When I applied to the WorldTeach program I knew that based on the length of my stay in Ecuador (and my small stipend amount) that I wouldn't be able to swing a trip home for Thanksgiving. It didn't seem like a huge inconvenience at the time because, honestly, who's thinking about turkey in the middle of February?
But as the months passed, and November grew closer, and my friends and family at home began chatting about Thanksgiving plans, and my Facebook news feed started to blow up with all things Thanksgiving, I began to feel that little twinge of homesickness. After all, what was I going to be doing for Thanksgiving? Turkeys are insanely expensive here (no, turkeys are not native to Ecuador, who knew?), I didn't know any gringos in Ibarra who might just happen to be whipping up a Thanksgiving meal, and I was skeptical about the possibility of streaming the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade live from NY to Ecuador.
Well, lucky for me, as part of the WorldTeach program, we are required to have an End of Service conference to wrap up our experience in Ecuador and prepare us for whatever may come after. And, luckier for me, that conference happened to land right on the fourth Thursday of November. Suddenly, I had not only one, but nine other gringos to celebrate with. And most of us could cook!
It didn't take long for all of us to realize what this meant. We were going to attempt our very own Thanksgiving meal right in the heart of Ecuador! The owners of the hostel we were camped out at were kind enough to give us free reign over the kitchen and with a little ingenuity, some hastily printed recipes, and a few crazy hours in the kitchen, we ended up with a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner.
One of the host moms in Quito cooked us a lovely turkey and delicious homemade gravy, and between the nine of us volunteers we ended up with a complete spread of: mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, soup, salad, Carolina ale, rice pudding, apple crisp, and ice cream. And since we made enough to feed a small Ecuadorian army, we even had the traditional Thanksgiving leftovers (complete with turkey sandwiches) which were thoroughly demolished the following day.
I just want to say a huge thank you to our director, CJ, and to my wonderful group of fellow volunteers who made this Thanksgiving one of the most memorable I've ever had. As always I have so much to be grateful for and this year you are all at the very top of my list!
I hope that everyone back home in the states had a beautiful Thanksgiving as well and I look forward to sharing an equally beautiful Christmas with you!
(Only two more weeks until I'm back stateside!)
Niiice! Sounds like you guys went all in. Hahaha. Did you see the parade? We managed to get a pretty poor quality stream online, but it was just alright compared to the previous years' We ended up eating not one, but two thanksgiving dinners since JonJon didn't come home until Friday (when Josh departed).
ReplyDeleteNo I was in Quito for the weekend so I didn't have access to a computer to stream it. :( Oh well, there's always next year!
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