The Family

Growing up, I always knew I had an awesome family. My parents were everything a kid could ask for – caring, responsive, helpful and nurturing. While my two sisters helped guide me along by always staying on top of me about, well, everything. Now over the past year, I’ve added a brother-in-law into the mix and he certainly makes the Sacchetti clan a spicier mix.

However, it wasn’t until I moved away did I realize just how great they were. You see, I never lived too far from my parents and sisters, and something happened over the years. I started to take them for granted. I had a problem with my car, ok, time to call pops. Need a home cook meal, hey mom, I’d like some chicken pop pie. Need to buy some shoes, ok sisters, here’s some money.

I promise you I’m not that lazy, but the crutch they provided started to overshadow all the other qualities that made them so special to me. And sure, all those things above are part of what make them great, but being away from them for an extended period of time I have come to miss all the little things that are hard to describe.

Over the past 17 months, I’ve seen my family one time. That was the joyous occasion of my sister’s wedding back last April. When I went home the first time, it was great to see everybody, but in a weird way, it didn’t feel like I had been gone for too long. Too much had changed in my life that I hadn’t had much time to realize much of anything beside how to live in a whole new world. Well, the past ten months of not seeing them has certainly changed that. It feels like a lifetime since I’ve seen them.

That’s why I’m so excited for the next month. First, my sisters and brother-in-law are visiting then my parents. I’m excited for a multiple reasons. I’m excited to show them Panama and the culture. I’m excited for them to see my community. I’m excited for them to meet some new friends. Most of all, I’m excited just to be with them.

And, no, I won’t ask my sisters to pick some shoes out for me, I don’t have any money. Nor will I ask my dad to take a look over my car, I don’t have one. Finally, I won’t ask my mom to make a good home cook meal. On second thought, maybe that will happen.

The Drawing

I have a brother-in-law, Dan that is a very talented artist. One of the best things that he and my sister do is make goofy cards for birthdays and such. Being not a very creative person, whenever I get a card from them, my creativity levels sink even lower. How did they come up with this, is the question I often ponder.

For my first birthday down here, they sent me a cute card that had caricatures of my sister, brother-in-law and myself on a beach with my sister holding a dead chicken. It was the perfect card for me in my new country. I liked it so much that I decided to hang it up in my house. Well, my counterpart and dad of the house I lived with my first three months, Sergio saw the card and got a good kick out of it.

So I brainstormed the idea of Dan drawing a caricature of Sergio, his wife and their two young kids. This was back in May of last year. Dan drew the picture and my sister sent it down to me. Except one problem- I never got the package. I finally abandoned hope after 5 months.

Knowing that Sergio and his family would like the drawing, I asked for another one. I resent the picture of the first time his family came to my house and Dan drew another one. This time, I got their package!

Earlier this week I went to their house to give them the drawing. They got a big kick out of it. Probably the best part was the little girl, who is now a year and a half old, not being able to realize that she is the little baby in the photo. But it was a big hit and they have it hanging at their house.

The Bat Attack

As I mentioned previously, right now is the dry season here in Panama. The weather is fantastic (sorry, I have to tell you that as you guys are freezing and digging out of snow). It is especially great at night, because it cools off to the perfect sleeping temperature. Seriously, over the past couple days I´ve never slept better in my life. Well, other than last year at this time!

So imagine my surprise when I was rudely awaken by something similar to this.

Awesome, right?

The Christmas

It is the week of Christmas and I’m in Panama, which is a short way of saying it doesn’t feel like Christmas. The slightly longer way is the other day I was talking with my parents and they told me they got 14 inches of snow over the weekend. I told them that earlier that day it was probably 90 degrees. Talk about a contrast.

So while I won’t be playing in the snow this week (I’ll be on a beach!), I wanted to thank all those friends and family who have meant so much to me over the years. While I won’t be spending the holiday season with you, I’ll be thinking about you. Especially, my wonderful sisters, brother-in-law, and parents, I can’t wait for your visit soon!

Stay warm and Merry Christmas.

