Thanksgiving in Jo'burg

Last Thursday, we celebrated Thanksgiving (!!), which was amazing because we had no concrete plans whatsoever on Tuesday morning. But Tuesday evening, Mr. Peter appeared out of nowhere, dragged us to a supermarket (even though Gaciru and I felt like we’d contracted the pneumonic plague at the time), and made us buy supplies. When he asked us how many people we wanted to cook for, we answered fifteen, which turned out to be a horrible mistake pretty soon after.

Then we started cooking. Actually, before we could bring ourselves to do that, we purged Mr. Peter’s kitchen, which smelled of not-so-fresh fish and coconut milk at the time. We were certain it was contagious; Gaciru though Mr. Peter was going to catch something when he made a piecrust with no shoes on (Mr. Peter that is; the piecrust was exceptionally attired).

Then we started cooking. At first the going was slow, because with the exception of Julia, who was well versed in the arts of cranberry jelly and apple pie, none of us knew how to cook any of the dishes that we were making. Undaunted, we took it upon ourselves to re-invent what felt like every single one of the USA’s traditional dishes. We peeled and chopped four bags of potatoes, boiled yams, prayed to the poultry gods that the turkeys would defrost in time, diced many onions, and tore numerous sprigs of rosemary. We even created a new type of vegetarian gravy with eggplant and soy sauce, although it quickly became clear why no one had done it before.

Regardless, we did pretty well, especially given that Mr. Peter’s kitchen was modeled after a shoebox and clearly not built to prepare large meals. He did save our turkeys (for which we are ETERNALLY gratefully), but apart from that we were triumphant and independent. When we served the food on Thursday evening, I was shocked and Julia and Gaciru were past delusional. Thursday morning, I would have thought it more likely that we’d end up hosting a family of triceratopses than finish preparing the dinner.

As is often the case whenever someone brings a holiday to another continent, we found ourselves explaining ours over and over and over again. We had numerous versions of the Thanksgiving fable, ranging from Julia’s



To Gaciru’s



After two straight days of cooking, we ate in a surprisingly familiar way. What makes Thanksgiving dinner feel like Thanksgiving dinner is not just its traditional spread of dishes, but a sense of family. And Thanksgiving at ALA was incredibly familial. I am grateful for Mr. Peter, and for all of the fourteen guests who came.

Following our meal, we engaged in a traditional dog pile on top of Akan. Trevor went first.



Unfortunately, there were a couple drawbacks to our feast.
One, none of us could move. I’m told we suffered from something called “the itis”



Two, Boubacar had difficulty concentrating on anything for about an hour.