Happy Thanksgiving

I'm sure everyone back in Canada is well stuffed from dinner and looking forward to all the creative ways to use up turkey leftovers. We were thinking of everyone. Holidays times with friends and family are special indeed and not being with folks at home does tug at the heart.
We did manage to have a Thanksgiving Dinner with about a dozen other Canadians and their families. It was a bit of a challenge with limited resources as far as kitchen supplies but everyone chipped in and we were well fed. One of the teachers even managed to find a turkey for us. The teaching staff does have a good mix of younger and wiser, more mature teachers such as Maureen and I. The get togethers are kind more like the old days in BC when there was a mix of ages in the teaching profession that would hang out with each other. We sort of forgot what it was like to have wee ones around though. It was rather noisy and we have been cleaning up play dough and other toys for two days now that found there way into various crevices in the couch etc..
Saturday we had a wonderful cultural experience. One of the teachers is married to a local Indian fellow. (Maureen has habit of calling these folks East Indians and the little grade one Indians are always correcting her. "What are you talking about maam? We are Indians not East Indians." Imagine the accent)
Lucas(the eel man in a previous post) played field hockey for the Malaysian national team some time ago and knows Maureen coached field hockey for years. He invited us to attend the JollyLads Veteran's Field Hockey Banquet. All the male field hockey players here, similar to Canada, are of Indian background. The banquet was held in a rather nice hotel downtown. We arrived about 7:30 and the entertainment started soon after. There were two dance groups, a couple comedy acts, a couple of musical performers, and a number of official ceremonial events. Dinner was a brief respite in between the acts (all of Indian variety) It was very good and very spicy. The acts were rather amazing. Great dancers and musicians and even though I could only understand about 1 in 3 words from the stand-up comedian (he was really laying on the accent) he was hilarious. The entertainment lasted until midnight and then the dancing started. The music was Bollywood and everyone danced. Maureen and I learned Snoop Dog's dance moves to the Bollywood film he was in. (Not much more than tapping the chest and pointing in the air) The men all brought a bottle of Scotch to share with the table. Maybe that explains why they all danced so well.
Lucas seemed to be related to most folks there and introduced us to more cousins than I have known anyone to have. One is the deputy chief of police for KL and I figure that might be a good contact.
I guess this a big affair in the Indian community. The ambassador from Romania to Malaysia was there as the guest of honour. We got to watch him try to unsuccessfully hustle some of the better looking girls.
Anyway it was a fun evening. Needless to say I didn't make it up in time to do the early morning bike on Sunday.