Thanksgiving and A Census

I may have mentioned this before, but it always feels weird to spend US holidays in a foreign country, especially with a holiday like Thanksgiving, which is truly an american holiday. Last year I happen to be travelling around because my brother came down to visit, this year I decided to impart some American culture on the lovely people of San Lorenzo. The thing that surprised me the most is that when talking to some of the people in my community, they knew what Thanksgiving was or should we say…el dia de accion de gracias. They didn´t know the history behind the holiday but realized that it was an American holiday where we eat turkey. I guess some American stereotypes shown on TV down here trickle down the countryside as well!
Anyways, I decided to cook a typical Thanksgiving dinner for my host family because their concepts of American Food are hamburgers and hot dogs (which is kind of sad that they are true about that part). To find a turkey, I decided to chop down a tree, whittle a bow and arrow out of it, then just go Rambo style and hunt a wild turkey out in the country…but then I woke up haha (it would be awesome to do that though). The truth is that finding a turkey in the local market or grocery store was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Most Ecuadorians do eat turkey during the holiday season, but usually it is for Christmas, not thanksgiving. They start offering turkeys on December 1st…nearly a week after Thanksgiving. Luckily, I did find one place that was selling parts of turkey, not the whole bird, so I was happy to at least find turkey, but then I had to explain to my host family that usually we have the whole bird, not just parts. Starting to cook at 10am, I cooked about 12 pieces of turkey, made a pumpkin pie from scratch (even the crust although the pumpkin I found was a little different than the dark orange ones found in the states), mashed potatoes, and a mushroom casserole (though I couldn´t find those crispy things that you put on the casserole). I finally finished at 5pm and we ate shortly thereafter. The cool thing was the my host mom and brother asked a lot of questions about Thanksgiving and what we were supposed to do (can we drink this? Why do we eat this type of food? Ect) and it turned out to be a great cultural experience. Plus, I got a big thumbs up about the pumpkin pie…I was a little worried because I had never made pumpkin pie from scratch before!
The other thing that happened recently was the national census happened here in Ecuador. The Peace Corps informed us to be ready to answer questions orally plus do a survey on a scantron type form. I was ready to inform them that I am a government spy being sent to a small country town to infiltrate any and all citizens and then extract oil for our big oil companies in Ecuador´s rainforest…but I think drawing attention to myself when I am already a tall pale skinned gringo probably wouldn´t be the best idea. It was actually pretty boring, I never talked to the census people because maria Elena told them that I live with her and that I am leaving in April anyways, so what is the point exactly?
I bet it was a treat for some of the census people though. I talked with a director of a school in which I do a school garden (in a small community outside of san Lorenzo) and she told me she had to ride a horse for 5 hours one way just to get to some of the houses that they had to census. That’s a devoted citizen! I am pretty sure she wasn´t paid for that. Anyways, I am not sure if I am going to do another blog entry before I head back to the states in two weeks (can’t wait!) for Christmas and News Years. Should be interesting seeing how things have changed since I have been gone…