Today we learned about the tradition of making and wearing “mascaras de diablicos” and we spent the day creating our own, which was taught to us by Señor González. This is done by forming a mold made of clay and covering it with multiple layers of paper mache. Everyone added their own touch to their masks, like forked tongues, fangs, and differently shaped horns. We spent many hours working on them and we are quite proud of how they turned out! We will be returning on Monday after our masks have dried to paint them.
Also, the place where we were had a dog, a cat and kittens!! They were very cute and everyone enjoyed watching them play.
Click here to link to a short history of the use of diablicos masks in the Corpus Christi celebration in this area of Panama.
Click here to see some video clips roughly going through the sequence of making clay molds for diablico masks