Dec. 25, 2009
Casco Viejo, Panama
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Dear Live and Invest Overseas Reader,
A few nights before we departed Panama for our holiday visit here in the States, we assembled in Casco Viejo for Jackson's Christmas
spectacle.
Our son Jack, 10, attends the French school in Panama City. L'Ecole Paul Gauguin is a small school, with about 150 students in total, many, surprising to me at first, Panamanian. Why would a Panamanian family, living in Panama City, choose to send their children to a French-language, French-curriculum school? I still don't know the answer to that question, but the result, for us, is
charming.
On stage that evening last week in the 300-year-old Teatro Anita Villalaz in the center of Casco Viejo's Plaza de Francia was as eclectic a collection of small children as you might ever find. They come from Panama, but also from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Britain, Ireland, the United States, China, Japan...
Some have names I can't pronounce even after Jackson repeats them for me three or four times. Finally, embarrassed for me, he gives up and suggests that, if I have something to say to that particular child, he'd be happy to relay the message for me.
Some have lived in three or four other countries already, though they've only barely begun their little lives.
Most speak Spanish and French; others also speak English, Italian, and, in one case, Japanese. They manage to communicate among themselves cheerfully and with far less misunderstanding than you might expect.
Over the hour-and-a-half of the evening's spectacle, this small but worldly bunch performed Christmas songs in Spanish, French, and English, including some we recognized and many we didn't.
"Children in Palestine and children in Israel, children from the Americas and also from China, this day, let us think only of Christmas," began one song in French.
At Jackson's birthday party last month, I had a chance to speak with some of his classmates' moms. Some have husbands working with the UN and other international organizations who have posted in Panama for a year or two. Others are here for work related to various of this country's many infrastructure projects. They and their children have migrated to Panama from Mexico City or Caracas, Buenos Aires or Santiago, Paris or Madrid...
Lief and I worry sometimes about the life Jackson is living. Born in Ireland, he's since lived (and gone to school) in Paris...and now Panama City. He's an American by birth, but Irish, too, with the second passport to prove it, yet he's neither American nor Irish.
Jackson is a little guy without a country but embracing the world. And, at the French school in Panama City, he's found 149 other little guys and girls just like him who, one evening last week in a centuries-old French-colonial theater, filled the tropical night with song.
Kathleen Peddicord
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From the entire far-wandering staff of Live and Invest Overseas...on the road as I write in Argentina, Brazil, Ireland, France, Guatemala, and beyond...please accept our warm and heartfelt wishes for a Merry Christmas, wherever you find yourself enjoying it this year. All the best from our family to yours.
"Kathleen, in your
Dec. 22 issue, you published letters from two expats writing in response to your recent article "
11 Things to Know Before You Retire Overseas." Both were people who have already taken the plunge and spent time living overseas.
"I'm writing on behalf of all your readers like me who have been dreaming of living overseas but who haven't yet mustered the courage to make the move. Family, friends, and the convenience of life here in the States all conspire to create doubt. I want to say thanks for your no-nonsense reporting on the issues that I'm struggling with as I prepare to take the plunge myself.
"Better eyes wide open than a disappointing surprise. Keep up the reporting and the encouragement. I'll make the move yet with your help."
-- Scott J., United States 