I.P.T. School Anniversary

Quick review of what I.P.T. means before I launch into the real content. I.P.T. stands for Instituto Profesional y Tecnico. It's a term referring to the type of school. There are two levels: pre-media, middle school including 7th, 8th, and 9th grades, and media, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades with a sort of major. In the case of our school, the media program's focus is agriculture. The high school kids spent a lot of time learning about crops, working out in the fields, and learning to use machinery.

This past Thursday was the I.P.T.'s school anniversary. The festivities are pretty standard across the country, but compared to the elementary school's anniversary, this one was a bit different for me. Namely, the theme was more traditional Panamanian as opposed to the rural, "cowboy" theme. But like any other Panamanian celebration, dancing and eating were major themes of the day.

On Wednesday night, teachers stayed and prepared the school for the next day. Then, that evening, they had a procession with all the teachers and students, a kinda sorta drumline, and torches. It was very interesting. Everyone in the community emerged from their houses to join the procession, which went from the school to the church (about a 4-minute walk).

Thursday, September 27, was the big day. And just how exactly did we know it was a big day? Cars were parked in front of the school. Barely anyone in my community has a car, so that means people from elsewhere came out.

One of the fun activities they had was a tug-o-war with a nearby school (the same school where I took a group of kids to recite the poem I wrote back during English Week). The visitors won every round of the game. They were bigger, and one kid looked like a bodybuilder in training. Beastly...

The school named a student queen (not pictured here). They also had a faculty king and queen. I lost in a very close race. I think the applause-o-meter was faulty. The two here are high school students in ropa típica, traditional Panamanian clothes. The men ususally wear collared shirt like that (occasionally with designs), jeans or dark pants, cutarras (sandals), and a chácara (small, handwoven bag).

The girl here is from a neighboring community's conjunto típico, a traditional dance group. She is wearing what is called a pollera, a beautiful dress, wonderfully ornate and elaborately, painstakingly handmade (especially with the authentic, expensive ones).

Here you can see the sort of headdress the girls wear to accompany the pollera.

An interesting stand brought to us by ARAP, which is essentially the Acquatic Protection Agency. They set up acquariums with different fish and sea creatures with a small blurb about each one.