Sombreros

My first arrival to my community was a four day long visit where I toured the water systems, met community members, and other similar introductory activities. The time outside of these planned activities was spent hanging out with my guide’s family, which was most of the time since we worked straight through from eight to one and lounged the rest of the day. While I read or sat around doing nothing, they would work on sombreros. Since I wasn’t yet accustomed to the accent, I didn’t do much speaking and only observed this activity.

I wondered when they were actually doing work because all they did was sit around making sombreros all day. There can only be so many sombreros that one would need. One of the questions we were supposed to research while visiting our communities is what they do to generate income and I left more confused than when I arrived.

I returned a few weeks later as a volunteer and moved in with my new host family. This family was different than my guide’s family but they also made sombreros. It was about this point that I started to put it all together and realized that sombrero making might just be a form of income. This thought was made a fact when I visited with my guide’s family and inquired about the sombrero that they had been working on while I was there. It had already been sold. Oh.

Sombreros are a pretty big thing here where I live in Panama. The process, from what I’ve observed so far, is that a plant that’s leaves grow in a tube shape are utilized in the process. Squeezing this tube causes the leaves to split long ways and continual breaking of the leaves cause them to be reduced in thickness to about 1/16^th of an inch. They are then boiled and dried and ready to go. These strands of leaf are now whiteish in color and can be weaved together. There is also a process to dye the leaves black in which case the white and black strands can be weaved to form various patterns. So far I’ve seen  a zig-zagging white and black pattern, black diamonds, and a pattern that is called a mosquito and looks like a bunch of little black mosquitos on a white background. The final designs can take anywhere from a week to a month or more to make and cost anywhere from $50 up to, rumors I’ve heard say $300 and $800.

I myself have decided to start making a sombrero and managed to pick up the process pretty quickly. Getting started is a pain and adding more strands once the current strands have been weaved completely together is something I can’t quite wrap my head around yet and get help with from my host parents. Hopefully within another week or so I’ll have my first sombrero completed and I’ll be back with more pictures of the process!

The start of my sombrero!