Giving thanks all around
International students celebrate Turkey Day locally
By Dominic Desmond, news editor
Posted on November 20, 2006

Thanksgiving Break is just another Fall Break for international sophomores Ibrahim LaMay and Ipeleng Bosilong. Natives of Nigeria and South Africa, respectively, they agreed it wouldn’t make sense to go home for just a few days.

Instead, they will be celebrating Thanksgiving with a friend in Harrisonburg.

“I plan to stay here and do some work, and play soccer,” LaMay said.

LaMay first heard about the American Thanksgiving when he was 12 years old from episodes of the TV shows “Keenan and Kel,” “Sister Sister” and in his American history class. LaMay was in Ethiopia last year and didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and this year he didn’t know what day Thanksgiving would fall.

“I even asked some people when it was,” he said. “They said — ‘You don’t even know when it is?’”

When Bosilong moved to Europe in 1997 from South Africa, he went to an American school. That’s when he first heard about the holiday in his history class.

“I didn’t think much of it,” Bosilong said. “I went to a friend’s house a few days afterward and there was a lot of food left over.”

That was the first time Bosilong ever had pumpkin pie, and he hasn’t celebrated Thanksgiving since.

Both Bosilong and LaMay said Thanksgiving, and every other holiday, has become too commercialized. Bosilong said some people lose the meaning of a holiday when one holiday has ended and another is just around the corner, especially since the Christmas season officially starts the day after Thanksgiving.

“You can’t have normalcy,” Bosilong said. “There’s got to be something else.”

LaMay said Thanksgiving today is out of touch with how it was originally celebrated between the pilgrims and Native Americans.

“It seems there is no solidarity with the Native Americans,” he said. “It seems like the Native Americans were kicked off the table.” He also mentioned that the fact the Native Americans helped the pilgrims when they came to the United States has been pushed to the back.

Bosilong and LaMay are two of JMU’s 553 international students and for that, they are thankful.

“Just being here is something to be thankful for,” Bosilong said, “because there aren’t many international students.”

LaMay said he is thankful for everything he’s learned this year.

“I’ve become a more finished person,” he said.