Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Cambodia. We decided to wait and celebrate on Sunday so that the SALT participant in the province, Anneliese, could join. Despite spending most of Saturday at Visal’s Wedding Crystal still pulled together an authentic tasting Thanksgiving meal.

We ended up with a full house – 16 people – for the Thanksgiving meal.

• Max: Long time MCC alumni who is now living in Phnom Penh.
• SALT/YAMEN: Two Americans, two Kenyans, and an Indonesian.
• Justin: Canadian backpacker who is planning to apply to the SALT program next year.
• Phillip/Belen/Ollie: The current Connecting Peoples Coordinators and son.
• Audrey/Martin: Married couple living in Prey Veng. Our Peace and Education Coordinators.

It is possible to buy Turkey here now but it’s prohibitively expensive so Crystal cooked three chickens. Sweet corn is commonly available here because it’s a popular dessert food (yep – it’s even an ice cream flavor). Crystal also made green bean casserole (the green beans are a bit different here but you couldn’t tell), mashed potatoes, yams, and her raisin apple broccoli salad (times have changed – apples and broccoli were not available here ten years ago).

For Dessert, Crystal made a crustless pumpkin pie (we had a gluten allergy), Max made Peppernut Cookies, I picked up some pastries at a local bakery, and several people brought fruit. I also brought three flavors of Thai ice cream – yam, durian, and strawberry.

It was good to have so many guests over. After dinner, I took the girls out to a playground to run off their pent up energy while every else carried on other Thanksgiving traditions. One person took a nap on the couch while Settlers of Catan was played a couple of times and a movie was on in the background.

That evening we had “turkey” rice soup for dinner. We’re thinking of trying a Duck for Christmas.