Happy Thanksgiving a Day Early

On Tuesday, I attended the international dinner prepared by the students of the adult literacy class I help with. The students did all the cooking, except for the traditional American stuff the teachers and aides brought in. It was one giant thanksgiving dinner with the biggest kids' table I've ever seen.

These are called motongo con carne frita. Plantains, onions, bacon and garlic
are mounded on top of seasoned chicken. Yum.

These are fried tacos filled with chicken and potatoes. Also yum.

At this station, someone was making corn tortillas from scratch.

This was Eustacia's plate—she went as my guest. The square thing on the right is a Spanish omelet, and the long green thing is plato tipico. It's a chard leaf stuffed with a corn-meal dough and then boiled. It's served with salsa and pumpkin seeds.

We were all given small recipe booklets with recipes for everything on the table, including the American stuff, but who wants that when we all know how to make green bean casserole and mashed potatoes?

During the dinner, a woman sat at a piano in the corner and played show tunes like Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Can't Help Lovin' that Man. What seemed like dozens of little kids ran around giggling and squealing until a woman from the library took them all up on stage to read a story and watch a little puppet show. That woman deserved a cash prize.

There are so many reasons to be thankful for this English class gig, but the international dinner is now one of my favorite things, a side benefit you might say. I was going to post this on Thursday as a way to say "happy thanksgiving," but I just couldn't wait. Plus, I'll be traveling that day, and I don't know if I'll get a chance to post or not. So, a day early—happy thanksgiving.