Thanksgiving, Homecoming, and an Embarrassment of Riches

Today is Thanksgiving, and I have so much to be thankful for. The past month has been filled with sentimental goodbyes as I parted ways with friends I've made over the past two years. My departure from Ukraine has been extremely emotional and difficult, but I take this as a positive sign. I feel that the more difficult it is to leave, the more significant this experience must have been.

My homecoming was a surprise for my mother and my sister. My father secretly picked me up from the airport, and then we killed a few hours while waiting for my sister's flight to arrive from New York. My father and I got BBQ pork sandwiches for lunch (so delicious) and then went to Sam's Club for Thanksgiving-related groceries. This is the point in the story at which my mind exploded.

During lunch I had made note of (and even remarked on) the restaurant's large portions. The restaurant itself, a sports bar, was spacious, and it had large patrons too. But these details failed to prepare me for Sam's Club. For those who don't know, Sam's Club is a wholesale retail chain aimed at small business owners and others who prefer to buy in bulk. Customers enjoy economies of scale, as does the retailer itself. Therefore, the packages are extra large, the aisles are extra wide, and the shopping carts (or flatbed dollies) are similarly broad and capacious to match. The whole experience is essentially shopping in a warehouse.

Somewhere between marvelling at the cavernous (yet flimsy) structure of the store and the gargantuan package sizes (14-inch pumpkin pies, 44-packs of batteries, 5-gallon tubs of ice cream), I was nauseated by the excess of it all. I admit, I longed for the more intimate, modest shops of Ukraine. I wanted to buy a bottle of water, but water bottles were only sold in quantities of 36 or more. I surveyed the bakery's expansive sea of breads and pies. "What do they do with the freshly baked pastries that don't sell?" I wondered. But I already knew that unsold food was most likely thrown away. And I was reminded of a recent podcast in which I'd heard that the global food shortage isn't a problem of tonnage, it's one of distribution. That is, we already produce enough food to feed the planet; we simply don't distribute it equitably.

I also marvelled at Americans. The diversity! The smiles! The friendliness! In Sam's Club I heard English, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and another language I didn't recognize. I approached the Russian speaker, who recommended to me a local Russian restaurant. The Polish couple chatted with me about Ukraine for a while. A nearby English speaker who'd noticed I'd grabbed a particular salad mix was kind enough to recommend I check the "sell by" date, as there were two dates in stock (both viable, but one was later). Although our salad mix will surely be consumed prior to the "sell by" date, it was kind of her to concern herself. I'm overjoyed to be back in the land of the diverse and the home of the friendly.

This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for my loved ones. I'm grateful for my family's big house, adequately heated and filled with food. I'm grateful for my country, I'm grateful for my countrymen, and I'm grateful that we have opportunities like Peace Corps. It's because of Peace Corps that I saw a little corner of the world for which I'm abundantly grateful—my other country, Ukraine. To everyone everywhere: Happy Thanksgiving!