CONGO FESTIVAL IN PORTOBELO

CONGO CARNIVAL IN PORTOBELO

Portobelo is famous for the Black Christ Festival and also for the Congo Carnival a most unique and colorful folklore. The traditional dances and the interpretation of the Afro-American culture are expressed with the Festival of dances of Devils and Congos of Colon. These dances have great historic value in the Afro-Panamanian culture.

The dance has very old African roots and is full of strong dance routines, rhythmic drum beats, music, colorful and often outrageous costumes, lavish masks, chants, magic, myth and songs. It is passed on from generation to generation, conserved to the present time where Afro-Panamanian legacy stays alive as part of its identity.

Congo is an upbeat Afro-Caribbean dance that has drummers, singers, and dancers. Usually, an elder woman leads the singing, and it is call and response type songs. Then the drums come in.

The Congos in Portobelo are descendants of the cimarrones; runaway slaves who fiercely fought for their freedom during the Spanish colonial time. The escaped cimarrones fled into the hills and rainforests and built fortified villages known as palenques from which they waged wars against their former enslavers. They were so successful in war that the Spaniards were forced to recognize their freedom. Today the Congos memorialize their ancestors during Congo Carnival in street performance of music dance and costumes.

It is a dance spectacle full of enchantment and spell that evokes fear and curiosity, in which men and women stage with dances, songs and drums. It’s an amazing ancestral drama of life and the fight between the good and evil.

Each community chooses Diablos with elaborate costumes and masks and they play during carnival. The idea of the Congo dance is that the characters represent the Congos and fight the devil that is said to be loose or unleashed during carnival. At the end they are saved by the queen of the Congos “Reina Conga”, with the help of little bird “Pajarito” and John God “Juan Dios”. This traditional dance exhibits fusion between the catholic religion and the Afro-Antillean cultures. 

Carnival is complete when all of the devils have been caught and baptized, thus cleansing the souls of the enslavers and the community as a whole of the evils of slavery.

It was an interesting cultural thing to witness but Cindy and I decided after you see one group you’ve seen them all, besides nobody warned me to bring some earplugs with me.

The road was filled with vendors selling jewelry and food. It was fun and definitely more enjoyable than the Black Christ Festival.

 

Back in Linton area, Jim and Heather on “Charmer” are in the process of building their house on their huge property. We heard the view was magnificent and of course wanted to see it for ourselves. We grabbed a cooler full of beer, wine, rum and coke and took the long dirt road to their driveway. The drive way up to their property seems endless with many turns through the dense jungle. The view from their house is more than magnificent as you can see the little islands off Puerto Lindo and also the Panamarina Marina. The house is going to look great with rounded walls and Heather told me that they will build a patio inside the mango tree to enjoy their morning coffee. The house will be run on solar panels and water comes from two streams, one on each side of the property. They are hoping to have a successful Eco retreat for guests that love nature. No complaints about nature either, any wild animal that exists in Panama are daily visitor. Howler monkeys could be heard in the near distance and as the sun started to lower toward the horizon the sky filled with these weird looking birds all flying to one tree with minimal leaves and all settled in for the night. We could not believe our eyes when we recognized the long bills of Toucans. There must have been at least 30 of them and Heather said that is a daily occurrence, wow, amazing. This is a truly beautiful property.

Panama Marina view

Heather and Jim

 

Golden Orb Spider

Oli “the dog who belong to “many”. Nobody really knows who the real owner is. Oli chooses to freely come and go between Michelle and Francoise, Cindy and Reed, Binnie and now us as well. You never know when he shows up for his meals. One evening Oli showed up in the dark, way after doggy feeding time. While setting the food bowl in front of him a beam of light lit his face and ohmyghosh, poor dogie had a swollen nose I almost didn’t recognize him. We turned the light on immediately to investigate. Poor Oli got into a fight with who knows what, maybe another dog but we suspected a cuadimundi, he had bite marks all over. After he ate I took him downstairs and Sid and I put some chamomile compresses on his face.

He must have been in mortal pain as he let us do it; he even pushed his nose into Sid’s hand which was holding the warm chamomile compress. We kept him for over a week until the wounds were healed enough. Poor Oli used to such freedom did amazingly well on the leash and I truly enjoyed our twice a day walk through his territory which I tell you is huge, this dogs puts some miles behind him. I am speechless how much pee these dogs can hold in their bladder. He had to reclaim all his territory and unmark the dogs who had tried to claim it. After an hour or so walking and marking he ran out of pee, but no problem for him the next little stream he found he walked right into it and laid down. 15 minutes later he was up and marking again. He’s a real gigolo as every female came running up to him sniffing each “other’s you know what doggies” do. The boys on the other hand growled and some tried to attack. I had to kick one dog out of the way; Oli I think enjoyed it because he walked with tail high up tall and proud not leaving my side.

