Thanksgiving

 At its best, when organized around generosity and kindness, Thanksgiving is such a great holiday -- it has as much gravitas and gravy to suit each appetite.  A built in community "living gratitude journal" practice.  It can be religious -- or not.  And if religious, it can honor any deity, individually or collectively.  How cool is that?

And so ours suited our group just right. The fledgling Pakse group, only 2 weeks arrived, barely settled in 2 country-side homes surrounded by roaming cows and dogs (for the 4 Fulbright English Teaching Assistants, ETAS) and 1 guest house (for me the English Language Fellow). We hosted 3 others arriving from Savannakhet by crammed bus, complete with stools inserted where knees were supposed to be, and 1 from Vientiane by plane.  


I don't remember our Pakse peeps, especially myself,  planning that much for this Friendsgiving weekend. It kind of emerged. Food is always a huge topic of conversation -- anytime, all the time. So the menu formed itself with casual chats of nostalgic recollections from each of our pasts. I took it on myself to get the turkey (breasts), flown in cooked and frozen. Part of a wing-and-flightless bird in a big silver one -- it had been flown earlier to Vientiane with other gourmet products from Australia. With the meat as our anchor, we could outdo ourselves with the sides which included sushi bake, macaroni, potatoes and gravy, green beans, carrots; and for dessert, tapioca and apple crumble. Truly a feast for a Saturday night holiday celebration. We couldn't finish the meal -- leftover turkey ended up in a fabulous larb cooked by my guest house owner, which we ate on Sunday night. 



And the activities during the day on Saturday and Sunday included the best hits of our region: the coffee-growing country east of us in low mountain environments, water falls, and across the Mekong, the ancient ruins of Vat Phou, a Hindu-Buddhist sacred area, much of it started before and fully developed by the  Khmer Empire (8th- 15th centuries), whose capital was in Cambodia at Anchor Wat. 

Resort at Tad Fane Waterfall

Tad Fane Waterfalls





 

Ruins at Wat Phou

Ruins at Wat Phou


Luckily we had Monday off to recover. It happened to be Lao National Day, commemorating the establishment of the Lao PDR on December 2, 1975, after the American War, as it's called here.  

It was a great holiday. And we promised to continue the adventure in Savannakhet next weekend! 

Savanakhet ETAs returning to bus station via Tuktuk

Sharon and I in front of 1971 Coffee
 


The Mekong from across the river from Pakse

 

Comments

  1. Hedwig MurphyDecember 12, 2024 at 8:28 AM

    A wonderful Thanksgiving celebration! I love all the pictures and seeing you among friends.

    ReplyDelete

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