Patronales

Since I missed most of the festivities of Cabecera´s Patronales (Saint Day) in June, I was sure not to miss the Patronales in Potrerillos Arriba. Festivities started on Thursday the day before the official saint day, August 22nd with a procession of the Virgen. Yep, I stayed in town that day. I went down Friday to take pictures of the kids in town that were getting baptised at Mass. Only I ended up getting there a half hour after it started and thus remained outside of the church. (I was told it was to start at 11am, but it started at 10am. Oh well, I´m not complaining!)

I then waited around for the Cabalgata, a parade of horses. I was told it was to start at 3pm... at 4pm I waited anxiously with members of my community, and at 5:30pm it started. By that point it was raining and the horses ran by in one direction, returned and the riders got drunker and drunker with every pass. Hmmm. Okay. I can check that off of my list of Panamanian festivities I need to observe.

I headed back up in the chiva at 6:30pm due to one of the guys from town not leaving me alone. The other folks from town were great about it though and stuck with me dispite his drunken annoyances.

I headed back down late the following day to catch the Barrera. It is a Panamanian bull fight. Well, at least that´s what they call it. I walked with Abby and her host parents to the ring constructed hastily of bamboo. People were seated all around the top of the ring waiting anxiously for the bulls to enter. Now these bulls aren´t your typical American bulls. They come from the fields lining the hillsides of Volcan Baru. They eat the grass growing out of the volcanic soil! So when the first bull entered the ring, it was just as big and bravo as all the other bulls I´ve encountered here, which is to say that it is quite small and tame as a kitten.

The drunken men jumped into the rings and did what they wanted to the bulls: waving jackets in front of them, touching their backs when they came close, and pulling on their tails and ears, usually after they wrangled them and tied them to the ring. The true entertainment came when one guy who was so drunk he couldn´t stand fell over in the path of the bull. His friends helped him up and then he went back in and fell yet again. Also the rungs of the ring kept falling every ten minutes, making the ring shorter and shorter to the surprise of the seated observers.

There were also discotecas and bailes, but I figured I´d soaked in enough culture for one night. I headed back up in the chiva by midnight during a special run. And with that, I survived my first Patronales of Panama!