Dia de Madre

Just as in the states, November and December here in Panama are filled with lots of holidays and celebrations. November is "Mes de la Patria" or the patriotic month here and they celebrate everything from independence from Colombia, independence from Costa Rica as well as local celebebrations to mark the day each province was founded. Students recite poetry and salute the flag, there are tons of parades and lots of eating. Think 4th of July all month long.

December is no different and it started off a few days ago with with Dia de Madre. I know most of you are thinking, isn´t Mother`s Day in May? Not here. It is December 8th here in Panama and my first Mother`s Day was a few days ago and it was an experience. In my community, the fathers fundraise for 6 months prior to buy gifts and food for every mother in the village. Food preparations start the day before since there is so much to do. I helped the women bake bread for breakfast and we used over 70 lbs of flour. The men butchered a whole cow, which was certainly something I hadn´t seen before and I didn´t realize it was so much work. The day of, all the women are presented gifts, play games to win prizes and are served mountains of food, but the highlight was watching the women try to climb a greesed pole to reach a bag of prizes at the top. I think this is something we should make all mothers do back in the states and it was hilarious to watch. I am posting a little video for you all to enjoy as well as some photos from the day off.

This is a photo of our community "rancho" all decorated for dia de madre. It is in the middle of town and serves as the main gathering point for any event, meeting or graduation as well as a sometimes-classroom, playground when it is raining, and basketball court.


These are just some of the cooks working hard in the kitchen. Most of them stayed up all night cooking. The guy on the bottom left in the blue shirt is my host dad, Martin. One the menu was rice, marinated beef, potato salad and "chicha", which they use to refer to any is any sort of beverage. I think they made tutti frutti punch.




I just posted the video below and as you can see is not turned the right direction. I tried changing in my camera and on blogger, but I can`t figure it out. It is short so turn you head side ways and enjoy. I think this was the fourth attempt at trying to reach the top and it took them only about 10 minutes. These ladies were not giving up.



I think this is my favorite photo from the whole day. It is the host-aunt, Leyda. She is awesome and I like her a lot. She is nineteen and usually around the house so we have gotten to know each other pretty well. She has an adorable 4 year old son, Christian and lives in my house with her man, Poe. She is normally pretty quite and reserved, so when she saw this photo she couldn´t stop laughing. Neither could I. Needless to say I can`t wait for Dia de Padre. That is in June and all the women are already talking about how they are going to out-do the men. Better gifts, better food...etc. Overall, I was nice to see a whole community come together to express appreciation for the work the women do. They work hard in the village to take care of the kids, cook, wash and work in the farm. Made me think about my own mom...I wish she was there to celebrate as well.