Our Saturday in Boquete Panama started at the Boquete library. Boquete is very fortunate to have a new, modern three story lending library. People reading this in the Untied States might yawn at the idea, but this is a project funded not by the government of Panama, but by private donations of several non profit groups. A major nod of appreciation to the Peterson family and the Lions Club, other groups such as Bid 4 Boquete also contributed.
We were heading down the side road near the police station to the library when we encountered this herd being driven along, maybe to the local hoosegow?
After a short pause to allow the cattle to pass we parked and went to a showing by the painter Chiru.
Mayra scanning works of Chiru Boquete Library 11 Aug 2012
I was not impressed by the paintings, but they did have wine, snacks and a band of children.
After indulging in some wine, some snacks and listening to some surprisingly good tunes we marched off to meet some friends a La Posada. La Posada has become our Saturday night haunt, they have good pizza and live music.
La Posada also has lousy acoustics, poor lighting and too much volume, but still for now they are the best Boquete has to offer and Mayra likes their Margaritas.
This week they had Latin Jazz mixed with some salsa, it started out very good and by midnight was too loud for my tired ears. I became a frequent visitor to the tables outdoors out of earshot of the music.
We dragged ourselves out at midnight and decided not to continue the night at Coca Cola in Los Naranjos; so up the mountain we went.
First thing in the morning my farm worker was at the door to notify us that a friend who had been seriously ill had died that night.
We had a commitment for lunch at One Eyed Franks in Palmira and after after ingesting some very good food we went to a wake. It seemed all of the Alto Jaramillo Panamanian community was there, I was disappointed to not see one other non Panamanian neighbor.
I suspect most non Panamanians do not know the traditions in Panama. I did not know about the wake either, Mayra was once again my cultural teacher. Life and death, a daily reality in ever community has different meaning in different cultures. I have so much more to learn about my adopted country.
We didn’t know about Nikko until we gave a ride up to a neighbor late last night. How sad0 he was so young.
Lee
That is a tradition that is getting lost. It is mostly practiced in the Interior of Panama and not much in Panama City and other metro areas.