Hello everyone! Kate and I have been busy this month wrapping up our UNDP grant and also managed to fit in a brief trip up to the East Coast to see my family. Carnival has long since come and gone (Gracias a Dios!) and life has returned to normal. For those of you who did not catch our 2010 Carnival Blog post, check it out here.
So this is carnival in a nutshell: our provincial capital of Las Tablas has the largest carnival celebration in Panama and quite possibly one of the largest in Latin America outside of Brazil. Las Tablas, population 10,000, transforms into a 24/7 party for over 100,000 people for just under a week. I don’t think you can truly appreciate these numbers unless you have been to Las Tablas during and outside of Carnival. During the day, everyone parties in the streets and at night, everyone goes into makeshift discotheques to continue the party into the wee hours of the morning only to start the party all over again the next day. Buildings and stores shut down and are replaced by makeshift restaurants and street vendors to feed and keep the masses inebriated. Coors even prints up specialized Coors Light Carnival cans to help the Panamanians celebrate. It’s truly bizarre and walking through town in the days afterward feels like you are entering the movie set for some sort of post-apocalyptic blockbuster. Kate put together a great album because pictures do carnival much more justice than words.
This was our second carnival and I feel that we approached the situation more like the locals and less like tourists. This year, we elected to stay in our community so we could take advantage of such amenities as running water, a private latrine, and our own bed. This allowed us to commute into to see our friends and catch the best parts of the celebration but also to experience Carnival with our community. The highlight for both of us was the time that we spent in our community. Each year, our sleepy little town of less than 200, builds a make -shift bar and spends the night singing and enjoying each others company. The men get together and drink, the women get together and gossip, and the kids just run around. Years from now when I am reminiscing about Carnival, I think my first thoughts will inevitably drift towards these memories in the community and the connections that we both have made over the last year and a half. I guess Carnival is what you make of it and I’m glad we were able to share that time with our friends and neighbors.
That’s all for now. I know that we have been neglected the blog but we have some pretty good posts planned for the next few weeks. Here’s the link to the photo album again in case you missed it.
