I have received a few questions about my mysterious and wonderful host family, so I thought it was time to properly introduce all of you to them. I have five official family members, with one additional being adopted because he is the boyfriend of the oldest daughter. Meet the family: Juliana, Samuel, Dayeris, Dairybeth, Aaron, and Jorge. There’s one more special member of the family, my four-legged sneaky furry friend, Rose.
My host mom, Juliana
Juliana is my wonderful host mom. She is nowhere near as scary and serious as her job; she is actually the complete opposite. Julianna works for the local transit police and can be quite intimidating in her various uniforms, but in fact, she is one of the biggest jokesters in the family, she laughs whole heartedly and I love it! She wakes up early with those of us who have school (the 2 youngest and me), fixes us breakfast, and takes us to school before returning home to get ready for her day. The first week I was here we discovered our mutual lack of the others language, yet that has not stopped us from having conversations, although they may be basic, we have still had a world of fun in the two months that I have been living with her family.
Jorge, me, Aaron, Grandpa, Samuel
I apologize for the not so great quality of the above photo, but since I don’t have pictures of all the family members on my camera yet, I took a picture of one from the stack of photos my family has printed for me!
Samuel, the head patriarch of our crazy little family, is a sports fanatic. During the day he works at Spiegel, which is a local store owned by a rich family. Spiegel is a bit of a small everything store, with school supplies, home decor, home improvement, kodak printing, electronics, and my favorite….a small cafe on the second floor. When Samuel comes home, there are usually no more cartoons watched on the TV, it is switched over to the news and when the news is over, it’s on to the chosen sports game of the night. Now let me tell you just how dedicated of a sports fanatic he is- he has real talent. Baseball is number here in Panama, leftover from when the U.S. was here; Panamanians follow their own league as well as American MLB – with the Yankees being the favorite of this household. On any given night of the week, the family can be party to Samuel’s following of three different games at one time! He finds the American MLB game first, then realizes that there’s also a soccer game on that he needs to see (good for avoiding commercials because every time a commercial pops up, we just switch back to the other game till the next commercial). Now is where I have become amazed – the small am/fm radio is then broken out and the dial is turned until the local Panamanian Baseball game announcers voice is coming through the speaker. This is pure sports dedication, to be following three different games all at the same. In addition to being a super sports fan, Samuel is also a bit of a jokester too. Our current little joke is when he comes home, instead of saying “Hola” or “Buenas” ….he says “How,” as in the “how” the Native Americans in old westerns use say hello. I died laughing the first time he did it and it’s been our thing off and on ever since…I never know what he is going to say when he walks through the door!
My little brother
The youngest of the family, Aaron, is about 11 years old and he’s a complete goof ball, I love it. And to believe he was quiet the first week or two that I was here…..now we just harass each other! He’s always acting goofy, whether it be by dancing around the house on a commercial, singing along to something on the TV, or just making his own life sound affects. Then of course, and this literally just happened, there is the singing and monologue in the bathroom as he was coming in to clean up from playing outside on the best cloudy ever, so far! I really enjoy watching cartoons with him; I’m still a kid at heart and if I want to improve my Spanish….cartoons are a fun way to do it! His two favorite shows are Los Simpsons (you can guess what that is) and Bob Esponja (you can also take a guess as to what that one is too). Although the other day, neither of us was interested in watching whatever sports game was on, so we watched Herbie in the other room. I have come to learn how much he loves Herbie (with Lindsey Lohan) just by Juliana’s reaction when he switched to that channel – “No, No, No Herbie por favor!” said with a pleading tone! My guess is he watches it every time it comes on (mom, sound like someone you used to know 🙂 ). I also help him with his English homework form time to time.
