Thanksgiving is a national holiday in the United States, but in every other country, it’s just a regular day. I spent this past week trying to find ways to celebrate the day here in Jordan.

Earlier this week, I went on the final excursion scheduled by my program. We went to the city of Madaba, Mount Nebo — the baptism site of Jesus Christ and the Dead Sea. We spent the first day visiting the city of Madaba, which is a World Heritage Site because of its ancient architecture. The site included a map that depicts where many famous biblical events took place.

We then traveled to Mount Nebo where, according to the Bible, Abraham viewed the “Promised Land,” the land that was believed to have been promised to the Israelites by God. The area we visited included monuments discussing the universal importance of the site.

We descended down the winding road that weaved in between the hills of the Promised Land, which led to the as baptism site of Jesus Christ. The site was very large and also represents where St. John the Baptist lived, where Elijah stepped foot and, of course, the location where Jesus de-robed and was baptized, all which were chronicled in the New Testament.

My favorite moment of the trip was talking up to the bank of the Jordan River, where tourists and residents alike were able to wade into the water to be baptized. One could hear the songs of praise sung by groups of people that were being baptized on the Israeli side of the river, less than a few meters from the Jordan side.

After taking the time to explore and enjoy the riverbank, we headed to our hotel on the beach of the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea acts as a buffer between Jordan and the West Bank and is also the lowest point on earth.

Starting the holiday week off with a vacation of sorts was a nice way to get into the holiday mood — and in the best way that I could in a country that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Eve, I spent time with my whole extended host family to say farewell to one of the host dads in our program, who is moving to Qatar for a new job.

It was nice to hang out with my Jordanian family members around Thanksgiving, something we haven’t been able to do in a few months. Hanging out with my abroad family on Thanksgiving made me feel more at home, despite being thousands of miles away.

On Thanksgiving day, my program traveled to a local organization to cook a traditional Jordanian meal for dinner. After preparing the meal for a couple of hours, we sat down to eat with the company of the friends we had made on the program.

From what I have experienced during my time abroad so far, it’s relatively easy to celebrate events like holidays in a different country — you just have to do a little work. The spirit of the holiday season doesn’t necessarily leave when you move to a different area, it just changes to fit the environment you’re in.

Katelyn Faubel is a junior newspaper and online journalism and international relations dual major. Her column appears weekly in Pulp. You can email her at kmfaubel@syr.edu.

Published on November 28, 2016 at 9:41 pm