Thanksgiving, Kenyan Style

So I didn’t even realize when thanksgiving was until friends were talking about leaving for sizzler this past weekend. It kind of hit me by surprise, I had no plans, not many close friends here in Naivasha, heck I don’t even have a kitchen. So a couple days before thanksgiving I made some plans with friends in Nairobi for me to travel into the big city on Thursday afternoon get there around 2pm and start cooking and we were going to have some of our closest friends over for a good ol’ Thanksgiving meal cooked by yours truley.

I still had a lot of work to do here in Naivasha before I could take off for the city. We were scheduled to do some surveys in a village I had yet to explore and then we were to have a meeting with representatives from the village. My co-worker and I started real early so we could get our survey work done before the meeting lead by our boss that was to start at 10 am. So by 7am I am in the village walking between plots, meeting people, asking about their latrines, taking pictures, trying to move as fast as possible because I had thanksgiving to get to once I was done with this. My head wasn’t really present, I was thinking about all the shopping for groceries I had to do, how I was going to find all the right ingredients, I kept texting everyone who was coming for dinner later that night to give them details as to what to bring, when to be there, and where to go. As we headed to the village meeting our boss informs us that she is running very late and the meeting will have to be pushed back in hour. This starts to worry me, as this would push back my arrival to Nairobi an hour, then how would the turkey (which had yet to be bought) have time to thaw. But Sylvia (my co-worker) and I just kept going with our surveys.

As most things in Africa, an hour delay became 2 hour delay, which became a 4 hour delay. If any of you know me, you know how much I was freaking out at this point. At 1:30pm (when I was supposed to be close to arriving in Nairobi)  I was still in the village doing surveys waiting for my boss so we could START the meeting, I just kept thinking how thanksgiving was going to be ruined. At this schedule I was not going to be able to get into Nairobi till we were supposed to start dinner (at 8pm), I had no idea how the turkey was going to be cooked, how I was supposed to get the rest of dinner cooked for everyone, and well yes- everything was ruined. I kept looking at my watch every few minutes as if that would speed things up.

Then, something happened that changed everything.

I was at a very, very poor plot. The buildings were made only from mud and sticks and were falling apart. There was a lot of space on the plot were apparently years ago the buildings had fallen down but there was never any money to build them again. There “toilet” was a hole in the ground with some sticks stuck in the ground for “privacy.” There were about 6 kids around (the family couldn’t pay for school for them), all barefoot, staring at me like most children do here (white people are really rare out in the villages).

 And this precious little girl came and grabbed my hand as we walked around her plot and talked to her grandmother who ran it. At one point she looked at me with huge beautiful eyes and in the most serious voice you can imagine said “Mazungo” and then something in Swahili that I didn’t understand. Mazungo means white person, so I know she was addressing me. It was translated it for me, the little girl had asked “Mazungo, buy me shoes?” Apparently she hadn’t had any kind of shoe for years.

Thanksgiving, a day to say thanks for what you have. A day about contentment, peace and gratitude. And I was freaking out about “ruining it” because I couldn’t cook dinner on time, and this little girl just wanted some shoes.

So I stopped. I stopped worrying. Stopped checking my phone or my watch, stopped worrying. I went and bought this girl and the other 5 children some shoes. (It cost me all of about $11 US dollars). We had the meeting. I didn’t get into Nairobi until about 7pm. My Kenyan friends ended up buying the turkey for me earlier and cooking it themselves. I went shopping for ingredients for a few sides. I got to start cooking at 8pm as everyone was arriving. And we just drank wine, and everyone helped me cook, and we had to wait for the turkey to be done anyway. So we didn’t get to eat thanksgiving dinner until about 11:30pm BUT the meal was amazing, the turkey that my Kenyan friend cooked ended up being one of the best turkeys I have EVER had (and she had just goggled “how to cook a thanksgiving turkey”) AND for some reason ESPN here was showing American Football so because it was so late here I got to watch the Texans V. Lions game live!!!

Lessons learned this thanksgiving:

·         Once again God gave me a tall cool glass of perspective

·         Everything ended up working out anyway (as it always does)

·         Worrying never does anything productive

·         Keep your head & heart where your body is