Yesterday I celebrated Thanksgiving like every other American: with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and some weird spinach thing that I wasn’t quite sure of. And, of course, real pumpkin pie. I went to an American diner in Palma with my roommate, an English teacher from the high school, her boyfriend, and a friend of theirs. The five of us met up at the diner and it was fantastic!
The décor was “authentic American,” they had assured me beforehand, and it really was. I felt right at home with the nice squishy black-and-white vinyl-and-chrome chairs.
And Blues Brothers statues.
The proprietress is apparently from Texas, and she decided to bring a bit of good American home cookin’ to Mallorca. The food was excellent (apart from the spinach) and was full of authentically tasty Thanksgiving goodness.
The meal! No rolls—we had Spanish-style bread—but the Heineken made up for it.
Me + my roommate + my colleague + her boyfriend = a great meal with friends!
The Thanksgiving dinner in Palma was a culmination of all the Thanksgiving activities that have been going on this week. My job as the language assistant is to A) speak English, but B) teach the kids about American culture, and I’ve been doing that by talking a LOT about holidays. Halloween is getting big here, so the kids all knew about that, but Thanksgiving is a bit of a confusing day. “’Tanksjiving?’ What is?” Thanksgiving—a day to GIVE THANKS—is a special day. We celebrate being together with friends and family. We think about what we’re thankful for. All American families get together on Thanksgiving, and we eat a lot! “¡Ah, mem, és es Dia d'acció de gràcies! Jeni, ¿es verdad lo del pavo? ¿Es como lo muestran en el cine?” (“Is it true about the turkey? Is it really like in the movies?”)
I assured them that Thanksgiving was just like it is in the movies, and yes, we eat TONS of turkey. I also explained the concept of Tofurkey, but since Tofu hasn’t made an appearance here, they were a bit confused. I think the elementary kids were confused about the whole thing. I tried to explain the story of “The First Thanksgiving,” which went something like this (accompanied by copious amounts of overexaggerated hand-symbols, of course) :
A long time ago, the Pilgrims left England to go to America. Who knows what a Pilgrim is? A Pilgrim is a person who travels, who goes, from one place to another. Lots of Pilgrims go to Santiago de Compostela every year. Do you know what Santiago de Compostela is? No, well, it´s a city in Spain where lots of people go. People walk a long ways to get to Santiago de Compostela.
The Pilgrims left England…no, Brais, they did not walk from England! Do you know where England is? Am I from England? No, Maria del Mar, I´m not from England! I´m from America. The Pilgrims got in a big boat and went over the sea to get to America.
OK, a long time ago, the Pilgrims left England to go to America. When they got to America, they didn´t know how to find food. They were very hungry. They had nothing to eat. The Indians, or the Native Americans, came and showed the Pilgrims how to plant food.
No, Macià, we´re not talking about Cowboys and Indians. What is a cowboy? What is a cow? Look, here´s a picture of a cow, under the letter V for Vaca. A cowboy is a boy who takes care of cows. When the Pilgrims came to America, there were no cowboys.
So, the Indians gave the Pilgrims food. Then, they had a big party. A big festival. A big holiday. They ate lots of food, and played lots of games, and this was the First Thanksgiving. OK, we´re going to make Pilgrim hats and Indian headdresses. Who wants to be an Indian? Who wants to be a Pilgrim? What, Tomeu, you want to be a cowboy? No, these are not cowboy hats. We’re not talking about cowboys. These are Pilgrim hats. Tomeu, do you understand what a Pilgrim is?
(Tomeu gleefully shouts, “Cowboy!”)
For the elementary kids, the actual “English language” part of their English lesson went a bit south, but they sure had fun making the Indian headdresses. (Thoughts of political correctness kept flitting through my head as the kids reenacted war cries.)
For the older kids, we could actually talk a little more about what Thanksgiving means to the average American. I had asked some friends back in the states to make short videos of themselves explaining their special Thanksgiving traditions for the kids, and some of them went all out and made a fantastic video of themselves having a Thanksgiving dinner! (see it below. It’s hilarious.) Before showing the video in the high school, I explained it a bit to the kids, and afterwards, one girl asked me in Spanish, “But, Jeni, where are you in the video?” I’m here! My friends made this video for me and for you guys last week. They had a “fake Thanksgiving” meal in order to make a video of it and send it to me, here. I’m here in Spain with you guys, and they are in America. “But, Jeni, you are no…triste?” Am I sad to not be there? Well, a little. This is a very special day all over America, and I am not going home. But I’ll be home for Christmas, so it’ll be all right.
In truth, I was sad. Especially because right after that wonderful class, I had a class where the kids couldn’t sit still and wouldn’t shut up and they talked through the entire video, and afterwards when we did an exercise where I asked all the kids what they were thankful for, most kids just said, “Nothing” and they rolled their eyes. Just like a character in an Amy Tan book I read recently, I had to keep reminding myself that even teenagers have souls.
Going to the diner in Palma was a perfect way to remind myself that Thanksgiving can be special anywhere—with old friends and new friends, in my aunt and uncle’s house or in an American diner in Spain. What matters is remembering everything we have to be thankful for, and celebrating it with the people we love. And eating lots of turkey, of course :)
If this video doesn't work, try this link to Ali's Facebook videos: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=536552123733
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