Monthly Archives: November 2015

Flag Day BBQ

Eric and I made a TON of Brunswick Stew, Eastern NC style BBQ, and cornbread for la Día de la Bandera (Flag Day).  We spent a good part of Separation Day (Tuesday) cooking 6 pounds of ground beef and pork together with two whole rotisserie chickens for the stew, plus 5 big pieces of pork and three batches of cornbread.  We ended up feeding 18 people, most of which ate ALL day long, just as we had hoped they would.  At least four people told me they were taking breaks from their diets for the day because they just couldn’t pass up food this good.  I love it!  Check out the quantity of food we had…and this doesn’t include the additional huge pot of stew we left in the fridge:

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We were glad to see so many smiling faces and shocked that we went through so much food!

 

Later that night – and I know this will surprise you all – we had a roda.  Jorge and Jessie had an epic battle.  They each took each other to the floor once, then went again…and ended up calling it a draw.  It was incredible.  Both of them are great capoeiristas.  Marcus (the American who joined me for Fashion Week last week) even joined in as one of the few non-CDO folks in the crowd and held his own pretty well considering he’s never trained.  He’s in good shape, had plenty of energy, and knew a little of what to expect, all pluses.  He’s a lot of fun, and capoeira is always better when you’re smiling while you’re playing.

I also played with Lourdes, who is a huge challenge for me because of her high energy and aggressive style.  She’s also just plain incredibly skilled.  That’s one thing I love about capoeira – it’s new and different every time!  There’s always a new challenge.

All in all, it was a great day with some dear friends.

Around 9:45 pm we left for the airport, leaving behind the remaining guests to guard the leftovers while we picked up Eric’s parents from the airport.  We’re excited to have them here!  Today we’re off to Casco Viejo (the old city) and then Eric will show them the Canal while I go to capoeira over at the Canal Administration building.  Tomorrow we’re heading to El Valle de Antón, a mountain town that I’ve mentioned before where it’s about 10 degrees cooler.  We’ve rented what looks to be a beautiful house with a pool for a good price and we’re looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

Fiestas Patrias

Happy Separation Day!

The month of November in Panamá is packed full of patriotic holidays.  The 3rd celebrates Panamá’s separation from Colombia, 4th is Flag Day, 10th is for celebrating the first cry of independence from Spain, and the 28th celebrates Panamá’s independence from Spain.  Basically, 2015 is over because everyone is on vacation from now until after Christmas.  Woohoo!

I’m not sure what was going on yesterday, but for some reason the whole alcohol section of the grocery store was covered with Caution tape and there were signs up citing some law saying you couldn’t buy alcohol on November 2nd.  Haven’t figured that one out yet.

Last night we saw that the big road in front of our apartment was shutting down, and it turns out there was a little parade!  We walked down to check it out, and I’m glad we did.  It was all (well, hopefully not all, but whatever) the city’s firefighters (bomberos) and a good number of cops too.  Pretty cool.  I don’t know how to describe it, but you know how you always feel a sense of quiet awe and respect for what those folks do whenever there’s an event honoring them?  It was like that.  Meanwhile, Eric was commenting that only one guy was good at his job b/c his torch was out while everyone else was carrying fire around.  Apparently we were on different pages.  Haha.

We woke up at 5 am to the sound of…what else would it be in this country…fireworks!  It was quite an amazing show too!  One of the most well-coordinated (the best coordinated?  I’m not sure how to say that.) that we’ve seen, and it lasted forever!  Apparently they just could not stand to wait to start celebrating las fiestas patrias.  I decided that they were probably wanting to be the first to wish my brother-in-law, Drew, a happy birthday, so I took a picture and sent it to him.  Happy Birthday from Panamá, Drew!  They’re throwing a huge party for you!

This morning the streets are closed again for another parade.  As with other holidays, like Carnival, a ton of people have left the city.  It’s kinda nice, actually.  Everyone else gets their vacation out of town, and we get a nice quiet stay-cation.

Tomorrow we’re making Eastern style NC BBQ for way too many people…speaking of quiet stay-cations.  Mono and I have been talking about doing this for months now, and we finally decided that Flag Day would be a good day.  Great, I thought.  Just Mono and Lourdes and maybe their two girls…nice relaxing day.  That is, until Mono announced at practice on Saturday that I would be hosting a BBQ and having everyone over!  This is the second time he’s done this!  Sigh.  Oh well.  I know it’ll be fun…we just have to find a big enough pot to make gallons of Brunswick Stew!

Eric’s parents are getting into town tomorrow night!  We’re very excited to be hosting them.  They’ll only be here for a short time, but I think we’ve come up with a pretty good schedule that will allow them to see some sights and also relax in the mountains for a couple of nights.

Oh!  On Saturday we had capoeira practice at the Canal Administration building, which is really impressive.  I know my mom is rolling her eyes right now b/c she wanted to check it out when they were here in March/April.  I thought it sounded super boring.  Oops.  Anyway, not many of us were there, but we had a great practice and a fun, relaxed roda.  Mono has a GoPro that he takes everywhere, so he got some cool shots…