Thanksgiving

With apologies to past years and my family at home, this weekend I celebrated the best Thanksgiving of my entire life.

I wasn't expecting that at all, honestly. I thought that my very first thanksgiving out of the country and away from my family was going to be incredibly difficult. I thought I would be a depressed, crying, miserable, mess. Instead, I feel like everything that I really do have to be thankful for was just thrown into a sharp relief, and the day became so much more meaningful. About 15 of us got together, made delicious food, hung out and talked, toasted everything that we had to be thankful for, made a mess, ate to the point of pain, sat around holding our stomachs, and then ate some more. I was sad not to be with my family in the US of course, but this weekend for the first time it was really brought home to me how much all of the other volunteers have become my family. These are my brothers and my sisters, we commiserate and talk shit and cook and irritate eachother, but most of all we're all there for eachother. I spent Thanksgiving with my family, and I'm so grateful.

It was also the best thanksgiving ever because I got a HUGE packet of mail! Peace Corps had sent it all to another volunteer (damn the fielding-miller/miller nonsense). I got letters from my parents, from Erin and Roy and signed by a ton of other people (what a great idea guys, thank you SO much!!!), The Princess Bride, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a DVD full of excellent music from my charming and fantastic baby brother. So later in the evening, we all sat around watching Pirates and talking and picking at left over turkey -- followed by watching the international edition of The Daily Show (!! bliss!!!), the Simpsons, and ESPN's updates on college football. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but here its almost a small miracle. It was like having a small piece of home out in a place where I can appreciate it even more.

I'm aware that this whole thing is poorly written, and I'll come back and fix it later. But I wanted to share, while I'm still on cloud 9, what a wonderful weekend I've just had. In the words of Angie, "When I'm 80 and sitting around with my grandkids at Thanksgiving, I just know I'll be thinking: 'you guys are ok I guess, but that Thanksgiving 2006 in South Africa was the SHIT!'"

Also, bagels are a pain in the ass to make, but worth it.