5 years

my babies five years ago exploring on the caribbean side

We've lived in Panama exactly five years. It's the longest we've lived anywhere.  And we are settled--house, work, pets, school--the full catastrophe. I think this is it, at least until the girls finish school. I never imagined Panama in my life, and now my children are growing up here. Does life ever work out the way you expect it too? 

Five years ago we arrived here hungry for some city life after a couple of years of small-town living in Costa Rica. My kids did dance classes, and art classes, and swimming lessons--it was a feast after a famine.  Beside the classes, I have very fond memories of exploring the city with my girls (then 3 and 7) in the weeks before school started. Every day was an adventure, from the supermarket to the Smithsonian marine exhibit. This is probably why I love this city as much as I do-- along with beauty, we encountered kindness and good humour every where we went.  Also, we spent every evening in a very pretty park, where the girls quickly made friends and played wild, convoluted games of tag that went on for hours. It was  as easy a transition to a new country as could be imagined or desred.

The first blush is off my initial infatuation with Panama. I've seen the grubby and mean side of it. But I still love it. And there are lots of places I haven't seen, and this city still holds surprises. I am pretty sure I can be happy here for years to come.

5 observations and a recommendation rather than a recipe

representing Canada and looking a little dishevelled (what exactly was going on backstage)

1. I'm pretty good at managing things on my own. My husband has been away on business all week and it's been fine. Well, until this morning when I couldn't find my keys. Houses here have security gates so you're not just locked out, you're also locked in. I wish I could say I kept my cool but, oh my god what if there's a fire! We found the keys of course, but not before I had worked up a good anxiety sweat.
2. I invented a national costume for Canada. My kids' school celebrates United Nations Day and has a parade showcasing national costumes. So my kids were tapped to represent Canada. I told the organizers that there wasn't really a national costume. They didn't believe me so I invented one. I don't feel bad about this; the little girl representing England dresses up as the queen, and I saw a kid going into the school in a toga and laurel crown (Greece?).
3. My youngest daughter does not feel particularly Canadian. She doesn't like International Day. She was born in Costa Rica and has never lived in Canada, so it's weird for her. She doesn't like it when people ask her where she's from. She used to say Costa Rica because she was born there. But she can't remember living in Costa Rica so that doesn't feel right to her either. She really would have preferred to wear a Panamanian costume like the rest of her classmates today. 
4. The Graveyard Book is fantastic. We are loving this book so much. It is just the right amount of scary according to my eight-year-old. She is fascinated by the graveyard universe in this book and frankly, so am I. I'm glad we are reading it before the inevitable Hollywood adaptation.
5. This is good. Feist sings "Undiscovered First" in the back of a London cab:

Instead of a recipe I have a recommendation. Make chocolate chip cookies on a rainy weeknight and eat them warm out of the oven with your silly, giggling children. Just use the recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips. You will not be disappointed.

sisters

I have two daughters. There is four years between them, but they are close. I'm pretty sure that they are closer than they would have been had they grown up in Canada. As an expat family we are all close. We don't have extended family or even a tight circle of friends. I was registering the girls for next-year's school year, and I had to think for a minute for an emergency contact. It's mostly just us.

They sleep in the same room even though they have their own rooms. They have their own short-hand and sister language that is connected to English, and is related to the books and movies we read and watch. These are books and movies that their friends don't read or watch. It's like our family has it's own culture, with its own references and language.

Their connection seems deeper than just sisters, I feel like they face the world together. They bicker and tease of course. There is no shortage of door slamming if they are fighting. But still, there is a closeness between them that is beyond sisterly love. They look out for each other; they explain the worlds to each other. There is the world outside our door where we are foreigners, and there is the world that is our family.

It is an unexpected consequence of expat life, this closeness. And I am grateful for it.

bilingual girls

my beautiful bilingual girls 

The other day I was asking my youngest if she'd enjoyed the treat I'd packed in her lunch.  She proceeded to tell how she'd traded her wholesome home baked treat for "chocolate cornflay" (that is corn flakes pronounced in Panamanian Spanish--rising stress on the flay--apparently here in Panama, many people refer to all breakfast cereal as corn flakes).  My bilingual daughter, not knowing this, had not recognized that "corn flay" was corn flakes and thought it was something in Spanish she didn't know how to translate.  Her sister and I thought this was hilarious, but I am blown away by this translating that my kids do, normally it's so smooth--you'd think, talking to them, they'd spent their day at school in English and it's rare that there's a "corn flay" sized bump. They switch between the two languages easily.

I love their bilingual dexterity.  It is one of the things that makes me sure of our decision to live outside of Canada.  We could have attempted to raise our children bilingual in Canada (my husband is Argentinian) but I seriously doubt our kids would have such an easy command of both languages.  In our house mostly English is spoken (but certainly not exclusively) and books and movies and TV are mostly in English.  At school and extracurricular activities it's mostly Spanish (my kids go to a bilingual school, so they have core subjects in both English and Spanish). And of course there's all the day to day interactions in Spanish, out and about and with friends.  It makes for a very naturally bilingual environment--effortless second language acquisition.

When we left Canada eight years ago I really had no idea of what I was getting into.  I had this idea of our kids being bilingual, but I didn't know how amazing it would be. They are like chameleons, switching beween languages depending on who and where.  I never could have imagined all the language jokes, all the parroting of accents.  We take such pleasure in the vantage of knowing two languages, switching back and forth mixing it up (Spinglish, we call it in our house).  We enjoy anglicisms as if they were clever jokes.  At our house, I'm sure all breakfast cereal, from now on will be referred to as"corn flay."