No Shame: My Adventure in Ecuador: Thanksgiving Dinner

So this week was Thanksgiving week, and instead of being at home with my family, I'm here in Ecuador with an entirely different kind of family. However, this does not mean that I did not have an excellent Thanksgiving.

Because Thanksgiving is solely an American holiday, I had to work on Thursday. But, I got lucky, because I had a movie day scheduled for Thursday. (Yay!) By my second, 6 pm, class, the DVD player decided to not function at all. So after an hour of attempting to ignore it skipping every 5 seconds, I gave up and told my class they could go. Luckily, 6 pm is when I have my university students. Instead of simply leaving, they took me out and bought me "Thanksgiving dinner". Of course, turkeys here cost about $40, so dinner was actually chicken strips and fries from Tropi Burger. I really didn't care, though, because I got to hang out with some people for an hour and eat free chicken strips. :-)

On Saturday, the Quito volunteers had our own Thanksgiving dinner. Robert's host family graciously let us (or rather, Robert) terrorize their kitchen to make food. It should be noted that Robert made a ton of the food, and it was all delicious. (See list below) We had almost all the traditional Thanksgiving foods aside from cranberry sauce (difficult find cranberries, and if you do, they're expensive), sweet potatoes/yams, and pie. It really was a lot of fun spending time with (almost) all of us in the same place, plus some host family members. Of course, the 5 bottles of wine also made everyone pretty happy.

As promised, the food list:
- turkey (robert)
- blackberry sauce (robert, actually very delicious)
- mashed potatoes (megan)
- green bean casserole (robin)
- asparagus wrapped in bacon (elizabeth)
- gravy (robert)
- baked macaroni and cheese (robert)
- salad (combination of people)
- peanut butter brownies (robert)
- M&M cookies (me)
- wine (greg, chia-hsin, and I don't remember who else)

I have to admit, not being home for Thanksgiving did not make me particularly sad. I think this may be because I wasn't with family last year either; I stayed in Austin and ate Thanksgiving dinner at Jackie's house with her family while my family went to Wisconsin. So it may be because I've already missed Thanksgiving with family or because I was able - through the wonders of technology - to talk to my family on Facetime on Thanksgiving day. And, of course, any other day that they're available and my internet is working (which about 90% of the time).

Who knows what Christmas will be like; I hope to be somewhere with people I know for that holiday. I haven't decided, but I would like to travel down to Loja (very Southern tip of Ecuador) during my Christmas break. Loja is about 13 hours away, so it's definitely a trip I want to make during a long break. There is one volunteer placed there, and he has told me he'll be in town during December, so maybe I'll be there for Christmas. Or maybe I'll wait to travel until January and be at home with my host family for Christmas. I guess I should probably start looking at that so I can make sure I have all my travel plans solidified, but it still feels too early. We shall see.

And now, pictures:

Peanut butter brownies