Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I had my second Thanksgiving in country! On Thanksgiving day itself, I had a small celebration with my friend from home (who also happens to be serving in Cameroon—it’s funny that our first Thanksgiving together required us to travel all the way to Cameroon). We did not exactly have a traditional meal, but it was delicious nonetheless! What we ate was by no means what I would want back in the US, but it was incredible and definitely felt like a real celebration in this country. We had kraft mac-n-cheese, zucchini, and sweet potatoes. All of which are luxuries and were absolutely amazing. Is it sad that those items made me so happy? Very possibly, but I stand by it. And in the true spirit of the holiday, I was very thankful for that meal. I don’t think I could have imagined a better dinner here. To top it off, we even had oreo pudding pie for dessert! We are so incredibly grateful to those who sent care packages and made that meal possible.

That Saturday we had a more traditional celebration with all of the volunteers in the region. There were maybe 30 people present, including some Cameroonians. We started cooking early in the morning on our camping stoves and broke out the dutch ovens. We made pumpkin seeds, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, salad, green bean casserole, dinner rolls, pasta salad, baked mac-n-cheese, key lime pie, pumpkin pie, cookies, and several other dishes. We even had a real turkey that one of the volunteers killed and cleaned herself that morning! It was fun to have such a big celebration that felt so legitimate!