The Celebration

These past couple days here have been full of excitement. First, on Tuesday, none other than the First Lady of Panama came to the school bearing gifts and sacs of food for the Holiday season. Then, yesterday, 28 sixth graders graduated from a pilot project of D.A.R.E in a special celebration. As the resident photog, I was there to cover it all.

The visit by the First Lady was quite the scene. By the time of her 11:00am arrival, my community was quite abuzz. Not to mention the entourage of cars that accompanied her visit. Here is her arrival to the school (She is in the middle talking to the director of the school on the left and the governor of Herrera on the right)..

After words by the First Lady, Santa and crew started handing out the goodies..

By the time things wrapped up, everybody was happy, well, save for the few older boys who didn’t get a soccer ball.

The celebration ball kept on rolling into the next day for the D.A.R.E. graduation. While they use the term DARE, they have a different spin on it - Educación para Resistir el Uso de Drogas y Violencia.

It was a neat experience for the kids, as they had the police band play for them..

Walk across the stage to get their medal and certificate..

And cap it off by having a group photo taken by me..

The Dry Season

Well, it’s the end of the rainy season as we know it down here in Panama, and I feel fine. Even if this rainy season, wasn’t that rainy. This, of course, made this rainy season a lot more hot and humid. Now the weather is in the process of changing. Over the next 4 months, I’ll be living in a climate that each day is the same, i.e. hot, sunny, and windy. To prepare myself for this, I’ve come up with a Pros and Cons list of living day to day likes this. Let’s start with the Cons first…

Cons

• Without any clouds, the sun attacks you with more vengeance than the vendetta fueled killings at the end of The Godfather I and II combined. Sunscreen is a constant companion during these times.
• Each day I wake up, I feel like Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day. Although the dates change, each day feels the same. Sun is out by 6:20am. By 8:30am it gets hot. By 9:30am it gets really hot. By 12:30pm forget about it. By 6:30pm the sun is down and it’s much cooler. Perhaps I can use this time to better myself like Murray’s character and learn jazz piano, ice sculpting and French. Since it’s too hot to do ice sculpting, I doubt I’ll be doing the other two things either. Such a waste, I know.
• Because it’s dry and windy, dust blows everywhere. This isn’t too much fun for your eyes or trying to keep a clean house.

Pros:

• With the sun always out, it’s pretty easy to keep a nice tan.
• Great beach weather. And guess what? I don't live that far from the beach!
• After being offered up as a sacrifice to the mosquito gods for the past seven months, it'll be nice not having them around for a while.
  
• You don’t have to worry about making plans around the weather.
• The locals will be saying things like ‘bastante sol’ or ‘demasiado sol’ which is fun to hear.
• Once again, I don’t have to worry about shoveling snow.

And you know what, that reason alone is impossible to top. That’s one thing I don’t miss about home. Keep shoveling that snow.

The Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving marked the second straight year being away from my family for my favorite holiday. Last year, I celebrated the day with a small group of volunteers. This year, more than 100 volunteers descended upon Cerra Punta (up near the Costa Rican border) for a two day Turkeyfest.

After about 8 hours of traveling on Wednesday – which was short compared to some friends – we kicked off the two days with some relaxing and a few drinks. The next day featured dinner around 5, phone calls to family and more drinking and dancing. Somehow, I didn’t get to do two of my favorite things on Thanksgiving – watch football and a post dinner nap. Don’t worry, though, I will more than make up for missing out on those two things next year.

While it was sad to be away from family again, it was great to be with my other family. One thing that made things easier was the surrounding area made me feel like I was home in West Virginia. Cerra Punta is tucked inside the mountains and the landscape reminded me of being near Elkins, West Virginia. We even had a stream running down the outside of our room. Plus, the weather was actually cool there. I was wearing a light sweater Thanksgiving day, which never happens in my community. I’m more likely to be wearing a layer of sweat.

Of course, the main key to any Thanksgiving is the meal. And after some false starts with getting the turkeys in the oven, things tured out very good. Just a notch below my Aunt Randy’s cooking., though.