Thanksgiving in Yogya...

Well, it's been about a month since I've written last...which shows that things are starting to feel "normal" and thus less than exciting to write about. And then Thanksgiving happened.

I don't know how it was decided, but I'm pretty sure it happened in Bali as all of us ELFs sat at a villa, sipping our beverage of choice, wondering when we were going to see each other next--Thanksgiving, we decided, was happening in Yogya at my "palace," as my humble abode has been dubbed. With false bravado, I assured my friends I would find a turkey and an oven to cook i

t in--in a country with no turkeys (edible, non-emaciated ones, at least) and no ovens to speak of. I did it in Japan, right? Granted, it involved bribing an elementary school to let us into their oven-equipped home-ec room, but that's the price to pay for turkey, right? So why not in Indonesia, I asked myself?

I avoided thinking about the turkey hunt for several weeks after I got back from Bali; then I mentioned it to George and Dian, our embassy people, and they offered to pay for the turkey...if I could find it. Or I sho

uld say "we"? Dian, the lovely embassy assistant, was hot on the turkey trail. She emailed me that there was a place in Jakarta (an hour plane ride away) where I could get a pre-cooked turkey...but, we found out, there are no cold food shipping containers here in Indo. After flirting with the idea that I would ask Maura and Abbie, who live in Jakarta, to take the bird as their "carry-on" item, I decided it was a no-go because of food safety issues. And just as I was about to give up and order KFC (there's tons of them here), Dian called me from Jakarta to tell me that she had tracked down a hotel, in Yogya, my hometown, that could cater a turkey for us--all for $42. Thanks to Karen and David, the other English teachers at ICRS, we ordered not one but two turkeys. Thank you Sheraton!

Flash forward to last weekend (OK, it was a little early for Thanksgiving, but the date worked better for us!). All 9

of my ELF friends arrived at the guesthouse, and we discovered that out of the ten of us, only one person, Stephanie (aka Cooky), could, well, cook. But luckily we all take directions very well. The Friday night before our "Thanksgiving," Abbie, Steph and I went shopping for ingredients at a local grocery store--you should have seen the checkout girl's face as she tallied up the pots and pans (my kitchen at the guesthouse looks vaguely like a NYC bachelor's kitchen--a little sparse on the kitchenware!), the 8 loaves of bread, flour, seasoning, potatoes, and other strange foreign goodies! Loaded up with our carbs of choice, we hurried home to meet the rest of our buddies at Sangam House for some awesome Indian food.

We woke up the next morning, had a Western breakfast at Parsley (the coffee shop around the corner), and did some jalan-jalan (wandering) around some of the tourist areas here (in Kota Gede, the silver district,

and Malioboro, the handicraft center). Being the obsessive planner and worrier that I am, I made sure everyone was back at the guesthouse by 3:30 so we could have dinner ready by 6, when people would start arriving. We set to toasting the 8 loaves of bread for stuffing in an aluminum box oven borrowed from Ingrid's auntie. Essentially, you place this box on a burner and it heats up from below--not exactly your typical U.S. oven, but it worked (thanks Adam!). We peeled and mashed and peeled potatoes. We stirred and mixed and boiled on the four burners we had to work with. Then I left to get the turkey from the Sheraton. And when I got back everything had miraculously been transformed into a REAL Thanksgiving meal: stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberries. It was all there. Thanks to Stephanie's cooking ability and my friends' ability to foll

ow directions.

And even better, we made the meal a potluck so as guests arrived, the food multiplied. Indonesian food, cakes, pies, Indonesian sweets, fish, duck, you name it, it came. And it was delicious. Sixty people, half Indonesian and half foreign, mingled and ate and enjoyed. And somehow there was little to no stress involved in hosting so many people. It just worked. People laughed, ate, sat inside, outside, at the table, on the floor. My Indonesian friends, none of whom had ever eaten turkey, were pretty excited about this "new meat." And Ingrid's boyfriend, Hatib, confided to me that he was "a little worried that he was going to go hungry since there was no rice," but that stuffing worked just as well. They eat rice for every meal here, every day. Except for at my Thanksgiving! My favorite part, actually, was the stuffing. It was delicious, even if it was made on the stove and not stuffed into the actual turkeys. I guess I never have really liked turkey--even hard-won turkey.

The night (at least this part of the night) ended with everyone donning ridiculous 80s inspired sunglasses that Adam had

worked all afternoon to buy for all of his ELF friends. The Indonesian loved them. I'll post photos when I can. And then, upon request from an Indonesian guest, we put on some hip-hop and Adam taught Ingrid some moves. She is a natural--probably because in Flores the small Indonesian island where she's from, people grow up dancing. She returned the favor, teaching everyone a Flores line dance--which also, strangely, worked to hip-hop music.

When everyone left and the dishes were done, we went clubbing--the first dance experience--and probably the last since I prefer not to go alone--I've had in Yogya. Mas Moko, the house helper, and Indra, our hip-hop taxi driver friend, joined us at Republik, this club that has a live band that covers top 40 hits...and strangely, too. The highlight of the night was when Adam paid $10 for them to play his favorite song and somehow managed, instead, to be invited to sing "Hotel California," the entire song, on stage. We stayed out later than I've ever been up here--until 2:30. And it was a great way to end our Yogya "Thanksgiving."