My Three Turkeys

Thanksgiving dinner as the four of us (clockwise from top: Braden, Ginya, Karla (me), and Linden) celebrated Thursday night

This week saw the passing of one of my personal favorite American holidays - Thanksgiving. Normally back home, I celebrate this holiday by spending a week cooking cranberry sauce and this cabbage/lentil thing my mom created before driving to New Jersey to celebrate with my cousins and family the day of. This year, however, I'm in Oman, more than 7,000 miles away from my family, celebrating with five girls I've known less than a year and a bunch of other people I've barely met.

But still, it's pretty perfect in its own way. Sure, I didn't get to sit around the table with my family and give thanks and hold hands and slip away into simultaneous food comas the way we usually do. But I did get to talk to them on Skype (VPN for the win, y'all) as they were preparing the turkey, and give thanks with my exchange sisters as we took part in our own Thanksgiving dinner halfway around the world.

This year, actually, I got two Thanksgivings. The first was on Monday night, when the six of us exchangers and our host families gathered at the house of the American Ambassador to Oman for a holiday dinner. The second was Thursday, the actual day of Thanksgiving. Although not everyone could make it, four of us went together to the home of a really nice woman who works at the embassy who was hosting a sort of holiday gathering. Everyone but us brought a dish to share, and we stuffed ourselves silly on everything available (included both baked AND fried turkey) before heading home with packages of leftovers in our laps.

That being said, Thanksgiving's been really hard for me. It's the first real holiday that I've been away from home, and it's difficult to remember previous years and imagine what this one could have been like. I think that's honestly one of the biggest challenges of being an exchange student; putting your drive to learn in front of the sadness and homesickness that come in waves at the least convenient times. Because it's easy to wish yourself back home with your family - it's hard to imagine that and say to yourself "But you know what? I'm happy here. I'm glad I'm here."

And this year I am thankful for that. I am thankful for the fact that I am here in Oman with five girls who a year ago were total strangers but with whom I now share the sort of friendship that has morphed into sisterhood as we have undertaken this incredible journey together. I am thankful for my friends and family back home, who support me in following my dream 7,000 miles away, and for my friends and host family here in Oman, who have made me feel at home in what was once a foreign land in just three short months. I am thankful for love, and laughter, and the way my three year old host sister's face lights up with a grin as she chucks one of her dolls at my head. I am grateful for the fact that turkey exists in this country, for the fact that "it's okay to get fat, I'm an exchange student", for all of the ups and down and bumps in the road that have led me to where I am today.

It's been hard to get here, and hard to be here, but I wouldn't trade my opportunity for anything in the world. So I guess I'm really just happy, and today, that's what I'm thankful for.

🎶American Pie - Don McLean🎶

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