Thanksgiving in Namaacha

I realize that Thanksgiving was some time ago, but I thought it deserved its own post because we had such a fantastic celebration. You might think that thanksgiving in Africa, hosted by a bunch of broke Peace Corps volunteers who are in class ten hours a day, would be really depressing, but it was quite the contrary. Peace Corps tends to attract a lot of organizey, motivated types -- we are the type of people that form committees for everything -- Turkey Committee, Mashed Potato Committee, etc.  And thus, Moz 19 Thanksgiving occurred and it was quite a spectacle.
I was in charge of decorations and I had a grand total of 100 meticais for my budget. That comes out to about three American dollars, plus whatever natural resources I could find lying around Namaacha. I thought I did pretty well, considering the size of the budget. Check out the kick-ass centerpieces I made!

Lisa and I crafted these centerpieces from stuff we found lying around the Math hub.

We also had this cute poster where people could write what they were thankful for.

Cute set-up, huh? It was like having a really huge, very strange family dinner.

 And then there was the food. Don't even get me STARTED on the food. We had turkey (SO MUCH TURKEY), mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, sweet potato, fruit salad, salad salad, xima and matapa (Mozambican food), and DESSERTS! Ugh. I am salivating right now just thinking about it. Apple crisp, pumpkin pie, apple pie, brownies, chocolate chip cookies... it was quite a feast.

Check out this super legit dessert banquet. Is this Africa??

Lisa, Mafe and Sarah pig out on delicious comida.

  We were all so intensely eating and enjoying the taste of good home-cooked American food that our tables were silent for a good twenty minutes -- which is quite a feat, because whenever we have big group sessions and people are supposed to be being quiet, we can never manage to do it -- so you know that food was good.

  I have got to say, it was pretty awesome to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with everyone in our training group. The next big holiday coming up is Christmas, of course, by which time we will already be separated and at our sites. Thanksgiving felt like we were back in America for an evening -- I have a feeling Christmas is going to be much harder. It kind of helps that there's scorching heat every day, so it doesn't feel at all like the holidays -- but there are commercials on TV and radio that are starting to play Christmas carols and it just seems really weird to be so far from home for the holidays.

So what am I thankful for? I'm really thankful that I can live and work here, in this awesome country with such diverse and friendly people, surrounded by 67 fantastic colleagues and supported by my fantastic family back home.

Lisa and I drew this poster while listening to cheesy Swedish pop songs.

But I'm not going to lie, most of all, I'm thankful that there was apple crisp at our party. I LOVE apple crisp.