Our first Thanksgiving in Santo Antão was one to remember. It was one of those “role with the punches” kinds of days, but all of the little obstacles were what made it so fun.
In the morning Scott and I planned to catch a car down to Povação where we’d meet up with our friend, Pete. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find a ride in that direction, so we ended up hiking about 1/3 of the way down the mountain. Since the two of us rarely get to go hiking alone these days, it was a pleasurable trip.
Once in the city, we attempted errands, ate ice cream, and met up with other volunteers from the area. We went further north on the coast to an ocean-side pizza joint where we could see fisherman rowing by and pulling in their catch. In the afternoon, Pete, Scott, and I headed up the mountain to prepare our Thanksgiving dinner.
Since there are no (or at least very few) turkeys to be found in Cape Verde, Peace Corps tries to get frozen birds to groups of volunteers as a special holiday treat. The bird can’t fly by itself (anymore ;). It has to be accompanied by a volunteer on an airplane, but none of us on Santo Antão were willing to take a boat and a plane just to turn around with a turkey in tow. Pete, Scott, and I made an alternative plan that we were excited about. We purchased 4 frozen lobsters for about $10 from the Shell station in Povação.
We began cooking dinner at our house after dark. I had already made an apple pie, and we had boiled and mashed sweet potatoes for casserole. Pete had just finished layering his direct-from-America marshmallows when we heard the oven make a funny sound. We had yet to make pasta or steam lobster when - poof - we ran out of gas.
Being unable to cook on the holiday designed to celebrate eating felt like a cruel irony. We thought it was hilarious but unbelievable. Determined to persevere, we sprang to action borrowing a pan from neighbors and lighting a fire behind the house. By the glow of headlamp and flame we finished preparing our feast. The only dish to suffer was the sweet potato casserole. We tried to melt the mallows by holding a blazing stick over top, but unfortunately, heat rises.
It turns out that we’re no lobster-eating experts. We lacked the bibs and tools, and Pete accidentally flung his across the room trying to crack the shell. It was a messy ordeal but delicious. Mom’s care package Thanksgiving napkins arrived just in time.
While we missed spending the day with our families and eating Judy and Pam’s cooking, we had a Thanksgiving that was enjoyable in its own rite. In fact, I wouldn’t mind adopting lobster as the new turkey at future Thanksgiving meals.
5 comments:
What a great memory - I hope you took pictures. :)
Sounds to me like you had a great Thanksgiving...you were with each other, you were with friends, and you had the spirit of thankfulness (which the 2 of you have at every meal!) Sounds like the only thing you were missing was the gas -don't worry my family had enough gas at Thanksgiving for all of us :)
Glad to hear you're enjoying your time over there --you are missed and we love hearing about all your adventures! -jimmy
Memorable, indeed. We might consider lobster as a Thanksgiving meal tradition - if we can find them here four for $10.00! Did you have apples for making turkeys?
First of all, I LOVE Jimmy's comment above. Second, the funniest part of the day to me was the fact that Mom's napkins arrived just in the nick of time! What are the chances?!
Love, Laura
I'm so glad u r finding joy in the ironey. Like reading your blog. You have the same whitty comments as Laura. Praying for u. Love Amy Anderson, Ben's sister .
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