Claire in Poland

There are no pots or pans clanging as the sun rises. No relatives laughing, cooking, baking or drinking together. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade is not on TV. I awake to silence.  There is a dinner with the American ambassador that is traditional in the sense that there is a fat turkey in the middle of every table, but cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and relatives are not present. A day later, there is another Thanksgiving dinner, but with friends. A “friendsgiving”, if you will. We assign foods to each other and I attempt to teach traditions of the American holiday. The girls dress in skirts and tights while boys wear button down shirts and dress pants with a belt. In the kitchen three of us peel potatoes, another three fry the chicken in egg yolk and flour. We set the table with plastic forks knives and plates. We stand around the dining room table decorated with food and say how thankful we are to possess the ability to stand around a mahogany tabl

As November 8th approaches no one can escape talk of the election even across the Atlantic Ocean. Every second post on any social media is most likely a joke about Trump or Hillary, an anti-Trump or anti-Hillary post, or a post that yells at you to vote. Teachers make references to the election as a part of lessons and students argue over polls and statistics in class and at lunch. “Who will win?” Everyone ponders anxiously. In spirit of this memorable election, I decided to send out a poll for students to choose which candidate they would vote for if they had the chance. The poll ended with 166 votes and provided Hillary Clinton the win of 79.5% or 132 of the votes and Donald Trump losing with a mere 20.5% or 34 of the votes. To acquire even more information, I sent out a facebook message to the entirety of ASW’s high school hoping for some responses on students’ individual reasonings for choosing the candidate they chose as well as what they predict the outcome of this presid