My Malagasy Thanksgiving Mission

I don’t think there’s a better way to truly appreciate what Thanksgiving means than celebrating where no one else understands it.

As the most American of holidays, it's one that I have too long taken for granted, and thanks to Ankazobe, I’ve found my own cornucopia of reasons to be thankful.

I woke up Thanksgiving morning understanding that, besides my site mate Health Volunteer Brianna Janz, no one else in this community of 20,000 would have any idea of what Thanksgiving is or what it means. My first priority: change that.

I scrapped both my 6eme and 2nde lesson plans that morning, replacing them with various stories and activities related to Thanksgiving. Nothing else I’ve done here has made me more proud.

I wanted to help the kids understand what it means to be thankful for what they have, and they proved more then capable of joining in and absorbing a little American culture.

First off: hand turkeys. Nothing else captures a typical American classroom like a wall covered in hand turkeys around Thanksgiving time. The kids absolutely loved it. They were making crazy turkeys of every shape and color. I wanted them to go nuts, letting their imaginations run wild and making these turkeys their own, and they did not disappoint.

After I hung the pictures up in the classroom during the break, they really started going nuts. Another American classroom staple is showing off the students’ work, something that’s sorely lacking in Madagascar. A big, but simple, project of mine is to change that. After my peers at the C.E.G saw the positive reaction elicited from my students after they saw their work so dominantly displayed, I’m confident I’ll be seeing copycats in no time.

It was my 2nde kids, though, who really shined. Our lesson was all about the history of Thanksgiving and what it means to be thankful.

While a lot of my students simply repeated what I said, being thankful for health and family, there were a few who really grasped what I was trying to convey.

They were thankful for the opportunity to go to school everyday instead of having to work in the rice fields, having food on the table every day or just having good friends. It was a really cool and eye-opening experience for me as a teacher. This wasn’t some curriculum or lesson guide I built around; this was my lesson made from scratch. And they loved it.

As for my Thanksgiving meal? Brianna put together some absolutely delicious chili. I ate four bowls over the course of Thursday and Friday, and my stomach still hasn’t forgiven me. Add some composê (potato salad) and cucumber salad, and you have everything needed for an American Thanksgiving in Madagascar. And really, I couldn’t be more thankful.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and I wish you all an even happier holiday season.