Thanksgiving Part II - Holiday double feature

Thanksgiving took place on the single day I was home between Zanzibar and safari, and it was pretty fantastic. I've now improvised Thanksgiving dinner on two different continents, in Israel and here. At least in Israel we had an oven - here there was no turkey (I've seen a few alive but none for sale!) and all the cooking was done with five pots on a gas canister. I think we did pretty darn well all the same! After the Thanksgiving photos, I'm throwing in the ones from Halloween - my first sikuku Merikani (American holiday) in Tanzania, which I never got around to posting earlier. Sorry! 

Honestly, I've never been more thankful for everything I have than I am here and now. Working with the orphans reminds me how incredible my own family is, in all its larger than life glory. Working with the girls shows me how blessed I've been to have my education, to have the teachers and mentors who have led me to where I am. Working with the HIV widows forces me to come face to face with the reality that everything is temporary, and I could easily be in any of their shoes. Being so far away reminds me how lucky I am to have friends I miss so desperately, and I do. So thank you, everyone, for being in my life, and I hope you are as thrilled about just existing as I am right now - and if not, watch the video of what I'm most thankful for below and see if it helps. If it doesn't you may have no soul.

 And now on to the craziness...

Fortunately, that knife is very blunt. Unfortunately, it's also the sharpest one we have.

No, but for serious, bent over a hot stove all day.

Our feast in all its pre-desecration glory. Squash soup, my famous mushroom/raisin stuffing, honey-soy chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, salad, and delicious bread. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Peter actually ended up getting cut off from the squash soup after three bowls.

He compensated with wine. And yes, those ARE origami lotus napkins.

The pathetic crumbs left at the end of the night.

And the painful aftermath.

Christine ate approximately twice her own body weight, thus fulfilling the Thanksgiving spirit!

Aaaand Halloween... What these pictures DON'T show is that Halloween was on Election day, which had the potential to be violent and thus meant that we were locked down in the house/yard. This led to copious alcohol consumption, which led to positioning the jack-o-lanterns in the road and making scary noises whenever the neighborhood kids came to investigate. In Christian and Christine's case, it also meant ended up hiding under a blanket outside our door to scare said children.

Posing in front of the house

My glorious pumpkin

Christine's masterpiece

Christian's work of art.

In reality, we looked like fools, but very festive fools! Happy belated Halloween and Thanksgiving to you all, the only way it could have been better would have been to have you all with me.