We're back from vacation with kids and Teri will hopefully post something about the trip. I'm two weeks behind in my journal, so in the meantime, I'll post my Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas days. T-day is in Lima and C-days are in Piura.
Thanksgiving Dinner
We meet our Fulbright friends Patrick and Ann at noon and get a taxi on Av Larco, the main drag of Miraflores, to take us to the address given to us by the Fulbright coordinator for what is supposed to be a Thanksgiving dinner. We get to the San Borja neighborhood directly but the driver stops to ask a guy washing a car if he knows exactly where the place is we’re going; the washer doesn’t even seem to know what street he’s on, so the driver leaves the four of us sitting in his cab sitting in the street while he jumps out of the car and runs into the nearest building. I rhetorically ask, “Do you suppose this kind of thing happens in New York City?” In about 10 minutes we’re on our way again and we soon stop in front of what appears to be a large home situated on a quiet residential street.
I see a small Fulbright sign on a wrought-iron fence so we know it’s the right place and, after we take a stroll around the block because we’re 15 minutes early, we walk into a space that is filled with books about studying in the USA and a counter with lots of blank forms. I see four circular tables with dinner settings for eight on a small patio through a double door on the other side of the entry area; it’s a small gathering, it seems, and the aroma is scrumptious—turkey!
Along with the bird we have mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, yams, cold green-bean salad, fried rice, warm rolls, and a mixed-green salad. There are waiters serving Argentinean wines in two of my favorite colors and each time my glass is empty there is a kind offer to refill it. I have two complete helpings of everything. One table is filled with American students studying in Peru (all girls oddly enough), two others have Fulbright-Peru dignitaries and their families, including several children; at our table is the four of us, the president of Fulbright-Peru, an ex-Fulbrighter named Shane, who just finished his one-year and is staying on for several months to do research in archeology, and an American Embassy employee, a staff liaison officer, and his wife.
We talk about movies and books and how excited Peruanos are about the prospect of an Obama administration; we’re served pumpkin pie ala mode and the wine continues to be poured as we laze away the afternoon in post-dinner conviviality—a thoroughly enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner in Peru—or anywhere.
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