I guess it was about mid-November when it really hit me that I wouldn’t be spending the holidays with my family. Especially with Thanksgiving rapidly approaching, it really began to sink in.
On Thanksgiving day, it was just a normal day like any other. It was kind of weird having to go to work on such a holiday, instead of smelling turkey all day long, enjoying the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, stuffing my face, watching football, and enjoying my family. Since Spain is in Europe, most Spaniards, including the English teachers at my school, are for the most part oblivious to American holidays. It took me a while to accept this. I guess that’s the stereotypical American in me -- “Everyone should know everything about the United States!” So, when I arrived at school on Thanksgiving the other American girls and I started reminiscing about all the joys of good ol’ Turkey Day. Kiran, a quite lovely girl from Wolverhampton, England, was kind of clueless about the holiday too, so we filled her in on the highlights. Then, school started like any other day. During recess, my teacher, Marta, asked me if I wanted to put up some Thanksgiving posters that were left in the English room. Excited to do anything Thanksgiving-related, I rushed to the English room to find them. After a successful rummage through the mounds of posters, I finally found four different posters! I looked at the first one, then the second, then the third, and finally the fourth. Then I noticed...there was no mention of Native Americans anywhere on any of the posters! I turned them over, and on the back of all four posters was printed “Made in England”. These posters were made from the British perspective of our American holiday. There was also a poem on one of the posters. In essence, it simply said that the pilgrims came to America on a ship, found a nice patch of land, created a new world, decided to give thanks, and lived happily every after. Despite the incorrect interpretation of the holiday, I decided to put them up in the corridor anyway. After recess, I had English class with one of my favorite classes, 2B. We finished a little early, so Marta asked if I wanted to read the poem from one of the posters, and tell them a little about the Thanksgiving traditions of the United States. The poem was a little difficult for second graders to understand, and I knew they wouldn’t comprehend it, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Instead of reading the poem as it was, I decided to quench my thirst for a correct Thanksgiving interpretation while simultaneously making the poem more fun for the kids. I told the kids that every time I said “Indians”, they would make Native American calls. So, essentially, they became aware of the Native American side of the story as I added parts to the poem, and they got to howl as loud as they could. After I explained the story of Thanksgiving, they kind of looked confused, so I asked Marta if she would mind just telling them a quick version in Spanish. She replied, “Would you like to do it? Explain it in Spanish?” I’m sure all the color drained from my face, but I seized the opportunity. I told the kids not to laugh at me because my Spanish isn’t perfect. You should have seen their faces -- the were quiet as mice, and were all staring at me with wide eyes and interest. Since this was the first time they had ever heard me speak Spanish, they were completely impressed, even if every sentence wasn’t perfect.
After telling them the story, I explained that in America we eat turkey, watching American Football, and spend the whole day with our family. I told them that I was a little bit sad because I wouldn’t be with my family this year. Then, 25 seven year olds got up out of their seats, and gave me a group hug to make me feel better! They all cried “Don’t be sad, Estefanieee!” Hugs from seven year olds sure are a good cure for homesickness.
Since most of my friends in Spain are Americans, and most of us don’t work on Fridays, we decided to have a big Thanksgiving dinner together at Jenae’s apartment. There were probably about 20 of us all together for Thanksgiving, and we even had some Spaniards mixed into the crowd! We all brought something to dinner, and Jenae and Jamie cooked a turkey. Even though I was away from my family, it was such a great Thanksgiving. It was Jenae’s roommate’s birthday as well, so at about 11pm, more people showed up to the apartment. It was crazy -- easily 60 people crammed into a little apartment. We should have known the cops would get called. The doorman at the apartment building already felt uneasy when every 5 minutes non-Spaniards were going up to the 5th floor. So after the landlord gave us a piece of his mind, we were forced to vacate the apartment. We continued our Thanksgiving night at a bar, dancing the night away. It wasn’t exactly a traditional Thanksgiving, but it is certainly one that I will never forget.
