Make your own piñata

I applied for and received a $45 grant to teach women in the community how to make simple piñatas for Mothers’ Day in December.  Here is the grant proposal:

Day 1: Covering the balloon with newspaper and flour paste.

In the Comarca Ngabe Buglé, very few families celebrate a child´s birthday because of the lack of funds to buy a piñata, which is the traditional Panamanian way to celebrate birthday.  The cost of traveling to the nearest town (San Felix) and purchasing a store-bought piñata is too expensive for most families. 

During Mothers´ Day week I would like to hold a 2-part workshop for mothers in the community to teach them how easy it is to make their own piñatas!  I will teach the mothers how to make a piñata using more locally available school supplies – newspaper, crepe paper, school glue, and a balloon. In the first workshop we will blow up balloons and cover them with paper mache made out of newspaper and glue.  Then we will leave the balloons to dry for a few days, and in the second workshop we will cover the paper maché with colored crepe paper and then fill them with candy so that they are ready to use.  I will also talk to the mothers about how they can go about finding these materials and how much they cost.

To clarify: In the U.S., piñatas are a fun thing to maybe do for one of your kids' birthdays, once.  Well, in Panama and probably most of Latin America, the piñata is what makes the birthday a birthday party.  The indigenous Ngabe kids in my community are aware of how birthdays are supposed to be celebrated, but the lack of money combined with the lack of cultural significance of birthdays results in quite boring birthdays. 

Some dads came too on the first day! (It was right after a meeting)

Due to a delay in receiving funds and other commitments, I only recently did the piñata activity with the community.  On the first day, the mothers came to my house to start making the piñatas by blowing up a balloon and covering it with newspaper.  It was necessary to return the 2 following days to apply additional newspaper, and on the fourth day to paste crepe paper.  

I offered people to take the piñatas home over night to dry, but everyone wanted to leave the piñata at my house due to the danger of small children or animals squishing the piñata.  That shows you how much privacy they have in their homes if there is nowhere to safely hang a balloon.

Some of the kids that come to play at my house every day.  They're all cousins.

The kids were more interested in the project and had more free time than their mothers, so they were the ones who actually came every day to do the work.  This means I had kids at my house making piñatas from 1 pm (end of class) until 7 pm every day for a week.

Excited to take the finished product home.

Successes: Fifteen families made and took home the piñatas.  Upon completion of the piñata I gave them each a bag of candy.  Some families are saving the piñata for an upcoming birthday.  The kids helped me make a bigger piñata which we gave to the church for its Fathers’ Day celebration.

Working on my front porch.

Failure: Upon follow-up I realized that most kids ate the candy before it made it inside the piñata.

Gosh darn it, these kids are so photogenic.

Overall, the project was a success but I realized that I never could be an arts and crafts teacher  for longer than a week.  I give credit to all of those elementary school teachers out there.