Panamanian culture and I

So as November is the month of Patria (Panama celebrates its independence from Spain and Columbia) lets take a blog post to appreciate some cultural traditions of Panama. As I´ve already mentioned, Panama has a million holidays this month including many many desfiles (parades). Panamanians still think its odd that we don´t have desfiles this month except one. Macy´s Thanksgiving Day parade counts even though I never actually go but enjoy it from the TV screen while my mom and I are in the kitchen preparing for our Thanksgiving meal.

Anyway, the women dress in traditional Panamanian attire called Polleras (po-ye-ras). See pics below. They also wear decorative hair pieces called tembleques. These were taken at various parades that I´ve been to this month.

(above shot plus the 3 following shots) These were taken at my training site for a different kind of parade a little over a month ago.

Wait for it.... Wait for it....

(above) SURPRISE!! I got to dress up for a night of Patria we had at my host mom´s church the other night! I loved it and the whole church gave me an applause for choosing to dress in traditional Panamanian attire :)

And yes, a couple hours later I had the biggest headache with all that stuff on my head. I couldn´t wait to get it off. I don´t know how these girls walk and dance for hours in parades with all this stuff on!

(above) Here I am with my host sister and her daughter.

(above) I´m holding my friend´s niece. Baby pollera!

At every parade I went to I always told the people I was with that before these 2 years are up, I was going to dress up in a pollera. Didn´t know that it was going to be this soon! Next time I´m going for a more colorful one and less hair pieces ;)