Seeeeeecrets

There are some things that are best kept to yourself – like your social security number or admitting that you enjoy Joey Lawerence’s catchphrase “Woah”. Being in Panama I had a chance to keep something I did away from the folks back in the States. However, one day when I was talking to my sister, I decided to come clean – I had bought a pair of Crocs.

You see, this is a big deal, because in the past, both my sister and I had ridiculed our cousin after he bought a pair and then had the audacity to wear them out in public. So, naturally, when I broke the news to my sister, she went nuts on me. Pretty soon I was trying to defend myself in much the same fashion that my dad did when he was contemplating buying a Subaru Baja. At that time, he used words like “practically” and “versatile” to try to sell me on the car. I wasn’t buying it and I fired back that the car drove stiff, had bad sightlines and, most importantly, hideous looking. He held strong and went ahead with the purchase, so I knew if my dad could defend his auspicious decision, if I held my ground, I could do the same.

I started off telling her that it can be quite muddy here and I’m going to be living near water, so the Crocs are very “versatile” and “practical” (those buzzwords again!). Eventually, she reluctantly came around to my point of view. Of course, that doesn’t mean I actually like the things, but I have to say thus far they have been pretty useful here.

And that’s where they will stay – here. Unlike my dad and his Baja, my purchase of the Crocs was not a long term one. When I’m cleaning out my stuff after my two years are up, they will be the first things discarded. That’s why I’ve started a countdown of how many days I have left in Panama. Not because I’m anxious to return home, instead I want to know how soon I can rid myself of these monstrosities.

Only 671 days left.

I Was There in Spirit

As my sister Johnna mentioned in the comments section of my Thanksgiving post, the family decided to have a little moment for all the family members not at Thanksgiving this year. She sent me the photos, so I decided to post them.

Before we get to them, I should mention this idea was the brainchild of my future brother-in-law Dan (April 4, 2009!). As you can see, they even added in a nice touch of the Spanish speaking beer. Of course, they could have gone the extra mile and gotten one of the four Panamian Beers, but it's the thought that counts. To read more about the types of beer here in Panama, you can check out my friends (Jay and Julia) panablog taste test they did with some other volunteers from our group. It's quite good.

OK, the pictures.

As, you can see I'm hanging out in the photo with some yummy turkey and the beer. The photo is from my eighth grade year and I really don't have a lot to say about it, other than at one time I was a big fan of Zach Morris. So, I thought that outfit was something he would wear.

The second photo features other members of the family that weren't at Thanksgiving as well...

From the left:
My cousin Ryan. Looking extremely gabbish in his senior photo from high school. I can safely report he doesn't sport that haircut any longer.

Me.

My cousin Colin. Ryan's younger brother. The photo is just after boot camp for the Navy.

My Uncle Michael. My dad's younger brother. No it's not a Halloween photo. He was a professional boxer.

If your wondering where those muscles are at on me, well, I wonder about it too.

It's December, really?

I know the calendar says it’s December, but I don’t believe it. To me, I still think it is late August. Why? Because the weather here is still like it was when I left the states in early August.

Hot.

One of the things about being raised in West Virginia is living in a climate that has all four seasons. Therefore, the weather always told me what time of year it was. Hot weather meant June-August, while freezing my butt off said it was December-March. Of course, the trees would tell me when Fall had come. This year there was no Fall. So, it really didn’t dawn on me what time of the year it was until my mom emailed me a couple weeks back to say they had two inches of snow. Meanwhile, while I was reading the email, I was sweating through my shirt. Something was wrong with the whole thing from my perspective.

But that’s the way things are here. Different. (Note: actual details may not be factual due to the whole language barrier thing) There are two main seasons – rainy and dry. Right now, the rainy season is finishing up, as it last from April through mid December. Soon the sun will be out always and eventually there won’t be a cloud in the sky during late January into February. I have been told it gets really, really hot during this time. This should be interesting, because right now I think it’s really, really hot.

It is that hot weather that makes it impossible for me to believe it is December and Christmas is just around the corner. I know the calendar says it, but I’m not buying it. Christmas has always been cold weather and snow. Not heat and sweat.

That’s why this year I’m leaving my stocking in the closet and will opt instead for sunscreen and a beach towel. However, I will still accept gifts; just don’t expect one from down here.

You know, I guess, I always was the selfish one.

Turkey Day

Ah, Thanksgiving. One of my favorite holidays. Turkey. Mashed Potatoes. Gravy. Green Beans. Pumpkin Pie. Family. Football. Booze. Cold Weather. Lounging. In many ways it is the American holiday. You lie around watch football and stuff yourself full of food while hanging out with family. Does it get any better than that?

