance throughout the night.

Before her dance presentation wearing traditional Latino dress 

Traditional Ngäbere dance

cooking with extra large tools



so much meat...

Carrying meat from the slaughter site

Saluting the flag

 

Unfortunately during this time of festivity, there was a tragedy. On the night of the 1^st , a lady died in a neighboring community from tuberculosis. I did not personally know her but many members of my community were affected. They invited me to go to the funeral on the following night. Traditionally, when someone dies participants of the funeral stay up all night with the body until he/she is buried the next morning. I stayed up until 3 am and unfortunately could not stay up any longer and found a community member to walk back with me. I woke up at 7 to attend the burial but was delighted to see that people were still animated to continue the traditional celebrations despite the loss. I would also like to admit that this was my first funeral in my entire life, a crazy time to experience it and I cannot compare it to any other funerals but it was beautiful seeing the community come together to celebrate the life of Maria.

 

The funeral