Thanksgiving in St. Vincent

Being a long way from home gets tough as the holidays start rolling in. Thanksgiving is one of my favorites because of all the food that I get to eat. The menu is usually as follows:

• turkey
• chicken
• ham 
• greens 
• baked Mac n cheese
• corn on the cob
• dressing (not a fan, but will eat with cranberry sauce)
• sweet potatoes (can be a pie, mashed or diced, casserole, etc)
• banana pudding
• peach cobbler
• corn bread

Even though I look forward to it each year, it's not the same since I'm in a different country. Thanksgiving is an American holiday and for me it has always meant spending time with family and talking about what you're thankful for. Sometimes, Thanksgiving is really the only time you get to see family, especially if they live in another city or state. 

 I wanted to celebrate it still, so I took a half day from school and cooked. I baked chicken, Mac n cheese and made sweet potatoes. Another Peace Corps Volunteer hosted the dinner and she made golden apple juice and a chocolate pie. I invited a friend and a few of our neighbors over. One of them brought sorrel (sah-rail) juice, which is a local juice. We ate and talked and also went around the room saying what we are thankful for. For me, I am thankful for life and how things turn out. If someone told me last year that I would be a teacher on an island, I wouldn't have believed them. 

I also made enough food to bring to school for the principal and teachers. They all loved it and were surprised by how I cooked the sweet potatoes. Here they just cook the sweet potatoes and yams and let the natural flavors and sweetness come out. However, I cut them up, added brown sugar, butter, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. 

Even though cooking for a lot of people was a lot of work and I didn't have everything on the menu that I wanted to make (I wasn't able to make a lot of things due to the time and resources that I had), 

I still got to celebrate Thanksgiving with the people I've come to love on this island. I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving as well!