Every country has a word or phrase that describes its character. In my experience Greeks would say glendi (party, or better yet, let's have a party), Austrians would say gemütlich (cozy), the Germans arbeitsam (industrious), the French would say c'est la vie (well, that's life) and Canadians eh? (isn't that right?). In Panama, where I spent the last few weeks and where I served in the US Peace Corps (and was imprisoned), it is vaina. Not surprisingly, the Peace Corps newsletter in Panama is called La Vaina. OK, I can speak a very crude inflected peasant Spanish, but it helps me get by in Panama and elsewhere in the Caribbean, but definitely not in the Andean countries ... To read this entire article you must be a MultiLingual subscriber. For immediate access to the current issue, subscribe to the digital version. Already a subscriber?

Above excerpt taken from the June 2010 issue of MultiLingual published by MultiLingual Computing, Inc., 319 North First Avenue, Suite 2, Sandpoint, Idaho 83864-1495 USA, 208-263-8178, Fax: 208-263-6310. Subscribe