Thursday
Thanksgiving day! It was so strange to be away from home. I’ve never missed a holiday with my family before. Thankfully, the people in my life here went out of their way to make it a really great day.
Catherine picked me up for my day at the Charvieu school at 8am. As we drove along, she let me know that she planned to take me out for a Thanksgiving lunch and that she had purchased some New York candies so the staff could help me celebrate.
I spent the morning teaching students about Thanksgiving. It was hard for me to know how much I could actually teach them about the subject. How much US history do they know? How much English do they actually understand? Is it appropriate to discuss genocide with middle school age children? All questions I really pondered throughout the morning.
I went with an incredibly simplified telling of the popularized history. Native peoples assisted English religious separatists with their first successful harvest in the Americas. After a brief period of peace, the Pilgrims violently stole Native land and forced tribes out of their homeland. I also tried to encourage students to use terms like “indigenous” or “native peoples” instead of terms like “Indian.”
One of my students was shocked to hear that people lived in the Americas before Christopher Columbus arrived. He pondered, “Why did my history teacher say Columbus discovered America if there were already people living there?” My jaw almost hit the floor. Good question, kiddo! I didn’t realize that French students were fed the same (or similar) lines that American students were about our history.
Other classes were less interested in Thanksgiving history and more interested in learning about food. We talked in detail about the dishes served for the Thanksgiving meal, what pies were most popular, and our own favorite foods. One student made sure to tell me she would want a blueberry pie at her meal.
Catherine took me out to lunch and bought me a meal from the boulangerie in Pont Chéruy. I had a toasted ham and cheese with a Coke and a raspberry cake. We took our food to eat by a nearby lake. It was good to chat and learn about her career in teaching. She’s been the head English teacher at MLK for 8 years and plans to request a transfer in 2 years to teach in one of the former French colonies. She was very excited to tell me that she planned to take me shopping on Saturday when the stores reopened.
I was finished with all my classes for the day, so I parked myself in the staff room to wait for Mme Bodet to pick me up. When she arrived around 3, we zipped through the countryside to the Villette d’Anthon to go for groceries. I learned that in the past the Villette was smaller than Anthon (my village of 1,000), however because of its proximity to Lyon it has quickly outpaced Anthon in growth. The population of the Villette is approaching 12,000! I was able to pick up everything I needed for the apartment. I got some cooking supplies, fresh fruit, ground beef (finally!), and some hair supplies.
For dinner Mme Bodet prepared a Thanksgiving meal! She invited my landlady and her husband Luc over to celebrate as well. We started with drinks in the living room before moving to the table to eat.
The first course included a wonderful cornbread and a cold corn, tomato, and beet salad.
The main course included turkey, sweet potatoes, candied pecans, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. I think this might have been the most traditional Thanksgiving meal I ever had! My family typically has mashed potatoes, baked beans, yams, corn, and baked ham.
For dessert there was a selection of sweet treats!
It was a great night and a great meal! I am so grateful for the kind and thoughtful people that I’ve met here. They’ve really made life so much easier.
Mary-Est-En-France 