Chapter Eight: Gracias

A day to give thanks. A day to appreciate your blessings. A day so beautiful that I am surprised that only a few countries celebrate this day of Thanksgiving. And even more surprised to not find a whole turkey in the supermarkets. So thus begins this story of the week before Thanksgiving.

A week before Thanksgiving and all throughout Castro-Urdiales, a young girl pondered the perplexity of Spanish supermarkets. Supermarket number one: no turkey. Supermarket number two: no turkey. Supermarket number three: turkey breasts but no whole turkey. Come to find out the week before Thanksgiving, Spain does not sell turkeys. Go. Figure.

So with an American friend coming to visit last weekend to attempt at an early Spanish Thanksgiving, we turned the traditional American Thanksgiving to be what I like to call: "Spanishized." So allow me to make a list of what is traditional in the U.S. and how the Spaniards and the other American and I modified it.

1. Mashed potatoes-Don't worry, those were a good to go so nothing was altered there.
2. Carrots-Those too are easy to find so nothing weird happened there either.
3. Turkey-Ah-ha! Now we start the changes. So like I mentioned earlier, turkey is a bit difficult to find. And when you do find it, it is twice as much as chicken. To say the least, we had chicken instead. How did we cook the chicken you may ask? Well, we attempted at cooking it in the oven. The first time around it turned out perfectly. Too bad I don't have a photo to prove it. But the chicken ended early so we turned the oven off. When people began to arrive, we turned it back on to warm it up. Makes sense, right? That is until you start talking with Spaniards and you forget about it. Don't worry! It wasn't like the lentils! I swear! No burned pans or anything. The meat was just a little hard and well done.
4. Cranberries-I'm afraid the only version of cranberries we could find were the dried fruit kind. In other words, craisins.
5. Pumpkin pie- Well, not exactly. Pumpkin or calabaza is certainly easy to find but a pie tin? Not so much. So instead of pie we made bread. Probably the highlight of the night really between the Spaniards.

Now you are probably thinking, wait, a minute. What about stuffing? Gravy? Rolls? Pecan pie?

Well, let me tell you. Here's how Thanksgiving got Spanishized. Instead of stuffing, we had typical Spanish ham on the table. You know how in the supermarkets around Thanksgiving there are always turkeys overflowing the bins? Well, take that image and instead of turkeys in the bins, fill it with ham. And change the time perspective of it only being around Thanksgiving to all year-around. Yes, all year there is ham. Ham, Ham Ham. You can never get enough it. And there is not just one kind of ham. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh no. Goodness no. You have ham "curado" ,"serrano" ,"cocido", you name it, you have it.

And gravy? Instead of gravy, our first course of the meal was soup. And rolls? Instead of rolls, we had baguettes. And pecan pie? Instead of pecan pie, my roommate made a delicious tarta or cake.

Now this was already a week ago. Last Saturday, yes, that's right. So what have I done since? All this week at school I have had the chance to talk about Thanksgiving with the students and teachers. And the theme for my teaching? Giving thanks. With my first and second graders, we talked about what "thank you" means and made a chain out of paper that had drawings and words of things and people who we want to say thank you to. With my fourth and sixth graders, we dug deeper into American Indian culture and what it means to share especially between cultures.

With that, I must say that I am most thankful for the opportunity I had here to spread light and truth on a serious matter about culture in the school. Furthermore, I am thankful for the mutual respect for our holiday here in Spain and being open to share customs and traditions all in the same meal. Because is that not why celebrate this holiday? Because of the past and the sharing and respect of our cultures?