(From Mom’s trip journal: Told from her perspective)
Today is Thanksgiving Day in American Samoa! We got up by about 8:00 to begin the rest of our cooking for dinner this afternoon with Jessie’s friends. First the carrot cake cupcakes so they could cool while we worked on the dressing. The dressing was a bit of a gamble since we couldn’t find cornbread mix and were using cornbread stuffing crumbs we bought readymade. I forgot the crumbs were already seasoned and added a bit too much sage. I also added a bit too much broth which made the mixture too wet. With a lot of effort and baking time, we finally had something that resembled dressing.
Cooking here in a kitchen with no A/C and 110% humidity is rather uncomfortable. I was all but dripping. We had the fan pointed at us but it was still HOT. As it neared 1:00pm, the time we were supposed to be at Brandy’s house, Jessie received a call and Brandy said she was running late and could we make it 2:00. That gave me an extra hour before I had to try and get showered and dressed in the heat. Tomorrow, I am going to buy Jessie another fan. I got dressed and almost as quickly started to sweat again. I put my makeup on sitting with the fan flowing straight in my face. Somehow, Jessie still looks fresh, and she showered first.
The taxi arrived and we loaded our Thanksgiving fare into the car and took a short drive to Brandy’s. She is the World Teach field director, and only a few years older than Jessie. The other guests were, Kara, a previous WT teacher and now contract teacher with the DOE, Marina, a ½ Samoan ½ American, who is a counselor at Samoana HS, Marina’s son Eldon who is 13 years old, and another Samoana teacher, Rachel, who is also part Samoan and part American.
After saying grace and everyone telling what they were thankful for, we shared a great meal of all the Thanksgiving dishes, turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, yams, ham, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin pie, carrot cake cupcakes, chocolate cookies. We stuffed ourselves with all the good food then sat back to chat and play some games. We played a few rounds of catch phrase, where our team won all the rounds, and then we tried a game called “Scene It” which was a sort of trivia game about Disney movies. After that we just sat and talked.
I enjoyed hearing stories about life in American Samoa both for the World Teach teachers and the native Samoans. Around 9:00pm Jessie and I took a taxi home and pretty soon after hit the sack. This was a nice and memorable Thanksgiving, spending it in American Samoa with Jessie!
 |
| 11.26.2009_Thanksgiving |
No comments:
Post a Comment