Thanksgiving Day
Casco Viejo, Panama
PLUS:
- "Finally, Someone Is Picking Up On What Chile Has To Offer!"...
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Dear Live and Invest Overseas Reader,
I'm beginning to panic. Fortunately, our daughter, Kaitlin, attending college in New York, has come to visit for the holiday weekend. Without her help, I wouldn't stand a chance.
At last count, we'll be 30 for Thanksgiving dinner this evening. The Panama office staff, other local friends, and, I'm delighted to report, a couple of Panama Circle Members in town this week will be arriving starting at 7 tonight.
I found a 30-pound Butterball turkey at Riba Smith, plus the makings for my grandmother's stuffing, cranberry sauce, and apple pie, and Kaitlin is going to prepare tomato and whiskey soup, an Irish recipe that she learned to make in home economics class when we were living in Waterford.
This is our 12th Thanksgiving since moving overseas. Our first, in Ireland, I couldn't find a frozen turkey for sale anywhere. A friend turned me on to a farm where I could order one. It arrived feathers and all, and my friend helped me to pluck it. It was delicious.
In Paris, our oven was too small to cook a turkey, so, each year, we'd order one from the butcher down the street. In this city where you can find anything you can imagine available for sale if you know where to look for it, we found cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie filling at a shop called "Thanksgiving." I was glad to discover the place but never understood how "Thanksgiving" in Paris managed to stay in business year-round.
Here in Panama all the fixings of a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner can be found at any of the big grocery stores, the turkeys alongside the rest of the frozen meats, just as they would be in the States, and the pie makings in the same aisles as the flour and the baking soda.
Here in Panama, we Americans and our trappings aren't so exotic.
I'm writing from home, but our Panama staff is in the office hard at work, preparing for the launch today of a new service that has been many months in the making. I'll be in touch later on with all the details.
Meantime, please accept my wishes, on behalf of the entire far-wandering Live and Invest Overseas team, for a Happy Thanksgiving, wherever you find yourself celebrating it this year.
Kathleen Peddicord
P.S. We'll be quite a motley expat crew around the Thanksgiving dinner table this evening--a Dutchman, 2 Russians, 2 Germans, a Canadian, a Cuban, 7 Americans, 10 Panamanians, and at least 6 children who probably aren't quite sure how to identify themselves. I can't wait.
P.P.S. Last year, we spent our first Thanksgiving Stateside since our original move overseas. At that time, we were but a few months into our most recent international relocation, from Paris to Panama City.
"Do you ever miss living in the States?" my family asked again and again over the long holiday weekend.
Yes, of course we do, I admitted.
When we took off for Ireland more than a dozen years ago, we left family, longtime friends, support systems, and everything familiar. We set out for the great big unknown on the little Emerald Isle. Over the past 12-plus years living, working, and sending our kids to school outside our home country, we've made many new friends, of course, and we've built new networks of support...but I'll never replace the relationships I have "back home" in Baltimore, no matter how long we continue our adventures abroad.
"I don't understand how you do this," my sister often remarks. "All the packing and moving around. Don't you get tired?"
Yes, we get tired, I admit.
"So...why do you keep it up?" she sometimes wants to know.
After particularly trying days, when the trials and tribulations of life in the developing world nearly overwhelm us, Lief will look at me and ask that question, too.
"Maybe our families are right," he'll remark. "Maybe we should just go back to the States. Life can be so much easier there..."
We've learned, though, that those, "Gee, I don't know if I see the point of this any longer" days pass...and are quickly followed by many more days of discovery, delight, and adventure.
Living in Panama now, we're enjoying little luxuries that we wouldn't be able to afford in the States...like full-time household help and a driver on call.
And, since we've been living abroad, we've enjoyed a greatly mitigated annual tax burden, taking advantage of the foreign-earned income exclusion...and the zero-tax benefits for foreign residents in Panama.
But those aren't the reasons we're in Panama right now...and, certainly, low cost of living wasn't the reason we spent four years in Paris.
You can list out the quantifiable benefits of living in another country...and, sure, you're happy to be able to take advantage of them. I appreciate having someone to help me every day around the house in Panama City right now...and Lief couldn't be more delighted with our advantaged tax position as Americans abroad.
But I'd argue that the real benefits of living abroad...of investing in a new life in a new place...have less to do with cost of living and tax breaks...and more to do with the chance to see what you can see...to discover what there is to be discovered.
Sure, you can launch an adventure abroad based on purely budget concerns. And there's nothing wrong with that. Moving to
Ecuador or
Thailand, as I remind you regularly, could be the best answer right now to how you make sure you don't outlive your retirement nest egg.
But if you make a move overseas because you want to find a way to live cheaper, what you're going to find, in addition, is that a reduced cost of living is only the start of the payoff of that investment.
This living overseas thing comes with a big, unpredictable, completely unplannable upside. I can't tell you how your life will be enriched when you begin living it in another country. It will be, but you'll have to find out why and how for yourself. Right now, you'll have to take my word for it.
I promise you: Every day you don't get up and get started, you're missing out.
You're missing out on sore shoulders and aching backs from toting luggage and sitting up for hours at a time in airport lounges and ridiculously small airport seats... You're missing out on lost-in-translation confusions, frustrating bureaucracies, and sometimes maddening local idiosyncrasies (like taxis without door handles in Panama City and transit workers who go
en greve at the drop of a beret in Paris)...
But, again, that's only the start. You'll have to discover the rest of what you're missing out on all by yourself.
As we begin the run-up to New Year 2010, I ask you this Thanksgiving Day, what in the world are you waiting for?
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"Finally, someone is picking up on what
Chile has to offer. I have lived for three years in this country, and I can tell you that this is a wonderful and safe place to be. Glad you to see it on your
Top 10 For 2010 list.
"I no longer do business in Chile. The banking situation is a nightmare for expats. But, again, this is a wonderful place to live."
--
Bill L., Chile.
.
