Thanksgiving.

Starting last year, PC/Georgia has a Safety and Security Conference that features a Thanksgiving Dinner the evening following the end of the conference. This event takes place the weekend before Thanksgiving in America. Our Country Director orders turkeys that should serve about 100 people. It is a dinner for Peace Corps Volunteers, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (those who have already completed service somewhere in the world) and Peace Corps staff. The Ambassador and his wife are invited to join in the festivities. Last year it went really well. PCVs cook the majority of the food while RPCVs open up their kitchens, mainly their ovens, so that the turkeys can be cooked. Coordinating the PCV cooking effort has fallen to PCVs, which is just a little bit stressful, but they have done a great job of brining it all together. For those of you who do not know, I am a huge fan of corn. I’m glad that I’m returning to America in the summer so that I can eat corn on the cob constantly. I have made sure for the past two years that there has been corn on Thanksgiving.

PCVs have been divided into groups to cook at an assigned RPVC’s house at which to cook. I am friends with a couple of RPVCs and I was actually informed by one that I would be cooking at his house. I pulled together a few other volunteers and we decided what to cook. Two of them wanted to make dessert and the other volunteer wanted only to help and not to take a lead. Naturally, I just wanted to make sure that corn was available. Corn is not difficult so I wanted to do more, but the way things turned out, that was not necessary. Mr. Defer to Others and I helped the dessert makers with cutting up apples for homemade apple pie. One friend made the crust from scratch and the other peeled the apples. Slicing the apples properly is not easy work. One does not want to mess up and have an ugly pie. Fortunately Mr. Defer to Others and I were able to rise to the challenge and three delicious apple pies were made. We received quite a bit of help and advice from our cooking hosts since none of us PCVs had ever made an apple pie before. We also enjoyed mulled wine and avocado, both of which we certainly do not have at our respective sites.

I will briefly describe the conference for you as well. Peace Corps wants to make sure that we are aware of the rules and particularly prepared in the event of some sort of crisis while we are in country. This conference provides us with the opportunity to consider certain scenarios and how we would react to them. There was a lot of drawing, which was the highlight. We had to think about natural disasters, political problems and health catastrophes. The artwork for each of these events was quite amusing. The basic point is that Peace Corps must know where we are at all times, take that for what you will. We all have cell phones to facilitate this safety and security measure. The afternoon sessions are generated by PCVs which range from PCVs turning over national projects to new PCVs to Pilates, Tahitian dancing, classroom activities and PCVs sharing what they have been doing while almost never leaving their sites. It was a good time. I am in the midst of turning over my Finance responsibilities for GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Camp and expanding & turning over Girls’ Sports Camp. Earlier this year we had a day camp in Kobuleti (on the Black Sea) and next year there will be three regional camps that will comprise three regions each of Georgia. It is a huge expansion in a year, but entirely possible.

Last year I went to Tahitian dancing and improv. Both were fantastic sessions. There was supposed to be a session offering some of the best ways to light a pechi (wood burning stove), but unfortunately it was not on the final schedule. PCVs are asked at some point to submit sessions that they would be willing to lead. They are then contacted later to give a short blurb about their session so that it can be put in the schedule. Two PCVs put the schedule together this year, but that is easier said than done since PCVs were making scheduling requests so that they could attend other sessions that they were interested in. The two sessions that I really wanted to attend were scheduled during the one session that I was leading. Eh. What can you do? I went to the Pilates session, which was fantastic. (I am now doing Pilates every night before bed, which is great for warming up. I strongly recommend it for everyone, it is really easy and results can be seen fairly quickly. My workout lasts for about forty-five minutes.)

This conference is one of the more enjoyable because of the dinner at the end and the volunteer-led sessions. The dinner can be tough to plan, but it has been quite successful both years – this may have something to do with the PCV who has been in charge since it was the same person both years. The food is not necessarily hot when it is time to eat, but it is delicious and some of the best food that we will have all year. I do miss my mother’s stuffing, but I will get to enjoy some of that next year.

This was not as lively as some of my other posts, but that is life. I’m working on more cross-cultural posts so that you can get a better idea of what I experience here on a daily basis. I hope that everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I am right now enjoying my wonderful pechi (which I started entirely on my own). Take care.

Sara