Yesterday I was very happy to share in my second Thanksgiving celebration this year. I went to the home of some of my friends from the US who live in the city that's about an hour away from my town, whose home I visit often, including for Bible study with them. There were many folks from the US there yesterday at their home for the Thanksgiving celebration.
The spread was very impressive for dinner, including turkey with gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, turnips, candied carrots, corn and peas, and potato salad. My friends also served sweet potato casserole; I commented that it deliciously tasted much more like, and had a texture much more like, sweet potato crumb cake than casserole. I was equally impressed by the number of options for dessert, which included pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie, lemon pie, two kinds of fudge, pumpkin chocolate brownies, and banana bread.
But honestly, much more than the food, I was happy to be spending time with my friends. And much more than just being happy about spending time with friends, I was much more happy to be spending time with other Christians. In doing so, I just feel supported at a much more profound and deeper level. In applying to the Peace Corps, and in accepting an invitation to join the Peace Corps, I did make a conscious decision to remove myself to a place where I expected to not be around other Christians for the sake of work. I suppose that I appreciate their support and encouragement and company as fellow Christians all the more since I didn't expect to have it from anyone in person while in the Peace Corps!
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Friday, November 25, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Thanksgiving in Morocco, Part One
Today here in my province, other PCVs and I got together to have an early Thanksgiving celebration. Given various other activities and commitments we all had coming up, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving together the weekend before Thanksgiving. Most of us at our celebration were PCVs about halfway through our service as PCVs.
I was grateful that a few of the PCVs decided to cook dinner for all of us. Our host just asked us to contribute 50 dirhams each to help defray the cost of the ingredients which were used in cooking our delicious meal. Speaking of which, here is the menu of the delicious food we ate:
First Course (Appetizers):
pumpkin-apple soup
mixed salad with garlic herb vinaigrette
Second Course (Entrée):
turkey with bacon on top
squash cornbread stuffing
whole wheat lentil stuffing
sweet potato casserole
green beans seasoned with garlic and butter
twice baked potato casserole with bacon bits
cranberry sauce
freshly baked hard rolls
Third Course (Dessert!):
apple pie
pumpkin pie
banana bread
caramel apple cake
I didn't even think that I was eating that much, and after we had finished eating, my host (who knows that I love to eat) asked me if I had had enough. I thought about it for a moment, and replied that I was only slightly stuffed. I added that I was able to eat more, but then I would have been really stuffed. In retrospect, I suppose that it makes sense that even though I didn't think that I was eating that much, I still wound up being slightly stuffed. I was only eating the equivalent of one full plate, followed by a sampling of three of the four desserts (I didn't realize that there was any banana bread, or I would've tried that, too). But I rarely eat that much at once here in Morocco. So even though it was less than I usually ate on Thanksgiving Day in the US in past years, it was a greater quantity of food than I usually eat during any particular meal here in Morocco.
There was plenty of food! I certainly appreciated the delicious cooking. I thanked my friends for it. When I said grace before we chowed down in earnest, I thanked God for the delicious food. I also thanked God for the wonderful people who had prepared all of the food, and for the other wonderful people there with us. Immediately before our Thanksgiving celebration, I'd had a stretch of a few weeks where I didn't see any other PCVs (or any other expats at all), so it was nice to get to see them all.
That night, we settled down in beds and sleeping bags for our slumber. I was spending the night in a room that was maybe slightly smaller than 9 feet by 9 feet with 5 other PCVs. At one point, another PCV and I were reading as others were already dozing off. A few minutes after she finished reading and rolled over, I turned off the light and settled down for the night. By the dim light of a streetlamp filtering in through the small window high above us, I discerned the rough shapes of my fellow volunteers under landscapes of sleeping bags, sheets and blankets, as they unconsciously comforted me by reminding me of their presence through their sonorous respiration like bullfrogs croaking in a moonlit marsh, a pleasant chorus of reassurance which gradually lulled me to sleep.
I was grateful that a few of the PCVs decided to cook dinner for all of us. Our host just asked us to contribute 50 dirhams each to help defray the cost of the ingredients which were used in cooking our delicious meal. Speaking of which, here is the menu of the delicious food we ate:
First Course (Appetizers):
pumpkin-apple soup
mixed salad with garlic herb vinaigrette
Second Course (Entrée):
turkey with bacon on top
squash cornbread stuffing
whole wheat lentil stuffing
sweet potato casserole
green beans seasoned with garlic and butter
twice baked potato casserole with bacon bits
cranberry sauce
freshly baked hard rolls
Third Course (Dessert!):
apple pie
pumpkin pie
banana bread
caramel apple cake
I didn't even think that I was eating that much, and after we had finished eating, my host (who knows that I love to eat) asked me if I had had enough. I thought about it for a moment, and replied that I was only slightly stuffed. I added that I was able to eat more, but then I would have been really stuffed. In retrospect, I suppose that it makes sense that even though I didn't think that I was eating that much, I still wound up being slightly stuffed. I was only eating the equivalent of one full plate, followed by a sampling of three of the four desserts (I didn't realize that there was any banana bread, or I would've tried that, too). But I rarely eat that much at once here in Morocco. So even though it was less than I usually ate on Thanksgiving Day in the US in past years, it was a greater quantity of food than I usually eat during any particular meal here in Morocco.
There was plenty of food! I certainly appreciated the delicious cooking. I thanked my friends for it. When I said grace before we chowed down in earnest, I thanked God for the delicious food. I also thanked God for the wonderful people who had prepared all of the food, and for the other wonderful people there with us. Immediately before our Thanksgiving celebration, I'd had a stretch of a few weeks where I didn't see any other PCVs (or any other expats at all), so it was nice to get to see them all.
That night, we settled down in beds and sleeping bags for our slumber. I was spending the night in a room that was maybe slightly smaller than 9 feet by 9 feet with 5 other PCVs. At one point, another PCV and I were reading as others were already dozing off. A few minutes after she finished reading and rolled over, I turned off the light and settled down for the night. By the dim light of a streetlamp filtering in through the small window high above us, I discerned the rough shapes of my fellow volunteers under landscapes of sleeping bags, sheets and blankets, as they unconsciously comforted me by reminding me of their presence through their sonorous respiration like bullfrogs croaking in a moonlit marsh, a pleasant chorus of reassurance which gradually lulled me to sleep.
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