47. Thanksgiving!

Thursday, 11/22/12

Happy Thanksgiving!!! My favorite holiday! Why? Food and family! Oops. None of that is available to me this year in Bolvia. My family is far, far away, and Bolivia hasn’t even heard of stuffing, ginger carrots, cranberry sauce, or potato boats! Nonetheless, God gave me a day of joy worthy of being thankful for. He always pulls through for me!

At least they were smiling before
 they died of a salt-induced heart attack!

I woke up with many things planned today. I planned on enjoying today, and sharing it with all of Familia Feliz…and I did!....in spite of my busy day. I had volunteered to cook breakfast for my family as well as Juan and Emy’s family since it was there day off. They were leaving at 8, so I would have to juggle their kids and keep them busy too. I decided lentils were an American thing, so I made them lentil soup with vegetables for breakfast. However, my soup turned out to be too American because I overloaded it with salt! It should have been called salt with lentils. My kids could barely eat it so I made fried dough and gave them bananas to put into the soup to suck up the salt.



Ocoro. Just another weird, yet delicious fruit.
Kind of like Sour Patch candy mixed with yogurt.
Definitely not your typical Thanksgiving food item!

I then chose the bad time to announce that I was making American food for Supper, and they grimaced! They thought I would mess it up again. I don’t blame them after my first attempt. Haha. After breakfast, I was honestly quite homesick. I love conversing with my whole family at the dinner table, watching football with them, and enjoying my grandma’s pumpkin and pecan pies. I decided my parents would love a phone call, and it was just the thing I needed. It brightened my day so much I decided to call again tonight just for fun.



We peeled a lot of potatoes today.
But none bigger than this fellow!



After chatting with my folks, I went back into cooking mode. I helped the girls make rice and veggies for lunch, but I was more focused on the main event, supper. I was going to make mashed potatoes, cooked string beans, gravy, and hot dog buns for every one! For our own special meal, Stephen and I also made Big Franks (pretty much gold for me! Chad had gifted me his last can when he left. Pretty sure I hugged the life out of him). We even made ketchup!!  Yeah…we got fancy.



After boiling potatoes, preparing the string beans, and mixing the bread dough, I set aside one hour for the kids and I to sand-paper the trailer to prepare it for painting. We ate lunch first, and then we walked to the trailer. Everyone was so excited! I ended up having 15 kids with me to sand the thing. I almost felt like I was conducting the Thanksgiving parade: all the kids in front of me single file while I brought up the rear. We didn’t even need Snoopy! After an hour, it was back to the kitchen! 

  

Everyone was working hard...except for Freddy!

We had quite the gang...and this is only half of them.

Even Enoch helped out!

Then it was playtime! Look at all those monkeys!

We baked the bread, cooked the beans, and mashed the potatoes. You know how a lot of potatoes make a little amount of mashed potatoes? Well, it happened again! We must have put in forty potatoes, some of them were huge and counted as five potatoes, and yet, when we were done, there would barely be enough to serve my family of four back in the States! Our emergency plan? Cook rice as filler. 

Four hours later, our art was completed. We were happy to share our food with everyone, but now it was time to enjoy for ourselves! We pigged out! Just check out the pictures!! We even had American candy!! We read some Bible and Ellen White about the pilgrims. Then I had to hurry back and watch the kids. We even had some peering through the window salivating over our food. Sorry kids, it was American time.

I felt like a man mashing taters like this

That gravy was delicious!

Roasting Big Franks! Nothing gets better than that!

Not too shabby with improvised ingredients, eh?



Check out the homemade ketchup! It was a nice slice of Amercia.



You can´t believe how hard it is to take to
pose when there is food in front of me. Will power!

Healthy food, Junk food, and Spiritual Food.
A day worthy to be thankful for.

Stephen reading from Ellen White´s writings.



Haha. Definitely miss my real family!
 But, I couldn´t ask for better replacements!



I had two hot dogs left, shared them with my current family, and they thoroughly enjoyed this weird sensation! It made me content to hear “Gracias (Thank you), mucho gusto (I like it a lot), muy lindo (very yummy)” from the kids when they tasted the strange food.

 Juan and Emy returned at 8 p.m. and then we all chatted for a bit and then it was bedtime. I was fully content from this day. I truly do have a lot to be thankful. I am always surrounded with kids to love, and they never fail to love me back. With that, I tucked Juan into bed, let Brayan tuck himself in, and we went to sleep. However, the day wasn’t over yet!

At 12:00 a.m. I woke up loud and anxious talking. I joined a group of eight who were trying to find a lost girl. Brayan was up with me as we tried to figure out how to find her. She was eventually found, and one hour later, we were back in bed. However, this was my favorite part. Brayan randomly opened up to me and started talking about everything! I enjoy talking to Brayan because he can almost speak English fluently. Ironicly, I usually speak to him in Spanish and he speaks to me in English. Good practice that way. He started chattering about his favorite color, animals, what he wanted to be, what he wanted in a girlfriend, how much he missed his family, and how he wanted to join Chad and I when we go to Santa Cruz for vacation. We talked like this for an hour, and when the time was right, I laughingly ordered him to shut up and sleep and he gladly obliged. I slept quite contently after that.

Happy Thanksgiving!! Enjoy your football and food! Save a seat for me at your table for next year! :)

God Bless!
-Eric

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**