5 observations and mummy meatloaf

1. Rabbits don't seem to mind the rain as much as I thought they would. There's really nothing more pathetically cute than a wet bunny.
2. The city is empty which is always nice. I wish we were at the beach (although the weather hasn't been great). But an empty city has its own rewards. 
3. I am regretting my decision to have a second cup of coffee this morning. The heartburn and coffee jitters are making me feel horrible. I love coffee but I'm such a lightweight.
4. It's November. What happened to this year? The Christmas merchandise is out in full force at the stores. People here really love Christmas and in a week or two some people will even be putting up their Christmas trees. The thought fills me with dread--I haven't finished everything on my 2011 to-do list.
5. This song is playing in my house right now. I am fond of '80s-era Bowie.

I made a mummy meatloaf for kids on Monday. I used this recipe: Halloween Mummy Meatloaf. It tasted fine but I didn't fuss with the noodles very much (I tried but I don't have tons of patience for that kind of thing). Mine looked more like a meatloaf monster:

Fiestas Patrias

The patriotic holidays start today here in Panama. My girls are home from school until next Monday. Tomorrow we will go to the school bright and early to salute the flag. My daughter will dress in the typical costume and sing patriotic songs with her classmates on the stage. This kind of patriotism is very foreign to me. I love my country (Canada) but I did not grow up with obligatory public acts of patriotism. I find these ceremonies moving and fascinating.

On November 3rd Panamanians celebrate their independence from Colombia and on November 28th their independence from Spain. The whole month of November is designated as patriotic (mes de la patria). People attach flags to their cars and decorate their houses. There are five days off in the month of November. Many people take advantage of all these holidays and go to the beach. I'm hoping we'll get out to the beach ourselves this long weekend.

Happy Birthday Panama!

a rainy Halloween

Halloween isn't officially celebrated here in Panama. In fact there is a politician trying to get a law passed preventing Halloween from being celebrated in the schools (I don't know which schools celebrate Halloween-it is certainly not that common). He claims it is unchristian and un-Panamanian--whatever, this is just political dissembling with some patriotic pretension. We, like many Panamanians, go to a private party.

We have friends that live in a gated community that invite us to their Halloween celebration every year. There are costume contests, games and all kinds of treats. My kids love it and look forward to it. Unfortunately, the rain never let up enough for much trick or treating but we had fun anyway.

Happy Halloween!

5 observations and last minute brownies

1. Watching groups of kids dance elaborate, and impressively costumed routines will make you happy. There's nothing like seeing the usually shy kid, or even better the sullen kid, totally and joyfully get down with the group. The comparsa is a long-standing tradition at schools here in Panama. In my kids' school grades six to twelve participate in comparsas. Each grade prepares a dance routine for a competition. It's usually a mix of hip hop and latin. The parents for each grade all wear the same colour (they're called the 'barra') and try to cheer the loudest (including whistles and air horns) for their group. It's really fun and you can see how comfortable the kids get with the dancing by twelfth grade.
2. I'm not much for make-up, but I do enjoy a pretty manicure. If we ever get invited anywhere remotely fancy I get a manicure. It might be incongruous with my bare face and messy hair, but I am a sucker for a pretty nail colour.
3. Teaching can be kind of political. A student asked my why I was teaching firefighter instead of fireman. I said, because a firefighter could be woman. He looked at me knowingly and said, ah you're a feminist. I actually teach it this way to introduce the verb "to fight," but whatever.
4. Running has been so good since the half marathon. I've been maintaining 30 km a week and it's just been fun and easy. I think I'm finally feeling the benefits of months of training.
5. I love this video. It's not my favourite song on the album (I have way too big of a rock and roll crush on Carrie Brownstein for that). Spazzing out in outfield--I can totally relate to that (except I'd never catch the ball).

I have somehow given my daughter the impression that home baking is effortless. And thus, I found myself at 11:00 pm, scrounging through my fridge and cupboards for ingredients. She wanted brownies (well actually she wanted cupcakes but settled for brownies). I had enough flour, butter and eggs but no sugar, only powdered sugar and an odd assortment of chocolate (semi-sweet, unsweetened and a couple of tablespoons of cocoa).  I also found a bag of marshmallows. I figured I could add some marshmallows to sweeten things up--you're supposed to double the amount of powdered sugar when you use it in place of regular sugar.

Here's the original recipe:

Brownies

These are cakey rather than fudgy. In my experience, kids prefer them like this.

1-½ cups flour

½ teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoons salt

⅔ cups butter

1-½ cup sugar

4 Tablespoons milk

2 packages semi-sweet chocolate chips (12 Ounce Packages)

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

Preheat oven to 325F.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl and mix to combine. In a large saucepan, melt the butter with the sugar and water. Bring just to a boil and remove from heat. Stir in one package of the chocolate chips and the vanilla extract. Whisk in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Slowly blend in the flour mixture, and then add the remaining package of chocolate chips.

Pour into a greased 9×13 pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

So, I made this with 12 ounces of chocolate (four ounces were semisweet, the rest was unsweetened and cocoa) and two cups of powdered sugar. I folded in two cups of cut up marshmallows. They turned out great.

beauty parlour

I got a haircut yesterday. I just walked into a salon a few blocks from my house. There was a woman getting a manicure, another women having her hair blow-dried (a blower they call it-- one of my favourite Anglicisms) and a local morning show was on the TV in the corner. It was noisy and gossipy and it made me (awkward and unkempt) as uncomfortable as it usually does. The woman who cut my hair did a great job. I left relieved and thinking about beauty.

When I was nineteen I had a beauty epiphany. I was treeplanting at the time. This means I was living in a tent, in a camp, in the remote wilds of Canada. Showers, when they were working, were makeshift and neither private, nor hot. The only mirror I saw was on the truck. There was no place for a beauty regime in this setting. Yet the women were beautiful, really beautiful. This of course is obvious to me now, we were twenty and fit and tan--it's kind of what beauty is in our society. But at the time I was so surprised.

I started wearing make-up as a teenager and had just assumed it was necessary to look good. I really didn't think I could go out in public without make-up. I remember one morning when I was in high school, I had slept in, and had to go to school without make-up. I was so uncomfortable and embarrassed all day. That's why seeing beauty without make-up in a treeplanting camp was an epiphany. It changed my life: I stopped wearing make-up. I still don't wear much make-up (if any). That is not to say I don't care about my appearance, I just don't see the need to spend a lot of time on it. I am also not a frequent visitor to the beauty salon. Actually I'm the opposite.

I get a hair cut a couple of times a year. Sometimes I cut it myself. In Panama there are beauty salons every couple of blocks. It is not uncommon for a Panamanian woman to have regular weekly visit to the salon. Salons here are busy places, full of women getting their regular manicure or straightening. While I am pretty secure about my appearance, this aspect of Panamanian culture unnerves me. I speak Spanish passably well, but I don't speak beauty parlour at all. It's a good thing that the women who work in salons here are so gracious and unflappable, or I would never be brave enough to get my hair cut.

I admire Panamanian women. They are so often impeccable, matching everything, jewelry and heels. It honestly impresses me. But it is also very foreign to me. My daughter skinned her knee at school the other day and the teacher told me it would fine and that she would stil be able to be Miss Universe. Weird right? and weirder, it's not the first time someone said that to me. Last year when she cut her leg someone said the same thing. A Miss Universe title is about the last thing I would want for my daughters. But beauty is valued here in a way I'm not used to (and that totally baffles me) and this is why I'm so uncomfortable in the beauty salon. It is unknown territory.

I'm probably going to have to learn to speak beauty parlour.

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.