Tara and Nigel In Africa: Thanksgiving

I am looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving in the US next year with my family, but we had a lovely dinner with a group of young people on Saturday night. Four of them live in the same walled and gated complex we are in (can’t say compound, because that means a slum area here!) All of them are post-graduates with fellowships at local NGO’s and they each brought a Zambian friend, so we were surrounded with vibrant, intelligent young adults who gave me so much hope for the future- what a wonderful group!

We found a turkey and I cooked the largest one I could find (10 lbs.) and made stuffing sans celery unfortunately as there was none to be found anywhere in Lusaka. Located some heavy cream - also no small feat - and made creamed onions and leeks. One of our young neighbors, Mina, also brought a turkey and stuffing. Someone had brought a care package from the US with canned pumpkin and the cranberry a while back, so there were pumpkin pies, an apple pie, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and green beans! It looked, smelled and tasted like a real Thanksgiving!

Our hostess Karen had us take turns around the table for what she called a Jeffersonian chat, and everyone said what they were thankful for and no one could interrupt. I cannot express how moving it was to hear all these twenty-something’s offer thanks for various things in their lives – and highest on the list was thanking their parents for their support, as well as understanding their desire to be in Africa. Love and support from their family and friends was a universal theme.

Tomorrow I leave for four days in Ndola, which is about four hours north of Lusaka by car. I am going with two people from work. It is a regular trip that is made to visit homeowners that Habitat has built for. We spend the days collecting data and spend each night writing it all up for a report to the donors. Not thrilled to be leaving Nigel but could not say no to a new experience. Sharon and Sakalima are coming home Friday. Since I usually have Fridays off, Nigel and I had already planned to go away this weekend to Lake Kariba. So, I will be taking a four hour bus ride from Ndola back to Lusaka on Thursday - now that should be an experience!

Only four more weeks until the kids come and we are getting very excited!