A Tibetan Thanksgiving in India

Boom Boom and Me in front of the lyrics for Johnny Appleseed

We couldn't let Thanksgiving go by without celebrating it in some way. Being that 4 of the current Tibet Charity teachers are American, we decided to have a little party for all the students. All the teachers made announcements in their classes and we coordinated with the cook and staff and asked them to prepare tea for about 50 people. My family ordered 4 pans of the best American brownies in town from Jimmy's Italian Restaurant. And the other American teacher was supposed to bring fruit. Unfortunately, there was a death in town on the day of Thanksgiving and in remembrance, all the shops and fruit stalls were shut down for the entire day. Not able to find ANY fruit in town, she bought 50 juice boxes! Similarly, all the photocopy centers were closed. I spent the afternoon running around, finally finding a copy center and made copies of a song called "Thank Someone", a Thanksgiving word search, and Thanksgiving bingo cards. At 3:30 we filled the main hall to capacity. It was standing room only!! We didn't do an official count, but there were probably over 70 people there! What a success! After my dad gave a brief explanation of Thanksgiving, we sang a few rounds of "Johnny Appleseed", taught them "Thank Someone", gave prizes to the top 10 who finished the word search, and played a round of Bingo with Thanksgiving words! It was a success and everyone seemed to really enjoy it!! At the end all the teachers served the students brownies and tea! I'm not sure any of them had eaten a brownie before, but there were NONE left at the end of the party!! It was lots of fun to share the spirit of Thanksgiving with the wonderful people we have met here at Tibet Charity. They are all so giving, friendly, and compassionate that I'm happy we were able to say "Thank you!"

Here are a few pictures from the event:

Students singing "Thank Someone" at the Thanksgiving Party

About 70 students attended our American Thanksgiving Day party. We weren't able to feed them a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but we did sing songs, play games, and serve brownies and milk tea.

Some of the super eager students!

After our party at Tibet Charity, the English teachers headed to Lhamo's Restaurant for a set Thanksgiving Dinner. They served pumpkin soup, spinach salad, mashed potato momos, vegetable momos, carrot or lemon cake and tea. It was a delicious meal and a delightful evening with colleagues.