The 15th birthday parties usually take place at the host´s house or a neighbor´s house but sometimes they rent out a bar or nightclub. Preparations include hiring a neighborhood lady to cook food for the guests (usually Arroz Relleno, rice with shredded chicken and vegetables). They almost always serve bottles of alcohol, depending on the religion of the family (Catholics drink, Evangelicals don´t). The color scheme of the party is always pink, pink, pink. The tradition is that the birthday girl wears a pink gown, the tablecloths, centerpieces and cake are all pink, and pink balloons and streamers for decorations. At more formal (and more expensive) 15th birthday parties the birthday girl will have a ¨court¨, or 6 of her closest girlfriends and 6 of her closest guy friends. This usually involves some sort of a dance sequence with a choreographer (not to be stereotypical, but this almost always is the only openly gay man in town). They practice this dance for months in advance. Since I work with adolescents, I know this too well because many kids will have to miss youth group meetings because ¨I have dance practice for _______´s 15th birthday party¨ .
This past weekend I went to the 15th birthday party of the niece of the woman I work closely with (also this girl used to be in one of my youth groups). This was a more low-key 15th birthday party but still very nice. There were about 75 guests and it was considered a ¨small get-together¨. I helped with some of the decorations including the pink balloon heart behind the cake. This particular birthday girl, Genesis, chose not to wear the pink bubble-gum gown and instead just went with a regular dress...boring. Oh, and that cake top is a barbie doll with cake as a dress.
This is a really bad picture because you can´t see the girl, but the idea is to see the decorations in the background. These were the tables set up in the patio with all the various pink decorations. All in all we blew up about 150 balloons for the event, my lungs hurt afterwards.
This was at the end of the party. This is the woman I work with, Xiomara, and one of the youth that we work closely with, Danixia (a member of the youth group and also a close friend of the birthday girl).
As you can probably see, the 15th birthday party is a really big deal for the birthday girls and their families. There is no equivalent for guys turning 15. For girls it represents them turning into a woman. In the majority of girls, they are not allowed to date until they are 15. Although, this just means that a lot of girls date secretly before they turn 15. But it really is a significant birthday because they generally have a lot more freedoms from their parents after they turn 15. Also, I must point out that these extravagant birthday parties are generally thrown by upper middle class and high class type families. A familiy without resources might ask a relative in the U.S. to send money for a party or just not have a party. But even the families with money end up saving for close to a whole year to throw the party. Its easy to look at it as a waste of money, but it´s an event that the families will remember for the rest of their lives so you might as well make it memorable!
These are some pictures I took at the beach in Corinto. Of the coast of Corinto there are some small barrier islands, one of which has a lighthouse which makes for very pretty pictures.
Possible desktop background picture?
