Jesus shaves

Jesus Shaves is the title of my favorite David Sedaris story. It’s about his experience in French class trying to explain Easter to a Moroccan woman who had never heard of it.

Life imitates art. On Tuesday, my Serbian class focused on slava, a Serbian saint’s day, but for an entire family – not like the Catholic individualistic version. As part of the lesson, we were asked to explain similar holidays in our country. I attempted to explain thanksgiving. It was exactly like the inarticulate explanations in Jesus Shaves: “English people went to America a long time ago. It was very hard. After a year, they had a party with Indians. They ate turkey.” Trying to explain that Thanksgiving is always on the fourth Thursday of November was nearly impossible.