The Miracle of Thanksgiving

For some reason I wasn't able to access my blahg for the last days, so I couldn't post a Thanksgiving note. But Fred and I had a wonderful day meeting all kinds of friendly - if strange - Indian people.

We were hoping to cook ourselves a mass of vegetables for the occasion but soon decided that this would not be possible. Setting our sights a bit lower, we went to a gorgeous vegetable market, picked out 21 rupees worth of aubergines, green beans, spinach and chayote (what's the English name for this one?) and proceeded to walk from restaurant to restaurant in search of one that would agree to cook them for us...

After ten restaurants rejected us, I was beginning to lose hope. Then we asked a chai walla who pointed us to a man in the street who spoke English. We explained our situation and he knocked on the door of a house nearby. The nice Indian people inside quickly agreed to let us cook our veggies in their house! I think this is known as a Thanksgving miracle!

Soon we were awkwardly perched on the bench in their tiny living room as the mama of the house shoved all our veggies into a pressure cooker (Personally, I would have been happy with a two-minute stir fry, but this was not the time to be choosy). The only interest she showed in us was when she asked us if we had a baby ("babu?"). Her son was a crime reporter from Bangalore who, thankfully, spoke quite a bit of English. He proceeded to explain to us the history of Mysore's Raj (king). I didn't understand one word, but Fred seemed to absorb quite a lot.

All the while the India-Pakistan cricket game played on the television. It's cricket season and everyone we meet has a discussion about it with Fred. I guess Australia has a great cricket team?

After what seemed like half an hour in the pressure cooker, our formless and colourless veggies were served to us on a massive plate. I've never been so excited to eat! We quickly finished every last bit, after which they offered us rotis (similar to fried tortillas) and a vegetable/coconut mix (thakadi). Unable to refuse, we stuffed ourselves in the traditional Thanksgiving fashion, marvelling at our fortune to be spending the day in a house with a real family..complete with blaring TV, awkward politeness, Grandma who wants to know about babies, annoying extended relatives...

Soon the kids started coming home and we exchanged plenty of curious stares and smiles. Fred pulled out the camera, I handed out lifesavers, and we were part of the group. The next day we made sure to print them some copies of this pictures as a gesture of thanks for their remarkable generosity..

And this was only the beginning of our day!..but now Fred is waiting me in the street, so I must move along...if only I could share it all!!

Thank you everyone for your love...it's hard to believe I deserve to have this incredible, unpredictable life filled with loving friends and family all over the globe. I have enough blessings to celebrate this holiday all year long...

Biggest hugs ever,
LMA