BY AMY ROSE HARTE
PAMELA Weeks' barbeque hisses and sizzles with droplets of rain.
It's Independence Day, and the abysmal Irish weather has meant that Pamela has already had to rule out fireworks and crepe-paper bunting to celebrate her national holiday. Not that rain will dampen spirits. Floridian Pamela and her fellow Americans chirpily maintain that this is the price you pay for settling in Donegal.
Inside, Pamela's kitchen table swells with tasty American tucker - spice burgers, hot dog buns, potato salad and of course, a tray of freshly-baked brownies. Guests filter in, open a stout and marvel at the kicked-back pace of life that they've grown accustomed to.
One of the guests, Glenn Acker, who moved here with his wife Vicky five years ago, gets sentimental about home on national holidays. "If we were back in the States I'd be sitting out in the grounds of Fort Vancouver right now, drinking a beer and eating hotdogs and waiting for the fireworks to start over the Columbia river. That's what I've done the last number of years before we left the States. There's certain days I miss it, when I think of friends and home. On typical American holidays like July 4th, Memorial day, Christmas and Thanksgiving I miss family a lot," he said.
"Independence is a big deal in the States, although I'm not sure it has the appropriate connotations. It's a middle of the summer party and barbeque. Typically you would get together with family and friends so it's a sentimental thing and not as political as it could be. Not that I'm ready to change anything, I enjoy the travelling and the availability of Europe."
LONG TERM PLANS
Pamela and her husband Joe moved to Letterkenny one and a half years ago and now they plan on staying long-term.
"The only thing I miss about the US is the roads," laughs Joe, "They're the one thing I would change in Ireland, I'd bring in the American road system. It would take the life-in-your-own-hands' thing out of driving. Other than that I prefer green hills to chain link fences any day of the week."
"We were living in Jacksonville, a city with about 2.5 million people, really congested with all the problem that comes with American cities. I was just tired of it. My wife didn't have to twist my arm when she said she had a job in Ireland. Pamela worked for the Prudential in America for seven years, before applying to work in the Irish leg of the company, Pramerica.
"We love it here, we just do. When you look out through the windows you have beautiful mountains and hillsides and the scenery is gorgeous green, fifty different shades of green," she says.
Pamela now feels like an intricate member of the local community and thinks that Donegal is being steadily Americanised. She fears that it will mirror the American trend whereby the main street area in Letterkenny will suffer at the hands of major stores.
"My fear is that it will wipe out some of those small businesses on the main street. And that's sad because in America we used to have downtown and main streets just like that and they're all boarded up now, that's the ghetto. It turned into a horrible place where crime is."
Vicky O'Brien and her husband Glenn left Washington five years ago and are now in the process of a applying for permanent residency in Ireland. Their children had left home when Vicky decided she wanted an adventure and she applied for a job in Pramerica.
WHY HERE?
"We've had so many people, like native Letterkenny people, ask us why did we come here and you try to explain that you've got some really good things here. They're different, I miss shopping in the States and the road system. But you can't find the little pub in the middle of nowhere, walk on a beach that isn't crowded with people, or just look off in the distance and see green with an attitude. You can't just go to the pub and have some craic with some people. You're not going to find that in the States," she says.
Vicky and Glenn are building a house in Churchill and recently returned to the States for the first time since they left.
"We stayed with my son in Seattle and it was just endless traffic jams and shopping malls. By the time we'd done visiting I turned to Glenn and said get me out of here, get me some place with space and greenery and a pub," she laughs.
Although they have a gripe with state of Irish roads, they each love the freedom that an Irish open road provides.
"We like to get in the car, pick a road and drive," says Pamela. "One day we ended up down in the Midlands, we stopped at a B&B, spent the night and came back. That's on the weekends if it's not raining, or raining too bad."
