Friday, November 28, 2008

Thanksgiving in Senegal

It was well.....strange to say the least. I spent the day and night in the Kaolack regional house along with about 20 other volunteers. Despite the 100° heat, one thing that did make it feel like Thanksgiving however, was cooking. I made some awesome apple pies and of course pumpkin pies, yum! Also, true to thanksgiving form, I made spinach dip for an appetizer. Overall it was a pretty good time, one of the guys even made some millet bread instead of regular since I cant eat that! So nice!

And while I am a bit disappointed, but slightly relieved, that we did not kill the turkey ourselves I was there for the head chopping (with a dull knife--ick). But explain to me how I can watch this going on with nothing more than an "eww dude, thats pretty nasty" and continue to drink my wine, but when a cricket the size of my foot came into my hut, I trapped it under a tupperware container and kept it their until my friend came to visit and I made him get rid of it. All the while hiding myself under the mosquito net and eating starburst as consolation. Sometimes Im so strange! but the thing was nasty, so i guess its okay.

I really missed just hanging out with the family and am still feeling a little down :( And after seeing some of the events of the evening, Im not really looking that forward to Christmas or New Years. Christmas especially though. There are some holidays that I think are just inappropriate to be out of control drunk. Christmas being one of them, thanksgiving too which is probably why I was feeling down last night. Its just not me, and its frustrating to constantly be in that environment. So, hopefully I can find something to do on Christmas that doesnt involve massive consumption of alcoholic beverages. I hope.

PS--- who are we kidding mom, ill always want a sloth :) Although I fear Im becoming more and more like them each day that passes. Awesome!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!

1 comment:

Da Momma said...

Hey Girlie, hang in there. It was so wonderful to hear your sweet voice yesterday and Thanksgiving just wasn't the same here without you. We did all eat the spinach dip in honor of you. We added hummus and pita to our appetizer list this year and it was a great hit. Rachel especially missed you at dinner when you weren't there to stick your finger in the whipped cream on her sparkling cranberry compote. We also could not finish the second bottle of champagne and laughed when we realized that the reason was that you weren't there to help us with it. Everyone laughed at me when I poured all the extra raspberries from everyones champagne glass into mine and refilled it to do the cleanup. It sounds like you had fun despite the heavy drinking by some. Just remember next year........Illinois for Christmas.