Of course not, but this year, I’ll be putting a twist of the holiday. Turkey becomes Chicken. Football becomes Panamanian soup operas and the cold weather becomes warm weather. I welcome one of the three changes; I’ll let you guess which one.

And so, this year I’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving not with family, but many of the cast of characters that I spent election night with earlier this month.

The plan is for everybody to arrive around noon in Santiago. From there, we will go shopping (you don’t have to be worried about stores being closed in Panama on Thanksgiving. Point - Panama) for our food. From there, we will go to the house of one of the volunteers that lives in Santiago to make the food. I’m sure that cooking everything will run longer than expected and dinner will be a little late (a Sacchetti family tradition!). I’m sure much wine will be purchased and the group will hang out drink it and talk about out new lives and be thankful for what we have. And, I’m sure that it will be a great time.

Come to think of it, the day won’t be all that much different from my day in the States, but at the same time, it’ll be nothing alike.

Confusing Words

One of the great challenges, and trust me there have been many, in learning a new language is trying not confuse words that sound alike, but have different meanings. To think this was an easy hurdle for me to overcome, well obviously you aren’t that familiar with my foreign language rap sheet and the troubles I’ve had in my past with learning a new language.

To wit, look at the following three words…

hambre (hungry)

hombre (man)

hombro (shoulder)

…three different words, all with close pronunciations, but different meanings. When you’re a relative newcomer to the Spanish language business that is trying to speak and understand things at a fairly quick pace, trying not to mix up words is tough to avoid. If your head isn’t spinning yet, these on for size…

caballo (horse)

caballero (gentleman)

cabello (hair)

…good. Say those three words five times fast and see if you don’t get the words mixed up. Ok, so you didn’t, but at one time this novice speaker did. What can I say?

Overcoming these obstacles is my great task in trying to reach my goal of becoming a fluent speaker in Spanish. I hope that at the end of my two years, I can speak fast, listen faster, and avoid embarrassing episodes like this one:

Late one evening (ok, it was like 7:00pm, but that’s late now) during my fourth week in Panama, I was physically and mentally drained from a long day. However, the father of the family I was staying with was peppering this odd person (me) with questions. Doing my best to answer, I was often forced to simple “yes” / “no” answers due to my lack of vocabulary at the time. When I thought the question of “are you tired” came at me, I quickly responded with “yes” and didn’t think anymore about it.

Well, that was until the next afternoon when the Spanish teacher told me how the whole town thought I was married. You see, it turns out the word for married (casado) is oh so close to the word for tired (cansado). Whoops! Thankfully, my Spanish teacher straightened out the problem, while I just chalked it up to another (mis)adventure in Panama.

Rooting from afar for the Home Team

(Note: This was written before the heartbreaking loss to Cincy last Saturday. However, the theme of the entry still stands)

This year marked the first time in about 15 years that I missed a WVU home game. Obviously, following the Mountaineers was a big part of my life. I mean think about it. A lot has changed since I had missed a home game. I was a skinny kid with a high pitch voice. The Internet hardly existed, and my friend Jason harbored aspirations to be President of the United States. OK, some things don’t change. However, for me over the past three months, a lot has changed. From moving to a new country to learning a new language, my life has been turned upside down. I’m getting adjusted to a lot of these things, but I’m still finding my way in the sporting world.

I knew going in I was not going to be able to follow the home team that closely. Watching games would be pretty much out of the question, but I figured I would still be able to maintain contact and my passion for West Virginia. However, I haven’t. Maybe it was when I got my passport stamped; I turned in my fans license. Or maybe it is because the people surrounding me don’t know a Mountaineer from a Longhorn or a Jayhawk (actually, there is a teacher at my site that went to Kansas and loves the Jayhawks, but you get the point). I don’t know, but this football season hasn’t been the same for me.

What makes this development more interesting is that this year has been a tumultuous season for the Mountaineers. It started last winter when the decision was made to hire an under qualified coach. At the time, I was not happy about the move. I thought the success of the program over the past couple years was in jeopardy. And as the Mountaineers stumbled out of the gates to a 1-2 start the emails and phone calls started pouring in. When my parents called after one game, my dad didn’t start with, “Hello,” but rather, “I don’t know why they hired Stewart.”

I love it when my dad gets fired up about sports. It wasn’t just him, though. One friend wrote in an email, “Because of the losses and Stew's cluelessness we have become a punch line joke for college football and those who report on the game. It is a tough time to stay positive so it’s good you are out of the country.” Another said, “Let's just say by the time you return, we likely will be a perennial bottom-feeder in the Big East.”

