Thanksgiving and the rainy season

It's weird how normal a day Thanksgiving was here. No parade, no pilgrims, not even a day off work. so we tried our best to make it feel like home. We got a turkey on Tuesday, which is a pretty normal thing to do, except that we had to keep her in the backyard because she was still alive (!). Our big splurge was a can of cranberry sauce imported from Canada (I won't even say how much it cost). We were even able to cook sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top (but we should note that the sweet potatoes were white and the marshmallows were multicolored!). I was truly amazed at the spread we had, considering we were in Africa. My dad will be thrilled to find

out that after dinner our friend Julie read the story of the first thanksgiving, which is something my dad would definitely do. And I can't complain...it made me feel at home, and it was a nice history lesson for our Shona friends who joined us. Back to the turkey for a minute--on Thanksgivng morning I called our gardener over to help me slaughter our bird. It was a bit more gruesome than I expected, but I tried to make it as quick as possible. It was my first time killing anything bigger than a sunfish, and I feel a little more grown up having done it.

On a different note, the rainy season here has come, which is a big change from our first few months here. "Rainy season" doesn't mean it rains every day, like it does in some parts of the world. It just means there is a much better chance of rain than during the dry season. So far it has rained three times, but each rain lasted for a few days. Somestimes it rains gently nonstop, and sometimes we get intense 30-minutes storms. In any case, we are grateful, because things are turning from brown to green, and the farmers we teach now have the opportunity to put it into practice. And we just love storms!! To be fair, rain has its downfalls...like hidden potholes, crazier traffic, and muddy floors. I like to sing the line from Andrew Peterson's song, referring to our complaints about rain: "Do you thank the Lord for coming up with such a great idea?" I hope so.

-Dan