gobble gobble!

ahh yes, that pesky american holiday that the french think is A)English and B)Christmas. well they are wrong on both accounts. since part of my job is to teach cultural tidbits, i of course had to include thanksgiving. i love everything about the holiday. no religious affiliations, just family and friends getting together and eating too much. yum.

the lesson was quite easy to plan out since i just put up 'thanksgiving' on the board and asked what they thought it was...christmas was popular. i explained that is was about giving thanks for friends, family, food...kinda what is done for xmas...but that it is something that originated from america. i introduced pilgrims, native americans (this was difficult to explain, they preferred indians), turkey, corn and pumpkin pie. basically i told them a crude story about how the first people that came to america were the pilgrims but they didn't know how to make the food that they found on the new land. so, the native americans helped them figure it out and the pilgrims were so happy that they made a big feast to thank the native americans, a tradition that lasts today. i know, limited. i left out the part where the pilgrims later killed those same native americans. probably inapproriate.

the best part: hand turkeys. ha. at the end of the lesson they had to outline their left hand and color it is with certain colors that i chose. it worked out great. for some of the older students i found a easy crossword with key thanksgiving vocabulary. it was a fun lesson :)

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now, the next task at hand was celebrating thanksgiving here! since there are three americans, we decided that we would throw a little fête for the other assistants so we can do some cultural exchange. luckily, since tarik was in town the weekend before, i had asked him to bring some turkey supplies! he brought stuffing, canned cranberry (gross), pumkin pie mix + spices, gravy, marshmellows, and of course...sweet potatoes. the only thing we needed to figure out was turkey. we quickly found out that it was surprisingly difficult to find. apparently, you have to special order it. however, we ended up finding some turkey roasts which worked out great! i didn't end up doing any of the cooking really which i feel bad about, but since i had class ALL day i barely made it to the dinner on time anyway.

one the left is anne putting the finishing touches on that wonderful turkey roast. stephanie whizzed up a great recipe with potatoes, carrots, garlic and rosemary(among other herbs). it may not have been a full turkey...but that would've been a whole lot of work anyway.





















on the left is me having fun with my new camera :) the green beans were great and so was the stuffing. on the right is all the girls (minus me). from left to right: fran (ireland), nicole (canada), rachel (england, stephanie (chicago), anne (kansas), susanne (germany). isabel (venezuela) was sick and unfortunately couldn't make it.

all is all, it was a great cultural mess. american thanksgiving, french wine, baguettes and company from all over the world :)