The last email had me cracking up, because two weeks later after a big comeback victory over Auburn this same friend wrote, “…the offense is clicking and all is right with the world.” Now, this friend is one of the most rational people I know. However, if you read just those two emails, you’d think he was of his rocker.

That’s when it dawned on me what I missed the most -- the joy of victory and agony of defeat. If I were back home right now, I’m sure I would have been cursing up a storm after the lost to East Carolina. Instead, I had to go into a bigger city with thoughts that maybe I could watch the game online, but I had to settle for following the game online through Gamecast. When the game ended, instead of being upset, I calmly closed the window and left and went to get something to eat with some new friends. As soon as the window closed, I forgot about the game. On the flip side, I’m sure I would think the team could beat anybody after the Auburn game. To me, that’s the best part about being a sports fan -- following those highs and lows. And I’m missing it 3,000 miles away from home.

I’m sure the passion will return when I come back to the States, but in the meantime I’m going to enjoy watching my friends and family appear to be insane, because who knows how insane they think I am right now.

Vote Early. Vote Often.

One of my favorite random nights in college was the first semester of my freshmen year when I went to my friends’ (Jonathan and Jason’s) dorm room to watch election night 2000. I knew the night was going to be interesting because both of my friends follow politics like the Europeans follow the World Cup and they have polar opposite views when it comes to politics. But I had no idea it would be THAT interesting. There were many highlights, but none better than Dan Rather turning the evening into his own personal comedy hour. I don’t know if he had somebody write the lines for him, but he was on fire that night. My favorite line was “He swept through the South like a tornado through a trailer park.” When I finally called it a night at 2am, there was no winner. Little did I know there wouldn’t be a winner for a while. A long while.

This election I’m operating under different circumstances. For starters, I’m in Panama in a hotel in Santiago. As you know, that isn’t in the United States. I’m joined by some new friends, Jay and Julia, who have their own blog, which is fantastic. You can read it here. As well as, Jodi, a self described socialist, feminist, atheist liberal. You won’t believe this, but she’s pulling for Obama tonight. Finally, there is Duncan, who is a world class modern living Heian poet that goes by Diego in Panama; because they have problems they have trouble pronouncing his name. Besides, Diego is a pretty freaking cool name. You’ll hear more from him later.

So that’s the setup. Oh, we have some Domino’s Pizza and Budweiser beer. Needless to say, it’s an All-American night even if Budweiser isn’t totally American anymore. With the 6 o’clock hour striking, we have our first polls closing and the CNN political machine springs into action. Just like the States, we get to see the stupid beam in hologram of a correspondent. Like most of you I’m sure, even in Panama it seemed ridiculous. It would be cool if this technology was more readily available, though. For instance, it would have been nice to be beamed into my grandfather’s surprise 80th birthday party a few weeks back. Alas.

As Dana Bush pops on the screen, the group agrees that she looks like an alien. Seconds later we see our first West Virginia graphic. It shows Obama with an early lead. I doubt it lasts, but it would be nice if the result stood.

Sure enough it doesn’t. I left the room to get some wireless internet and talk with my parents on Skype. While chatting with my dad, the news broke that West Virginia was going to McCain. The news barely hit with my old man, because he was chatting with his boy for free, even though he is a staunch democrat who took me and my two sisters out of school to go to the Clinton inauguration because he was happy to see the end of 12 years of Republican rule.

As I head back into the room, I’m reminded of the contrast of the new world I’m living in now. While in the lobby, I’m surrounded by Spanish, but when I head back into the room, I’m back into the English world, complete with a well dressed Wolf Blitzer. Juggling the worlds certainly shakes your equilibrium.

Another interesting wrinkle of the night is I’m surrounded with people from diverse parts of the country. The people range from Kansas to Texas to New Jersey. So, when some state race pops up, every once in a while someone in the room will erupt. For instance, they just popped up a race in Minnesota and Julia who was born there gave the room a lesson that Norm Colman was a “total sleaze ball”. There’s a piece of information that I wouldn’t have known if I was in West Virginia right now.

As the path to the White House for John McCain looks unrealistic, the mood of the room is high. I think we were all expecting Obama to win tonight, but we *didn’t* believe it would actually happen until it did.

Well, at 11:00pm, it’s official! We just cracked up a fresh round of brews and toasted to the U.S.A. Since, this night won’t last as long as the 2000 night, I’m going to hand this over to Diego to put an end to this entry and this night:

Ol’ America
Just have to live free or die
Blue tide rushing in
Cherry blossoms spring anew
Can the shifting sands be real?