June, 2010

From Our Vice President:

Dear Ladies,

We’ve all seen her at PILC events.  She’s that elegant woman with the gorgeous flowing hair, the willowy figure, and the perpetual tan.  She is Silvia Muta.

But what exactly do we know about her?  It gives me great pleasure this month to fill you in on our own Silvia.

Silvia hails from Raffaela, Santa Fe Province in central Argentina, a little city of 80,000 people.  With her son Matias (“Baby” to her) and husband Hugo, she settled in Pattaya seven years ago.  The three fell in love with Pattaya from the get go, and the reasons for their love affair with their adopted city include their “love of the sea, the beautiful beaches and the easy-going lifestyle of Pattaya”.  As well, Silvia is quite fond of the active ex-pat community here which, naturally, includes PILC, of which she has been an active member since 2003.  Upon moving to Pattaya, Silvia didn’t speak a word of English.  Speaking with her today, one would never have guessed that – as her English is quite impecable.

Trained as a Civil Engineer, with the last 10 years on the Council of her city, Silvia was the head of Environmental and Urban Planning of Raffaela, and she was in charge of strategic planning of all environmental programs, housing projects, buildings and public services in Raffaela.  This position led her into the political arena somewhat, but, she claims to have been a politician of the “honest kind”.  We believe you Silvia – we expect nothing else from you.

PILC members, let me tell you now of one of Silvia’s great contributions to our Club.  She single-handedly and without fan-fare, created the PILC’s Best Map Guide of Pattaya concept and successfully implemented it for the past several years.  Thanks to her wonderful efforts, PILC has raised hundreds of thousands of baht, all of which goes directly to our Welfare projects.  Kudos Silvia!!

Silvia is obviously a woman of many talents and interests and they include reading, yoga, aerobics, swimming, painting, and her newest accomplishment, creative writing.  With any luck, we may be priviledged enough to read some of her works in our PILC newsletters in the future.

Like many good South Americans, she also indulges in her love of champagne, sparkling wines, and some good old fashioned wine.  The following is her recipe for authentic Argentinian Sangria:

“Mix red wine.  Add sugar according to your taste, and a little lemon juice.  And ice, ice.”

Easy as pie, ladies – even I can do that Silvia.

I asked Silvia to write down something about herself that she would like us to know.  This is what she wrote down verbatum.

“I have, as the majority of Argentineans, European ancestors.  German and Italian run in my blood.  So, I am stubborn, hard working, competitive, perfectionist, bossy – these come from Mama’s side, the German one.

“I am temperamental, party lover, wine drinker, and I speak loud and moving continuously my hands – these come from Papa’s side, the Italian one.  And then I am an engineer, that means rigid minded, always planning, organizing every single things, and giving orders – some of the bossy thing comes from here too.  And at last, and only to make the whole mixture a little bit explosive, I am an Aries woman – if you know what I mean.”

Silvia, thank you for sharing yourself with us this month.  We thank you for being part of PILC and we love you.

Connie Kwok