Halloween in Panama

-

The day before Halloween, the Ciudad del Saber had an end-of-the-workday Halloween party.  When I left at 5 p.m., it was an hour into the event but in other ways just getting started.  There were lots of cool costumes, good music (pretty much what you'd hear at a U.S. Halloween party, with "Monster Mash" and "Thriller" and "Ghost Busters" and such), and very yummy food.  Almost all of the people there were in costumes -- it's hard to imagine seeing that at most U.S.-based office parties I've seen.

And, with limited access to costuming material, I'm a . . . duck.
Guess who got to see a huge thunderstorm this day?

Leading up to Halloween day, I was repeatedly told that it's a U.S. thing, not a Panama thing, except that some Panamanians are starting to get into it.  After experiencing Halloween here in Panama (admittedly, in a very U.S.-influenced portion of Panama), I think it's almost the reverse. This was a bigger, more enthusiastic Halloween than I've seen any time in the United States.


The teachers at the nearby (English-speaking) Balboa Academy
are lined up with Halloween tailgating treats on Halloween Day.

My office building had Halloween Decorations up
for a whole month before the big day, including this
blow-up pumpkin (and strings of bats, and ghosts, and more).

The neighborhood where my AirBnB is located has a super-high proportion of ex-pats living here; there are people from the U.S., France, Holland, Germany, and also other parts of Latin America.  I hear all kinds of languages as I walk down the street. It's a wealthy neighborhood, for sure, and it also works hard to build up a community culture.  Halloween is one aspect of that community vibe: there were lots of Halloween decorations.

Carved pumpkins don't hold up well in 85-degree weather.
The plastic pumpkin behind it doesn't mind the heat & humidity so much.

Fake spiderwebs abound.

Many people have their decorations protected from rain, 
in the open-air garages/carports.

A spider web and ghosts adorn this house.

Colorful witch hats.

My Airbnb host let me know that there would be trick-or-treating the neighborhood. 
A whatsapp image for the Cardenas Village neighbors.
The fine print notes that they ask entering cars for a
donation of $5 to help pay for the additional security. 

I asked what/how much to bring, and my host said that about 50 candies should be fine.  Hah!  I found a bag of 100 anise-flavored hard candies (after I got them, I realized they were probably cough drops . . . shopping in a different language is a challenge)!

It rained (of course) right before Trick or Treating was supposed to start, but then the rain let up and . . . wow . . . the event began.  I set up a chair in the driveway, and my 100 candy/cough drops were gone in 20 minutes.

A neighbor down the street had invited me to her Halloween party, so about 7 p.m. or so, I moved myself over to her house for food, companionship, and amazing music.

This was *part* of her yard, earlier in the day
(it's dark shortly after 6 p.m. here,
so this is definitely before the big event started).

She had a witches cauldron full of candy.  She told me the neighborhood gets 500-800 children coming through. It was amazing --- so many people!  

More of her decorations.

There's one road for cars in and out of this neighborhood, with a guard gate that cars have to pass.  There was apparently a huge line of cars to get in.  People had to wait a half hour, I heard. 

And some more decorations . . . this is still only part of her set-up.

Trick-or-treating lasted until 9:30.  Kids, adults, everyone was dressed up -- it is rare for me to be the only person not in costume (my duck beak came apart, and my cow costume is back in the States).  My neighbor Anna helpfully gave me temporary tattoo scars.   [After the event, I realized maybe I wanted the tattoos to be VERY temporary; fortunately, they came off with a bit of petroleum jelly.]

So, Halloween was a much bigger deal here than I'd been led to expect in advance, and it was a blast.  I'm glad I got to see it, and also potentially to ease the symptoms of licorice-liking kids who have sore throats.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Things I'll miss about Panama

-
Image
I arrived back in Pennsylvania a little less than a week ago, and I slipped back into my previous life almost like I'd never been away.  I mean, I had to unpack a bunch of things we'd boxed up and stuck in the basement, and there are changes to buildings or roads that are completely new to me, but there's much that feels so familiar. So like home .  There are things about being home that I appreciate all the more for not having them (cool spring days, and cooler nights!  Sidewalks!).  But of course, there are amazing things about Panama that my little Lancaster town doesn't have, and so here's a retrospective of the things that most wowed me about my nine months on the isthmus. I wrote much of the words below while I was still there, so words like "here" mean Panama, not Pennsylvania. Birds : Seeing them and also hearing them. I was not at all a birdwatcher (or a bird listener, either), but here they are so ever-present that I've gotten to know many of...
Read more

First stop: The Bridges Conference

-
Image
My first stop on my pre-trip to Panama is the Bridges Math and Art conference, which is just barely over as I write this now. This is a five-day conference that drew 437 people from 31 different countries to share their approaches, discoveries, and delight in pulling together mathematical art. In addition to lectures, there were poetry readings, music nights, a play (in which I got to play both a spy disguised as a Catholic priest, and also a man in drag!), and excursions to the nearby Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, University of Virginia campus, and Monticello. What does this have to do with my journey to Panama? Well, for one thing . . . 
Read more

The Pre-Adventures Begin!

-
The adventures begin! Or, at least, the windup to the adventures have begun.   I've done paperwork, so much paperwork;  I've purchased travel tickets and reserved the AirBnB; I've cleaned up the house to make space for our caretaker EJ;  I've sent the dog to live with the next generations;  I've packed my suitcases and papers upon papers; I've said good bye to friends and colleagues; I've arranged airport pick up; In an hour or two, I'll get in the car with my husband and the Kindle, and we'll head off into the distance. To be clear, we're not going to Panama for another two weeks.  Our plane takes off from Harrisburg International Airport on the morning of August 15.  Weather permitting and the grace of God staving off other problems, we'll land in Panama City that same afternoon.  So I've got a little while before I can start sending photos of the real  adventure. In the meanwhile, though, I've vacated my home for the next two weeks...
Read more