Tigre the friendly unfriendly cat, depends who it is, moved in with us. He loves the indoor life as he is not allowed indoors at Binnie’s. The funny thing with him is, he follows me down to our gate but before he comes through the gate he goes into the bushes and does his business before entering the house. We don’t have a litter box for him and yet he lets us know when it’s time for his business. And when he spends the night around 4 o’clock it’s his time to head out and he scratches gently on the sheet to wake us up. He’s a kewl cat and loves his toys which are spread all over the living room floor.

And then of course there is Dooger the sloth:

The animal life here is amazing. We had a two toed sloth in one of the trees on Binnie's property while in the tree next to our house a three toed sloth was sleeping. My 5 hummingbird feeders are swarmed with uncountable colorful hummingbirds emptying the containers in just a few hours. I have to fill them sometimes twice a day with sugar water.

Did you know that hummingbirds must eat more than their weight in food each day, so they eat often actually as often as 14 times? They continually face the danger of starving. Hummingbirds feed on a variety of flower nectars with caloric values that may vary from 10 to 82 calories per meal (1/1000 fluid ounce).

Imagine them finding a feeder is supernatural. A small, hungry hummingbird can solve its immediate requirements for food. The less sugar I add to the water the more a humming bird comes to eat about every 15 minutes. The more sugar I add the less they need to eat and the longer the feeder last until all sugar water is gone. Hummingbirds might very quickly starve to death if it does not eat in a short time.

They eat during the day and fortunately they can lower their body temperature over night to conserve energy like hibernating mammals. They only do so if there is the danger that they actually may starve. Having found this info I add extra sugar to their feeder to make it easier.

The other day when I was driving to Colon a Toucan almost collided with the windshield of my car. He was being pursued by three little birds; he must have raided their nest. Toucans may look beautiful but they are mean birds.

Just a few days ago driving again to Colon this time with Debi, a loud pop noise got our attention then we saw this poor little gecko glued to the windshield holding on for dear life while his head was bobbing from side to side in the 50  knots of wind. He fell from a tree and landed on the wind shield. I pulled over and saved him from this wild adventure. He was fine and happy to be off into the bushes.

The mangoes, guavas, guanabana (sour sop), avocado, noni and papaya are getting bigger on the trees and some are ready to be harvested, I love the tropical fruit. One of the trees on this property is called Malabar/Guiana Chestnut tree, provision tree or saba nut. The big brown pods hanging on the branches, will eventually explode and to release the nuts. They can be eaten raw or roasted. Roasted they have the flavor of Chestnuts, can’t wait to try them.

Avocado

Bread fruit

My orchids

It’s been a busy month or two, had a couple of Fondue dinners in our little house.

our kitchen

Fondue Bourgignonne with Binnie, Heather and Jim

Cheese Fondue with Regi and Debi on Runner and of course Binnie

Sid flaming Cruisin' Bananas = Banana Fosters

Celebrated Debi’s birthday which was a lot of fun.

 

For Easter I organized a brunch and decorated the tables with little nest made out of napkins and filled them with colored eggs. The only coloring I could find was green and red , after all we are boaters green for Starboard and red for Port. The food was wonderful and the trivia was fun. I made a Buffalo Milk concoction and the winner of each question won a shot. They did not have to drink the shot but could designate a drinker. It was a lot of fun. I think the most fun had Linda after she drank about 8 or 9 shots.

Australian Easter Bunny

Actually it was loaded with apples

Sid flew to Miami on the 11^th and stayed in Key Largo with our friends Dale and Sandy of Snow White. He signed up for the VA and of course he enjoyed boat part shopping. He said Dale fed him too much steak and lobster, poor guy. They did a few days of fishing, caught Dorado and tuna between VA appointments and shopping.  He enjoyed it. 

On the 21^st he rented a car and drove to Coconut Grove and visited with Phil and Nell of Moon Dancer and stayed with them in their incredibly beautiful condo on the 18^th floor overlooking the anchorage, wow what a view. 

After an almost three weeks trip he arrived with many suite cases and many presents. Yeah, it’s nice to have him back. 

While he was gone I took up Guitar lessons in Portobelo and I am so tempted to also take piano and Congo drum lessons, but the week is only so long to cram anything else into the twice a week guitar lesson. It’s fun and best yet it’s private lessons and free!!!

Rainy season has set in early. The three weeks Sid was gone we had one storm out of the west just like when Paradise pulled the mooring into shallow water. The waves were breaking over the pier and reef we have to get through with the dinghy so our friends Regi and Debi on Runner, gave me rides out from a safe dock.

Unfortunately the first day of this storm we had fears lightening all day long and our buddies on North Star were hit by lightening in the San Blas and lost pretty much every instrument on the boat. Poor guys, just had a heck of a haul out in Cartagena, which should have taken 2 months, but some 8 months later they finally were back in the water and one month later they got hit by lightening which forces them back into the marina instead of being here playing with us for a while.

It’s raining every day already and tropical waves have started coming across from Africa already, hurricane season is approaching again.