Real Thanksgiving

I am writing this post with the threat of getting in very big trouble with my grandmothers and any other family members who have ever cooked me a Thanksgiving dinner. But literally this year was the best Thanksgiving meal I have ever had in my life. Because my grandma wrote to me with concern about how my meal would go, I will go into detail about what happened and the unique challenges of Thanksgiving in Rwanda.

First challenge: It's not a holiday in Rwanda so you don't get the day off. We ended up celebrating on the following Saturday.

Second challenge: It involves much more pre-planning than a Thanksgiving at home. Some ingredients we needed mailed to us, which for anyone who battled the mail system, can take around 3 weeks to 3 months.

Third challenge: Electricity is not a sure thing. The volunteer's house that we stayed at luckily had electricity in the first place and the stove was half gas burners and half electric. But the oven was electric, so the pie-making was a stop and go process throughout the day as the power came and went as it pleased.

The day started wonderfully with pumpkin pancakes, which I hope to make my new Thanksgiving tradition. It was born out of necessity. The can of pumpkin made two pies but we only wanted one and couldn't store the extra. No better way to start the day of gluttony than eating cake-like pancakes as soon as you get out of bed. Almost rivaled watching parades.

The fourth challenge was the fact that being the fourth Thursday of November, placing Rwandan celebrations on the last Saturday of November, being umuganda. Umuganda is the time for community work during Saturday morning. Everything shuts down. No buses. No grocery stores for last minute food errands. We all had to make sure we traveled in early and luckily had ALMOST everything we needed by Saturday morning.

Here's a list of our delicious dishes (really for me to drool over later):
Stuffing complete with apple
Garlic mashed potatoes
Honey rolls with apple butter
Salad with a sesame seed dressing
Cranberry sauce
Fancy mac n'cheese with oregano
Green beans
Carrot souffle which was practically a dessert, yum!
Pumpkin pie
Pecan pie
Cupcakes with adorable decorations spelling out Happy TDay

It was the first Thanksgiving where everyone gathered around the food table and snapped a thousand pictures before we ate.

Of course we had to lay around like slugs afterwards.

In a way the other volunteers around you become like family. First major holiday away from home has come and gone. This is just the start.