A Very Ugandan Thanksgiving

Hello all! I hope you guys had absolutely wonderful thanksgivings!! For those with whom I usually celebrate, I was missing you all very very much, and for those with whom I don’t usually get to celebrate, I was thinking of all of you and am thankful for you all.

So I had a very Ugandan thanksgiving this year! Of course, thanksgiving is not a celebrated holiday in Uganda. (Though it involves lots and lots of eating so I feel like it was practically made for Ugandans, you know, besides the whole discovering America-thanks for the meal-here are some blankets as tokens of our appreciation-thing.) As a result, us Bazungu were facing the prospect of a thanksgivingless year, a prospect that just wouldn’t do! So we decided to create our own thanksgiving celebration.

Hannah and I spearheaded the cooking effort, which was an adventure to say the least. Our kitchen is tiny, our oven is broken, and we have a grand total of two pots, so the prospect of feeding 17 seemed daunting. However, we were determined. We had a plan. I dedicated several desktop sticky notes to menus, attendance lists and shopping schedules.

Wednesday night, we would make the mashed potatoes, which would take the most time of anything, to have enough time/burners/pots to make the rest of the dishes on Thursday. However, soon after we started cooking, the power went out. No worries! The mashed potatoes would be made by the light of two headlamps!

On Thursday, I took off of work early to finish cooking. About an hour into cooking, the gas runs out of our stove. Visions of pathetically asking neighbors to use their stoves or, the horror!, a matoke-laden thanksgiving, flashed before my eyes. However, our wonderful landlord Eric soon came to the rescue with a new (though I’m pretty sure it was just his gas canister and not a new canister at all- my thanksgiving hero) canister of gas. So we were back on track. The guests were due at 7. The power went out at 6. Bring out the headlamps!

Look! It still works! Thank you Eric!!!

Oh tiny stove, I am glad that you work during power outages!

However, in the end, all of the food got made, a menu of mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes (my mom’s recipe!), green beans, vegetable rice, and cabbage salad. The guests arrived, all bringing exactly what we’d coordinated ( how wonderful when you have friends who follow through and call you during the day to ask if they can bring anything else!), and we had an absolutely fantastic thanksgiving by the light of headlamps! ( I like how the last three paragraphs end in "headlamps!"-- This thanksgiving is brought to you by the letter headlamps!)

I think we employed every single dish in the kitchen in our effort

After several hours of cooking, chefs Alena and Hannah are excited to eat!

As is the tradition of many of the students there, we all went around and said what we’re thankful for. I said that, in anticipating my first thanksgiving away from home- the first thanksgiving any Stern has spent away from home- I was expecting to feel incredibly sad. But instead, as I looked around the room at the faces of my friends crammed into my tiny living room, illuminated only by an open laptop and two headlamps, whatever sadness I expected to feel was replaced by overwhelming love for the people around me. I am so lucky to have found such an amazing family here in Uganda.

I skyped with my parents last night, and they reminded, as they are wont to do, that I will be seeing them in 12 days. This ever waning countdown, of course, is one of very mixed emotions. On the one hand, I am so excited to see my family and for the adventure we are going to embark on together. I am so excited to return to America, land of my puppy and diet coke and cheese. And I am so excited for getting back to my W&M family next semester. However, I am also unspeakably saddened at the prospect of leaving Uganda, a place that has come to be my home, the prospect of leaving 16 friends, who have become my family, and the prospect of the conclusion of this experience that has challenged me, delighted me, sometimes frustrated me, and has exceeded my expectations in every possible way.

I have realized that no one emotion is ever going to win out, and in a way, I am so thankful for that. Many people search all their lives for one place to call home, and at the ripe old age of twenty, I have already found three homes, filled with three different, wonderful, loving families.

I have so very very much to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving.