Thanksgiving 2010 pour le FS de Chemseddine à Cambridge, Massachusetts

My name is David Kwabi, and I hosted Flat Stanley here in Cambridge, Massachusetts for two weeks in November 2010.

I am a graduate student here at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but was born and raised in Ghana, a country on the West African coast.

I live in an apartment with two roommates: Martin, holding Flat Stanley in the picture below, who has Argentinian parents but lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, and Ramis, who also lives in Canada, but moved there from Iran when he was younger.



One tradition I find especially interesting is Thanksgiving. In America, it is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November every year, and serves as an opportunity for people to give thanks for the things they feel grateful for - like family, good food (traditionally, most families roast a nice big turkey), and the rights and freedoms of American livelihood. The institution of Thanksgiving dates from a joint celebration between the Pilgrim settlers of Plymouth, Massachusetts and members of the Native American Patuxet in 1621. Plymouth, Massachusetts is not very far from where I live, so you should look it up on a map and see for yourself. I was surprised at how close it was when I found out.

This year I took Flat Stanley with me to a Thanksgiving dinner organized by the Christian fellowship I attend. We had a lot of different food, including the traditional turkey, fried plantains, cranberry sauce and stuffing. I have included a few pictures for you to see how much fun he had, and all the people he met.




Here he is with Mark (right), from Vancouver, Canada and George (left), from India.




Here I am with Mary. Mary works as a part-time chaplain for the fellowship.



He also met Sharon (left) from Texas and Anne (right) from Korea. Anne works as a music teacher for middle school kids in Boston.





Thanks for letting Flat Stanley visit me. Have a good week!!