To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven. ~Johannes A. Gaertner

At this time last year, I was inching slowly to getting everything ready for our move to Caracas. My husband was already here, so I was juggling my 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM work schedule and picking up/dropping off the kids at a schedule that didn’t make me feel like a neglectful mother. I remember thinking that no matter what, I wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.

Growing up, my family quickly adopted this holiday as a reason to get together and have a blast. My mother (the only sister amongst 6 children living in the same country) always hosted and cooked. The dishes were American inspired, but with a Haitian twist. Over the years, we added more and more American dishes (e.g. cranberry sauce, stuffing, etc.) for those of us with a changing palette.

I would definitely like to continue this tradition with my kids. Although we were only 3 last year – one of whom at like a 2 year-old because, well he was 2 years-old – I wanted to prepare a dinner and sit down to give thanks. I cooked breaded turkey cutlets as opposed to the whole bird and smaller portions of stuffing, candied yams, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. I thought I’d feel silly about doing so much for just the three of us, but when we sat down and the kids seemed to enjoy the change in menu, I was really glad I made the effort.

This year we’re all together, but since we’re so far away from friends and family I sort of still feel alone. I had already started dreading hunting down all the ingredients I needed to make the traditional dishes when I stumbled across this restaurant that’s serving Thanksgiving meals all day on the 25th (Hallelujah ). Hence, we will all be headed there this Thursday to continue our tradition, albeit a bit modified

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I’ve talked about race relations here in Caracas, but I’ve yet to mention gender. That’s because it’s complicated. Since I have yet to enter the professional workforce here, it’s hard to provide details of how women are viewed/treated and I didn’t want to rely on my few interactions with friends.

I would like to first preface my observations with stating that I am a part of Generation X. What this means is that I’ve had a healthy dose of women’s lib and while we want it all, we know we have to work for it. This is in contrast to the Millennial Generation (or Generation Y) who wants it all, right now and who is said to be more accepting of women marrying for social gain. I didn’t make it up people – it’s what the researchers are saying.

Now, women’s liberation means different things depending on the culture. From an American viewpoint, it appears that women here are much more open about their sexuality. While I think this is a good thing (part of women’s lib, right), I think there’s an appropriate time to communicate this. For instance, I often see professional women wearing extremely tight suits showing lots of cleavage. I don’t care what anybody says, that’s distracting. If you want people to pay attention to the words coming out of your mouth, you wouldn’t wear a big read clown hat, would you?

In terms of heterosexual romantic relationships, it seems they have a different idea about monogamy. Men often refer to “casa grande” and “casa chica” – the former the house where your wife lives and the latter the house where your mistress lives. If this culturally acceptable, I can understand that. However, it is only fair if women have the same privileges and I don’t think that’s the case.

Another place I’ve noticed a gender-biased is at certain restaurants and cafes. On several occasions, I have arrived at a restaurant earlier than a friend I was meeting (who happened to be male) and they will not offer me a menu until he arrives. At first I thought they were being presumptuous and assumed I was meeting someone, but my male friend has the complete opposite experience. This doesn’t happen everywhere, but when it does I’m always surprised.

I’m sure that there’s a lot more to gender relations here and when/if I enter the workforce, I’ll be sure to share that aspect, as well.