We got to celebrate Independence Day with our city, El Valle. It, like almost all other Panamanian cities had a parade. The parade for El Valle, which is a small town, had 5 or 6 bands in the parade, 7-8 twirling brigades, and numerous other civic groups.
Now when I say "band," I mostly mean percussion. Ok, ALL percussion! 3+ big bass drums, scores of snare drums, and the girls play the xylophones. I'm not talking about 1 or 2 girls playing xylophones in the back of the group. There were probably 10 girls playing the xylophone leading each band. In addition, the sound of the xylophone was not subtle; they played entire songs all in unison. Couple the xylophones with the bass drums (being beaten for all they were worth), throw in a few cymbals and what you have is. . . Very loud and a very good beat. I'd give it a 9.5!
The twirling groups were another point of interest. Lots of girls twirling batons! They ranged in size from very small (probably 4-5 years old) to high school-aged girls. Each group had their own uniform which, I've learned, are hand-sewn each year to fit that specific girl. A few of the groups didn't twirl batons, but had Chinese fans that they did a routine with. All in all, quite entertaining.
We also got to see traditional dress. The traditional Panamanian dress for a lady is called a pollera. They are full-length skirts that must take yards of material to make. They have multiple ruffles that make up the shirt that matches. Then there are the shoes that match the ball that goes at the neck of the shirt. Very pretty, and the little girls, obviously, learn at an early age the appropriate way to hold the sides of their pollera. And the boys with their cute Panamanian hat and white shirts. The second picture above shows two girls: one in traditional Panamanian dress and one in traditional Kuna Indian dress.
The parade was really neat. It was also quite long. In addition to having to wait for one band to be far enough away so the next one to be heard, you also had all the parents of the students in one band following their child's band along the parade route. So, the entire parade looked like this: Band, parents, wait, wait, wait, twirlers, parents, band, parents, wait, wait, band, parents, twirlers, parents, wait, wait. . . Well, I think you get the picture. So, on the first day of the parade, we watched for almost 2 hours and with no end in sight decided we needed to go home and eat lunch. The next day (yes, the same parade two days in a row), we arrived later, and got to see the remainder that we hadn't seen the day before. Probably a two and half hour parade.
So, Happy Independence Day to Panama! Thanks for letting us celebrate with you.
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