Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been an interesting school week, although we weren't too surprised about that. Monday was a pretty normal day, but somewhat low attendance. It was also very rainy. It rained most of the day and most of the night, and was still raining when we went to school on Tuesday. Students and teachers trickled in, and by mid-morning, only 6 out of 12 students in my class were there but all the teachers were there. But, then the principal was afraid the bridge that you have to go over to get there was going to flood out, so she sent everyone home at about noon. Then, yesterday again only 6 of 12 students (but not all the same ones as Tuesday) in my class were there. Today Roxy and I just stayed home for Thanksgiving and helped cook and clean mostly. And there's no school tomorrow because of the commonwealth meetings happening here.
~Olivia

This morning was really fun! We noted that it might have been the first time Olivia and I really helped out with the cooking (well, at least with more than the pies)! We made turkey, stuffing, cranberry salad, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and zwieback. We even bought whipped cream to go with the pies! Since we don't have any recipes here really, we found a lot online, except we called my grandma and asked her to email us the zwieback recipe. I had never made zwieback before, just eaten it! We also found that we could watch the parade online! We found a website online where an Oklahoma State Cowboys fan had streaming NBC where we could watch it! It was really choppy, though, especially when it was on full screen, so we had to watch it pretty small. But we were also excited to find that it was our favourite channel to watch the parade on, because since it shows from the end of the route, it has Broadway numbers that it shows too! So our morning was a pleasant mixture of cooking and enjoyment!
~Roxy

As the girls have noted, we are enjoying an American Thanksgiving holiday today. We had made the decision earlier in the week to keep the girls home from school to celebrate. Frankly, they are probably the only kids in their school who haven't already missed a lot of days. We've noticed that people here are more likely than in the U.S. to stay home from school or work if they're feeling just a little under the weather or if they have some sort of personal event like a birthday or minor religious holiday. We thought that celebrating Thanksgiving was worth missing a day of school. We've enjoyed all the preparations. For the most part, the fixings were not too hard to find. The one exception is the cranberries. We had to search a bit to find those, but we finally did!
It's also something of a celebration for me today as last night was my last regular class session. I do still have a fair amount of work to do, however. My students all turned in the big papers that they've been working on all semester, and which I now have to grade. I also need to finish writing the final exam that they will take on Monday. Then, of course, I'll need to grade those, too. But today is a day to take off from all that--to celebrate and give thanks for the many blessings we have. We again are grateful to so many of you reading this blog back in the U.S. for your support in helping us get here, and to everyone here in Trinidad for the ways in which we have been welcomed and made to feel home here as well.
~Richard

It's about 10:15 and our Thanksgiving guests recently left. Richard is finishing up some clean up. We've put all the food away. We had a wonderful evening, but we are glad that tomorrow will be a holiday and we can sleep in. Because today was not a day off for most, we weren't able to begin supper until around 7:00.
We have enjoyed the hospitality of many while we have been here, but one family in particular has really taken care of us. Ramesh is one of the Mennonite pastors here and Babes is known far and wide for her wonderful cooking. We have referred to them often in this blog. They live very close to us. Babes is always sending us food. Earlier this week when we stopped to buy eggs from her she gave us some plantains and also some five finger fruit (often called star fruit in the US) from her tree. So tonight was a great opportunity to share a meal with them and their two young adult sons, Avi and Arvin. We discussed how Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, explaining the food, family, football and shopping. They shared that in Trinidad Christians call a thanksgiving celebration whenever something good happens, an important marker in their lives or perhaps something they have been praying about that comes to pass. Then they throw a big party inviting all their friends and relatives, serving a large meal and having a time of worship.
Today we indeed have much to be thankful for. We are thankful to all those in Trinidad who have welcomed us. We are thankful for our wonderful family including the extended family we were thinking of especially today. And we are thankful for our friends in the US, many of whom have showed us your support and care in so many ways. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
~Barb