Familia Castro Haegeman

(by Patricia)

I have just had a look at our family website and, much to my surprise, found that Saúl promised some kind of Newsletter that I was going to write now and then. Didn't know about this or at least I don't remember. Anyhow, today, 1 January 2003 seems an appropriate day to write some news of the Castro Haegeman family.

The rest of the website is in Spanish, but I'll do this Newsletter in English because that seems to be the language that most of our friends and relatives have in common. Also because my Spanish is lousy as compared to my English of course J

Best event / activity in 2002. Obviously our trip to Peru in July-August. Don't panic, I'm not going to give you a detailed account of what we did every day we spent there. Suffice it to say that it was just wonderful. Not only what we expected, i.e. the remnants of the Inca civilization, a lot of history and culture, but especially the people, the welcome we had there in all the places we visited, the variety of microclimates and landscapes, the food (and you know I'm difficult as far as eating is concerned) … We have many pictures but again, don't panic, Saúl will put only a small selection on this site.

Worst event / activity in 2002. Er… you don't want to know. Or I could put the miraculous one in this section. We bumped into an Andes mountain in a 4-wheel driven by a friend of ours, tumbled over a few times and did not end up in the abyss. Instead, at the end of the accident, the car was on its roof, with us crawling out through the broken windows, with only a few scratches. A miracle indeed.

Best new activity. Miss Damaris Castro taking piano classes and doing just great. Daddy bought her a new piano and she loves practicing every day.

Worst old activity. Mrs de Castro still not planning to quit smoking.

Best culture i.e. books, films … Harry Potter. No further comment.

Worst culture. Some people in this family still not spelling Dutch correctly.

Saul. Still working hard, especially on his long trips to Latin America, running from one meeting to the other, going from tropical temperatures to below zero, from sea-level to 5000 m in the Andes, and then coming home with a jet-lag.

Patricia. Teaching teaching teaching. Jumping around to get things organized.

Tomas. No more gymnastics or swimming club now, but switched to judo. Happy at school, but most importantly: he is in every sense a boyscout.

Damaris. Same sports tactics, but excels in music plus very good school results. As for scouting, she does't collect as much mud every Sunday afternoon as her brother does.

Rabbits. Oh yes, they're part of the family too. As far as I'm concerned, rabbits belong in only two places: in my freezer or in my stewing-pan. But no, here we have two F..*%£ rabbits in our back yard. BTW don't take the F… too literally (especially with rabbits): they're two females, so after one entire year we stil have only two - thank God. Anyhow, they're doing fine and send all of you their regards.

Who else ? Damaris's baby born dolls and Tomas's pokémons. They're OK too.

Kind regards from the Castro Haegeman family,
Your reporter,

Patricia