As I’ve warned you before, my site/province is more known for the celebration than the province I am in now, but that does not mean that we don’t celebrate here in Rio Congo! Each day of Carnaval, starting on Friday night, consists of the celebration of that day’s queen with a float, brass band, and dancing at night and something called a culeco by day. Culeco is Panamanian for lots and lots and lots of water. Each day, a tank of water on a truck pulls up to the party, and everyone dances and drinks in front of it while they get doused with water by a fire house. This lasts for anywhere from four to eight hours, when everyone goes home to change, nap, and eat, and then returns late at night for the queen and dancing.
And now for the reina: Carnaval-goers take their queens very seriously. Each queen has a color, a flag, and a comparza (somewhere between a team, a fan-club, and a band) that supports her with noise and lots of her signature color. Usually the queens represent different parts of the city, and the comparzas compete by making fun of each other and the opposing queen.
As a part of our language and cultural training, the Peace Corps trainees held our very own carnaval celebration, complete with two competing teams and comparzas. We cooked Panamanian food together as well, and came together on Monday for a banquet and sound-off. The end result? A lot of awkward dancing and some seriously impressive creativity of the part of the trainees. I’ve included photographic evidence of our PC celebration as well as a little video I took of the last night of Carnaval in Rio Congo (I love the band!) for your viewing pleasure below:
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| The Rio Congo Comparza: Los Rumberos del Rio |
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| A Congo Pollera: the traditional dress that I wore for a fashion show before our comparza competition |
1 comment:
Sounds like a fun time! Hope Panama is treaing you well!
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