Celebrating an American Holiday While Living Abroad...

When you’re living abroad and there is an American holiday to celebrate you kind of feel obligated to celebrate it since it’s an American tradition and your host country national friends kind of expect you to celebrate. Luckily for me Thanksgiving is my favorite of all the American holidays and I was happy to celebrate with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers. My apartment was large enough to accommodate my site mates and then some so we decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner at my place. We even decided to have a turkey even though it’s quite expensive over here.

I spotted some turkeys in the Gyumri open market and the vendors told me they sell for 4,000 Armenian Dram per kilogram. I asked if they could get me a 5 kg or 11 pound turkey but they only had an 8 kilogram turkey left when I needed it. I’ve never cooked a turkey myself so I was quite apprehensive to be in charge of this since this is the main dish. I had my brother send me a brine bag from the US to make sure I did it right too.

So when I ordered my live turkey from the market vendors I told them I’d like to photograph it since it’s not everyday you can get meat that fresh and prepared in front of your eyes. So my site mate Sarah and I met the vendors early in the morning and I had asked them before also that I wanted to cut the turkey’s throat too but the old guy misunderstood me and that I only wanted to photograph him doing it. Oh well no big deal. So off with the head and once that was done the turkey was placed in boiling water and left to sit for a few minutes. Moments later we began plucking the feathers from the turkey and after 15 minutes we were done. Afterwards, he started to remove the organs and that was it. The whole process took barely 30 minutes and I had my turkey to prepare.

Unfortunately, the size of the turkey was too big for my oven so I called frantically to my Armenian friends if anyone had an oven large enough to accommodate my turkey.  After a few hours I found a nearby restaurant that would cook it for me and charge on 500 Armenian Dram per kilogram. The total for them to cook it was roughly $8 so that was fine with me since I didn’t have to worry about it!

My fellow Peace Corps Volunteers brought the rest of the sides and drinks and we had a wonderful meal. Some brought decorations and some amazing pastries too. I have to say it was one of my best Thanksgiving meals abroad out of the 4 times I’ve been overseas during this holiday. I’ve always liked the meaning behind Thanksgiving to be grateful and appreciative of the things you have. As a Peace Corps Volunteer living in a developing country you definitely appreciate and miss the things you left behind in the US.

Happy Holidays!