Giving Thanks

Today is Thanksgiving and as always I have much to be thankful for. It seems pedantic to make a list of everything I’m thankful for as I used to have to do in elementary school so I’ll give you my top 3 reasons that I’m thankful, (in no particular order.)
1. My health. I know I’ve written previously about my misadventure in the Health Center and that I’ve had the flu/cold 4 times, but, dude, I live in Central America and I haven’t had parasite issues as of yet. This is a miracle. I don’t harbor false beliefs that I don’t have parasites per se, it’s just that we’ve adjusted to one another so well that I don’t bother them and they don’t bother me. I like to think that my stomach is strong from eating so much candy and whatever off of the ground when I was little, not washing my hands as often as I should, not washing my fruit and vegetables all of the time, and basically maintaining a close and working friendship with germs in general. But, I’m probably giving credit where credit is not due (let it be known that I do not condone eating things out of gutters. Anymore.) In any case, I’ve been lucky to have good health for the majority of my life, and especially in Nicaragua. And for that I’m thankful.
2. Support from my friends and family. You! Yes, you! Unless you’re a super-bored stranger randomly visiting the mostly-boring blogs of unfamiliar-persons, then I know you! And chances are that I probably even like you and think about you often. It’s hard to be a foreigner in a strange land, some days harder than others, and to know that there are people rooting for me to succeed, and eager to hear about my achievements and my failures, is sometimes what gets me through the day. You give me a lot of encouragement and it gives me strength to continue to do my work here. Honestly, I couldn’t do this alone!
3. My Mom! I know, I know, I already mentioned friends and family, but I’m really, really thankful for my mom. So thankful, in fact, that she merits her own number. She dutifully sends a monthly package and regretfully omits my jellybean request. Because she loves me and doesn’t want me to get cavities. I guess I see the logic. More importantly, I receive her advice ranging from how to make chili, to how to deal with willful counterparts, to what to gift a 15 year old girl for her confirmation in the Catholic Church. We talk almost daily via one media or another and even though she’s far, far away, she isn’t really. I have a nica friend who lost his mom when he was twelve years old. One day, I was telling him some sort of funny or silly story about my mom and when I was done he said “Isn’t it the greatest thing in the world to have a mom?” And I replied “Yeah, it is.”