Last Saturday we celebrated Thanksgiving here in Kenya. Thanksgiving night we had a pumpkin pie, but we were out in the community doing evangelism so we did not have the time to actually make a Thanksgiving meal. As Saturday was our off-day so we decided to make it Thanksgiving day just a few days delayed.
The things about being on the World Race is you have to learn to expect the unexpected and that nothing will quite go how you picture it in your mind. Making our Thanksgiving meal was certainly a testament to that.
We got ready to head out at 7:45am to the local grocery store as we couldn’t buy groceries in advance as the pastor’s family does not own a refrigerator. We are very blessed to be in a rather large city and so the grocery store has many things we haven’t seen in months. But, the fun started as we got into the car. The pastor’s family owns a Peugeot limousine from the 70’s that we have lovingly named “The Hoopty”. If you sit in the back, back seat, you are almost overcome by gas fumes. The windshield wipers don’t work, the heater/defrost/anything else doesn’t work. You can only roll down the windows in the front seat as there are no handles in the middle row and only 2 of the four doors open. It is pretty sweet and we are so thankful that we can pile 9 of us in it regularly to get to ministry instead of walking the 14 miles to the church or having to carry our groceries home from the store.
The other thing about the car is it can be a bit tempermental starting. It is a manual transmission so it often needs a push to get going. Last Saturday was one of those days. So, we got ready to go and realized we needed to give it a push. A few tries later and the car was running and so we hopped in to head to the store. Only problem, the car died again at the 1st corner. We spent a good 5 minutes pushing the car down a rather busy road trying to get it started before realizing our problem may be the car is out of gas. Did I mention the gas gauge doesn’t work so we usually put in a few liters of gas every time we leave the house? This was our best guess as to why the car didn’t start so Agape (the pastor’s daughter and I) proceeded to push Frank and the car 4 blocks to the gas station. Thankfully, 3 nice guys helped us push the last 2 blocks for the cost of a cup of chai ($.20). So worth it!
We got some gas, but by that point the battery was so dead we then had to push it again. But, the carburetor wasn’t getting gas so another nice Kenyan guy ran back to the gas station, put some gas in his mouth, ran back, opened up the carburetor and spit it in to get us rolling. Yes, I paid him some money too as seriously that is going above and beyond. After our last push start, the car finally ran and stayed running. Woohoo! An hour after leaving for the grocery store, I was soaked from sweat and the rain that was coming down and we were ready to go shop.
We got to the store and went to town grocery shopping and finally got back home around 10am. Oops, we were supposed to have our breakfast of French toast on the table at 10am. We were a little delayed, but everything came out okay and we had a very patient breakfast crowd.
We then learn that the group is all supposed to go a friend of the pastor’s house for a large lunch. That doesn’t work so well with Frank and I needing to be in the kitchen for the day and our plan to eat again around 3pm. Welcome to being flexible. Eventually, everyone but Frank and I went to the lunch and we stayed behind with Agape to continue to do Thanksgiving prep.
We had a blast! We eventually made 3 whole chickens (turkeys were too huge for us to cook without an oven), stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, soy sauce carrots, ginger carrots, fruit salad, sautéed mushrooms, sweet potatoes, 3 pumpkin pies and 2 apple pies with hand-whipped, whipped cream using 2 burners and one charcoal burner.
We actually had to tone back our menu at the last minute as the fact that the group had already eaten twice and we couldn’t refrigerate anything meant that unlike most Thanksgivings, ours could not have leftovers. It just means we will probably cook the other 5 or 6 dishes we were planning today. I don’t think anyone will complain.
The group arrived back from their lunch about 7pm and we ate until around 10pm. We were painfully full which made it just like Thanksgiving in America. With the 8 hour time difference, we were even able to pull up a little college football on-line so we could have a little football with our feasting.
All in all, it was a good time celebrating Thanksgiving in Kenya.
