A Tanzanian Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was a little different than my usual thanksgiving but nonetheless it was one of the best I’ve ever had. So many of my friends here have way different thanksgiving traditions so it was awesome to come together and work out a thanksgiving that we could realistically do in Tanzania. The day started out with a regular day of work but around 3 we broke out the wine and headed toward the kitchen to start peeling the buckets of potatoes and sweet potatoes.

 Earlier that week we had requested two chickens but because we hadn’t seen or heard them all week we assumed they were dead. We had put the potatoes on the stove and we were ready to deal with the chicken and when we asked for them Richard one of the cooks took me back and there were two chickens… alive as ever. I hate birds and I think their disgusting but as our forester was cutting the head off the first one I tried to comfort the chicken I was holding and shield its eyes from its fate. A forester killed the first chicken because none of us knew how but the vegan of the group killed the second chicken. This was Gregs first chicken kill ever and right after the head had been cut the beak started moving and the body convulsing as it squawked and  actually made sound. It was the craziest most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen to see the head detached from the body yet still squawking and making sounds.

After watching the boys stick fight instead of watching football the rest of the day was spent by me and my friends Maggie and Will making dinner. We made mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes, Mchicha (African spinach with grated carrots and garlic), sautéed veggies, fruit salad, stuffing, and a doughnut thing filled with jelly for dessert. For the chicken I lathered it in Blue band (a palm oil based margarine), added some seasonings stuffed it with veggies and potatoes and put wine all over it. Not to brag or anything but the chicken was so moist and the best chicken I’ve ever eaten. The meal was one of the best and it was even better because we shared it with the cooks and our favorite forester/ healer. Two crates of beer and a lot of wine were bought and shared and we spent the night eating, drinking, talking Swahili and celebrating everything we were thankful for. We started the meal off with what we were thankful for and many cheers and bottle clanking followed. We didin’t know what the word for thankful for so we said “mimi ni ashe kwa” I am thankyou for, and everybody joined in, in this tradition. It was so cool to share this holiday with Tanzanians and come together to fix a meal that although not your traditional thanksgiving meal was pretty darn close. Killing chickens, cooking up a storm and having so many different people with different traditions come together turned into a thanksgiving I will never forget.