40th Anniversary Week

This past week was a special one.  Our middle school celebrated its 40th anniversary.  When the school was founded in 1973, the area was very sparsely populated.  President Omar Torrijos was in power, and he built many schools throughout rural areas.  There were only 40 students in grades 7 to 9.  Now we have 170. 

The first event of the week was the torchlight parade through the town on Monday evening.  Students from grades 1 to 9 paraded along the highway which runs through the town, each with their torch containing a burning bottle of kerosene.  It still amazes us that no one gets hurt in these events.  We certainly would hesitate to have our first grade son or daughter carrying one of those torches!

Middle schoolers with their torches

Primary school students

These girls got to carry the banner

On Tuesday a queen was chosen from 11 candidates who ranged from kindergarten to ninth grade.  The day started with a pickup truck parade through the town.  Each girl had her own color, and decorated her truck to match.

The girls then changed out of their jeans and into dresses for the final event.  There were three first graders and one kindergartener among the group.  As you can see from this photo, they don't seem overjoyed about dressing up and putting on lots of makeup.  The families of the girls had a lot more fun preparing for the contest than the girls themselves.

These girls are actually a lot happier climbing trees and playing in the mud.  Here are a few pictures to illustrate our point:

Yaritzel in her dress

Yaritzel climbing a tree

Diana and her escort, Kendedy

Diana and her brother making bricks

Alexandra

Alexandra and her sister climbing rocks

Yohannys

Yohannys on a vine

The candidates were presented one by one and danced their way to the stage, accompanied by their escorts.  Flags were waved and candy tossed to the spectators.

 The winner was chosen by drawing paper flowers out of a pot.  One flower contained the winning slip of paper.  

The candidates eagerly open their flowers to find out who won. The reigning queen watches from the far right.

Here is the newly crowned queen and her escort.  

As luck would have it, a thunderstorm struck just as the queen was being crowned.  This picture shows the torrents of water coming off the roof.  The wind started blowing very hard, and water started coming into the area, as there are no walls on the cancha where the contest took place.

Eventually the storm stopped, and everyone was able to leave.  Fortunately the area was quite big and most of the people could fit on the dry half.

Thursday of last week was the day of the Montuoso Forest Preserve.  Groups of dancers and musicians came from all over the province to perform at our school. The school put up a hut to illustrate the handicrafts of the area.

Serafina put on her pollera, the dress worn to folkloric events.

This group came from the regional capital, Chitre.

These two boys wore the traditional masks of the area as they performed their dance.  

That's it for this week!  Next week should be a lot less eventful, but you never know!

Steve and Heather