Expats make a significant segment of people living in Panamá. Multinationals like Procter & Gamble or Philips have regional offices here, but there are also a lot of construction companies building up the country’s canal, bridges over it and its skyscrapers. There are lots of brazilian engineers from Constructora Norberto Odebrecht, french engineers from Vinci or spaniards from Sacyr or FCC.
Last friday we watched the France-Germany FIFA worldcup match at “Le Petit Paris” with the mexican wives of some french engineers from Vinci working on a bridge construction project near Colón. As one would expect, delicious croissants, tartines, quiches and other french pastries. Unfortunately France lost to Germany… In the afternoon we went to watch the Brazil-Colombia match at Rémi and Ana’s, friends of friends of friends that were introduced to us by email. Rémi’s is the son of a flemish who worked in France and got the US citizenship (or something like that…) and married Ana Cecilia who is a Brazilian born in Perú. We also met some brazilians working at Procter & Gamble but also other “products of genetic globalization” such as a franco-spaniard married to a sri-lankan refugee family who settled in France, a norwegian-chilean girl married to a french guy… Suddenly I feel like a fish in the water :p The Brazilian victory was followed by a traditional brazilian style barbecue orchestrated by Rémi (with caipirinhas, picanha and lingüiça…).
