It didn’t really hit me how far away from home I was until two days before Thanksgiving. I broke out the mulled spices and I poured my roommates spiced drinks until I’m sure they were fed up with me. We turned on Charlie Brown Christmas and thought about holiday lights and huge turkey dinners.
Thanksgiving morning I received a phone call from my family who had gathered in Salem. What a bittersweet morning! I heard the voices of half of my family members from across the world singing “We’re all together again, we’re here… and who knows when we’ll be all together again, singing we’re all together again we’re here!” I found myself singing this song the rest of the day, and it reminded me how far I was from where I came from.
And yet, it reminded me also how lucky I am to be able to explore the world so far away from home. In order to celebrate Thanksgiving, the 6 girls in my house organized a proper feast: we gathered all our favorite people in Arusha at the Chinese restaurant next door. It was a diplomatic affair as we had representatives from Sudan, Tunisia, India, Tanzania and Benin to experience the wonders of the Thanksgiving tradition.
I must say it was the least politically correct Thanksgiving dinner I have ever experienced. Topics of conversation included how many turkeys America had consumed for the day, the animosity between pilgrims and “Indians”, and various other stereotypical and potentially derogatory assumptions about people groups and their traditions.
The next day, instead of battling the insanity of black Friday at home, we left early in the morning on safari in an ancient caldera. We saw lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, hyenas, ostriches, zebras, gazelles, buffalo, baboons, hippos, and the like in their element. Maybe a similar experience to those of you who went shopping? :0)
No comments:
Post a Comment