Notes From a Small Isthmus: Orchid festival

This past weekend was the annual orchid festival in the town of Las Minas, a larger town down the mountain from us. This is the time of year when many orchids are flowering, including the national flower, the Flower of the Holy Spirit. You can see the figure of a dove in the flower.

Flor del Espiritu Santo

This flower is so popular that many hybrids have been made. Here is one. The dove has a different shape.

Here are some examples of other orchids. (No, we don't know the names!)

Heather in front of an orchid display

Steve makes his first orchid purchase

There was a lot of other activity during the weekend. Many artisans were selling their work. A group from our town makes colorful crocheted handbags from recycled plastic bags. The group was organized by a volunteer from the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps.

Of course the weekend would not be complete without a parade with women in their polleras.

There was a booth manned by the teachers of the Chepo school.

Steve with Heather's co-teacher Ormelis

It's never too soon to start the kids on the traditional costumes.

Where did he get that moustache?

There were also dancing troupes in the parade.

Each town in the district had their own cart drawn by a pair of oxen.

The parade somehow started 3 hours late. We expected it to start "Panamanian time", which would have been an hour or so late, but we were surprised by the 3 hour wait. Even our Panamanian friends joked about it. As luck would have it, rain came in the middle of the parade. Panamanians, though, are used to the rain and the parade continued without a hitch.

This girl was smart enough to bring an umbrella

Here is the cart from our town of Chepo. Luckily this girl has a roof over her head. The driver of the cart seems more interested in the mom pushing the stroller than anything else. His typical Panama hat suffers when wet. Many campesinos put a plastic bag over the hat in rainy weather. This man has to make do with a bandana.