Thanksgiving meal at our house this weekend. My only complaint – not enough
leftovers!
Our gathering consisted
of the five Tsumeb volunteers and six visitors from other areas of Namibia.
Most were from nearby towns, but a couple people from our group came from the
northeast Kavango region, which is definitely a lot more…rustic than Tsumeb.
They were pretty impressed at our American-style town, grassy areas, and three
bedroom house!
We voted beforehand to
try to have as much traditional food as possible (some people were angling for
an Asian or Mexican theme but we talked them out of it), so the meal consisted
of chicken (no turkey here), stuffing (so good and easy to make from scratch!),
mashed potatoes and gravy, and veggies (spinach, carrots, salad). For dessert
we had apple and pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, and brownies (all delicious!). It
was quite a production pulling all this together because we cooked in three
different houses and the other two brought their stuff to join us for the meal.
Our house was pretty warm after all the cooking, so we all ate outside and then
sat around chatting until it got dark.
Like I said, the only
problem was that is was so good that we hardly had any leftovers! We finished
the pies for breakfast the next morning (Dylan’s idea), and other than that we
just had a half piece of chicken and some stuffing left. Our visitors left on
Sunday morning and I promptly went back to bed for a nap. It was a little
exhausting having people here all weekend. But I feel like we all got a little
taste of home and maybe won’t be missing Thanksgiving with our families as much
as we would have if we hadn’t been able to celebrate here.
Dylan had a great
experience in Windhoek, although the learner he went with did not end up doing
very well in the spelling bee – she was too nervous! But they got to do some
sightseeing and meet the former president, and several people here told me they
saw Dylan on TV during the event coverage! His picture was also in a recent
newspaper.
It rained all weekend,
which was lovely and cool! Makes cold showers significantly less appealing
though.
On the home front, I’m
happy to say that my parents are in Hawaii with my brother who just returned
safely from his tour in Afghanistan! So glad he’s home!