So many of you asked about how our holiday went that I decided to include this information in my mass mailing.
It was truly a traditional American holiday....Tanzanian style! I set the time table as I enjoy it at home where guests arrive between 1:00-2:00. We start with appetizers and games. Dinner is 4:00-5:00...dessert later.
Nothing went according to plan! Ann and I were so organized because everything took so long to prepare that we worked extra hard and we were ready a day ahead! We had gravy and stuffing in the frig! Green beans and carrots were even washed and ready. (We went three places looking for sweet potatoes, and the ones we got were so buggy under the surface that they all became cow food!).
Ann made the most delicious pumpkin (roasted from scratch....could not find a can of pumpkin anywhere!) gingerbread. I made a large pan of apple crisp. The apples we get here are extremely good. They last a long time in the refrigerator and the flavor rivals any apple from Washington! Unfortunately, they are not the best baking apples. I kept setting the timer for 10 more minutes, but they never got soft. But crunchy apple crisp is still good.
The biggest story is the turkey. To get a turkey is a whole new adventure! Anyway, we got a frozen turkey and borrowed Jacobson’s Weber grill. I bought an extra bag of charcoal to be ready.
Don was supposed to be home in the morning. “I don’t need to take the day off....there aren’t very many patients.” By 2:00 when he still wasn't home, I was getting nervous! I called him and he was finally on his way home. So many sick patients came in that day!
The turkey did not get on the BBQ until after 3:00! Remember my timeline? The charcoal I bought was awful...even had soil and sawdust in it! When Erik and Bernice arrived, they knew what to do. They sent Orjantan to buy homemade charcoal on the street. People do something with wood to make charcoal. We used my personal fan to make the coals heat up. [Don's note: Erik and Bernice saved the day. I was ready to give up several times, but they persisted and got the charcoal hot enough to finish the turkey.]
The timeline was totally Tanzanian! People showed up hours after they said they would. Good thing! The turkey was not ready until 7:30! We even had one uninvited guest...a cousin of Wemas’s who was very curious and asked to be included. How delightful is that!?? I love having guests who WANT to come!
So the timeline was perfect! TZ style! We ate about 8:00 pm! Since only Orjantan arrived in the early afternoon, he and Ann and I got to play cards. Bernice joined us for one game. Don and Erik worked on Don’s fancy new bike.
This is strange...not sure how to describe it. Don roasted the 8.5 kilo turkey. It was brown and gorgeous! We all ooh’d and ahh’d. He carved while I heated up everything else on my small stove.
He was carving and suddenly he said, “Debi, come and see this!” He was carving the breast and cut into this knot of bloody red tissue. We had no idea!!! I got Bernice and said, “Help! What is this?” We all stared. She said, "could that have not thawed??" I don't think so... Frozen tissue does not look bright red!
We did not know what to make of it and are still puzzling over how strange that was...it was like a collection of blood vessels, like a hemangioma. Or maybe the bird underwent trauma? Who knows! I wonder how we would react at home with the same presentation!? Everything seems stranger here.
Don left that part uncarved. The other meat was delicious! When he was done carving, I put all the good bones in the pot to start making soup. Later Orjantan and Upendo (mama) came into the kitchen and saw all the bloody bones and discards. Orjantan told me his mama would like them so she could make soup. His first question was, “What are you going to do with that?” I told him I was worried about what we saw so I might boil up everything for Linda’s dogs. He said, “My mama wants it.” I told him twice why I was worried about it. In the end, they took those bones and the strange meat home and Orjantan said their soup was delicious. [Don's note: We started off with a blessing. Since we have Jewish and Muslim dinner guests, we try to be inclusive of our friend's faiths including asking them to do a blessing. I talked about the first Thanksgiving as most of the people there only understood they were invited for a dinner featuring very strange foods. Like pickles and olives. The Swahili word for turkey, I'm told, translates as "crazy duck." I explained that the Pilgrims arrived in the New World woefully unprepared to survive so they had a frightful death rate (over 50%) that first year. The Native American tribes taught them survival skills.The following fall, they celebrated still being alive with that first Thanksgiving Day. I went on to explain that, minus the mortality rate, Debi and my story is similar. We were taught survival skills by the people already living here. We have prospered because of all the the Heaven-sent people who befriended us. This Afrothanksgiving is the closest reflection of the Pilgrim's Thanksgiving that we have ever experienced.]
With Ann’s help, I cooked up our bones and gleaned the meat. I made lots of soup...one big pot with Mexican seasonings and corn and beans and another pot with traditional vegetables and flavorings. I invited 14 people to share soup with with us tonight. I love including Tanzanians. They seem so grateful to be invited and they seem to love tasting new things. [Don's note: After having hamburgers for the first time last year, Dora went home and dreamed that night about eating hamburgers. That was her favorite food until she came for Thanksgiving here. Now her favorite food is gravy which she had never had before.]
So, our first major holiday in TZ [Don's note: Not counting Saba Saba, Nane Nane, and Eid Al-Fitr] has come to a close. Having Ann here did me a world of good. Everything was more fun with her company! And she got to experience the real deal...we lost electricity often and even water at least once. You can't escape the roads and the traffic or the noise or the litter. She even got to see me be harassed by the police twice! I told Ann before she came to TZ, if she said, “This is not so bad. Debi, what is your problem?” I might have to slap her! Before she left, Ann said all the right things , including...”I love visiting here, but I could NEVER live here!”
We will leave in 6 weeks (January 9). Time to use up things in the pantry! I very much look forward to being home! Life is easier in America...trust me! But living here certainly has its benefits. There is something sooo delightfully rewarding about our relationship with Wemas’s family. Wema will be home for a long Christmas break on December 8. I am looking to seeing her! And it is such a bonus to have family here! I can’t imagine being here without Erik and Bernice.
❤️Debi
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| Arusha National Park |
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| Arusha National Park |
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| Arusha National Park |
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