Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was one of the most true to the spirit Thanksgivings I have ever been involved in. Volunteers up north in Lichinga teamed up with the local Doctors Without Borders to put on a joint American-Mozambican Thanksgiving and it was amazing. Thanks to packages from the states, we had tons of Thanksgiving window stickers, table confetti, table cloths, wooden ornaments and home-made hand turkeys straight from your Kindergarten craft days. Plus Indian and Pilgrim headwear for our 5 minute play explaining the first Thanksgiving. We gathered everyone, served some drinks, and then put on our play. Goal 2 of the Peace Corps is sharing America’s culture with the host country, and that is just what we did. It was a super-cheesy Kindergarten play that we put on for all the Mozambicans to help explain how the tradition started for our country. There were Indians with headdresses, Pilgrims on a Mayflower and “Paulo the Peru” (the Portuguese way of saying “Tom the Turkey”). I, of course, was a pilgrim since according to my genealogy-loving grandmother I actually had a relative that came over to the Americas on the Mayflower. Then it was time for the food. We had 2 turkeys, mashed potatoes and gravy (shout-out to my dad for the gravy), cranberries (canned from a care package), green bean casserole, 2 versions of stuffing, sweet potatoes, Canadian maple-syrup (from fellow ex-pats) glazed carrots and bread. THEN for desserts there was apple pie, sweet potato pie, pecan pie and pumpkin pie. I have never hurt that bad from overeating EVER. It was a great Thanksgiving.