Dairyb & Daye in Carnival Princess Attire
My sisters – Dairybeth is the youngest, she will be 14 in about two weeks, and Dayeris, who turned 20 the first week I was here. They are sweet and I love them. I think Dayeris and I have a little more of a bond than I do with my younger sister just simply because I think being 13 means you’d rather be attached to your phone and hanging out with your friends than your family. Dayeris studied English at one of the local universities, so she speaks the most English in the family, but still isn’t really fluent, yet she has enough English and I have enough bits of Spanish that we can usually piece an idea together that she then relays to the rest of the family. She is also my fellow photo taking fanatic; I discovered this the first weekend when the family took me to Panama City and she made sure to get tons of pictures of me everywhere. The other night we had fresh fried fish for dinner for the first time since I have been here and it was so good. To my surprise, Dayeris was obsessed with getting a good picture of this. Her mom and I were laughing so hard as she took her plate around the table and living room trying to get the right light to take a good picture with her phone! Apparently she was excited and had to text someone a picture of the entire fish she was eating for dinner. In order to get a good picture, I went to get my camera and told her I would take a good picture for her to have forever 🙂 Below is the result!
Fried Fish and Fried Plantains = dinner
The adopted member of the family is Dayeris’s boyfriend, Jorge. He is pretty much like another brother and he treats me as such – giving me a hard time about things and helping me out with things here and there. Jorge is definitely one of the nicest guys I have met in Panama, but maybe that’s because he’s taken, but I don’t think so. He’s a gentleman and is practically already a member of the family with as much time as he spends here. Jorge is here nearly every night, often eats dinner here, and is invited to family gatherings (which is a big deal in Panama because gatherings at home are usually for family only). He also works at Spiegel with Samuel, so anytime I go into to the store I see one or both of them!
my puppy dog 🙂
Perhaps the funniest member of the family, Rose, is the family’s pet German Shepard. She is a sneaky little thing and I can’t help chuckling inside at her all the time. She is strictly an outside dog and is not always given adequate puppy loving because that is just how pets are treated in Latin America, so I have been told. That doesn’t mean that she is not loved, she just is not played with all the time like we do in the United States. Despite the fact that she is supposed to stay outside, she often tries to sneak in the house and curl up just inside the doorway to lay in the shade or sometimes she comes in for a little exploring, slowly sneaking in to see how far she can get before being noticed and told to go out. One day she made it all the way in through the front door, through the dining/living room and around the bar to the kitchen. She sat so pretty in the kitchen for a minute before she was noticed. I have slowly played with her more and more, secretly at first with just a pat here and there and now that it is evident that it is ok to pet/play with the dog…all bets are off. I usually sit at the head of the table by the front door when I eat my meals and usually at dinner she sneaks in and sits or lays on the floor next to me, but not before putting her head in my lap! Her latest thing is poking me! I sat at the table the other night, eating my dinner, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I feel this small thing poke me in the lower back. I turn around and see that Rose has walked up behind me and poked me with her nose and then back up a little so she could look up at me when I turned around. She has done this a few times now; she’s such a sneaky little thing! I love having a dog again, even if it just for a little while longer.
There are a few others around the house. My host family has a maid/nanny that helps out with the housework Monday-Saturday and in the mornings, she also brings her two small children because they are in the afternoon school session. It took the two munchkins a little while to warm up to me, but I still played with them and tickled them until they finally gave in. I enjoy having the two small munchkins around most of the time because they are fun. I know Yuri, the little girl is 7, but I am not sure how old her little brother is, I am going to guess 5 because he also goes to school. Yuri is quite taken with me – I get hugs all the time. If I happen to come home early as they are getting ready to leave for school she comes running up to me to give me a huge hug. Before they left for school today she needed someone to read her questions from her English class and her mom told her to ask me, so we ran through them and she did quite well. Dayeris was then telling the things that Yuri was learning in English class, so of Yuri starts to rattle off a few more things in English. They were heading out the door as I sat the table to start eating my lunch today, when Yuri got to the door she turned around and came running back to me o give me a good-bye hug and a kiss on the cheek.
From Panama with Love 