It's still quite warm here during the daytime, so part of me doesn't really feel like it's the Thanksgiving season. That and the fact that nobody in France has any clue about what Thanksgiving actually is. Believe me, it's made teaching about the holiday to tiny French children quite difficult. Of course, I made things difficult for myself. I didn't just want to teach them what we do NOW for Thanksgiving but actually WHY we celebrate it. After giving each class a very brief outline of the story of Thanksgiving, I've been explaining what it means to be thankful. It turns out that French does not have a direct translation for the word 'thankful' in the sense that we use it, but I think I got the idea across. After all this explaining, I had each of the children share what they were thankful for and then write it down in our 'hand turkeys' (picture of my cute students above) that we made (if you don't know what those are, go ask an elementary school teacher). I got all sorts of answers, from family, and friends to playstation and all the children in the world. It was nice to hear some creative answers.
It got me thinking, what am I thankful for this year? There are of course the obvious ones - my wonderful family, friends, boyfriend, living in France etc. To be more specific, though, I'm thankful for new adventures. It's always easy to focus on the hard things that are happening while forgetting to open your eyes to see and appreciate amazing new experiences.
Case in point, last Friday I woke up dreadfully early to travel with some friends to the Luberon valley to a local mill that makes olive oil. Early in the morning, locals bring their fresh-picked olives that they've grown or picked on their land to be weighed by Mathieu, the owner of the mill. He then gives them receipts of how many olives they brought and they get a proportionate amount of olive oil in return when it's pressed. The process was incredible and yet simple seeing as he produces it in the same way that it's been done for centuries. The olives are washed and then pulverized by two rotating stones the size and shape of large wheels. The puree is spread onto large rounds which are subsequently stacked together and then pressed under an enormous amount of weight. The pressed oil goes through a centrifuge which separates the oil and water and voila...olive oil!
While it all was so simple, everything was also so new for us...the overwhelming smell of olives that engulfed the mill, the old farmers driving up in faded Peugeot trucks with buckets of olives, the debate over who's olive land was better. Every day, even the mundane ones, have been a new adventure simply because everything is out of my 'ordinary' routine. And while I'm missing my family and friends this Thanksgiving I'm thankful for these new adventures and even more so when my eyes and heart are open to see and appreciate them.
