Thanksgiving marathon

This Thanksgiving was one of the best. Definitley the most exhausting, but rediculously awesome. It started for me wednesday night when my site-mates (closest peace corps neighbors...10k away) came over to my house so that we could start our walk to the road (read: motorized transport) bright and early. Catherine came over in the afternoon and we felt very peace corps as we sat on my nicaraguan blanket reading about chakra realignment and meditating.... we felt that way for about ten seconds until my dog started to try to eat catherines hair while she was attempting a sun salutation. We then headed over to visit some of my best neighbors. about this time Mary and Mussa showed up and we all went over to Baba Desmondi's house. We visted a bit and got up to leave. "Oh no you can't leave we just started some tea and eggs for you all." hmmm... ok its 8:30 thats our usual bedtime, but of course you can't pass up tea and eggs, thats just rude. so we stay. we finish our eggs. Its time for us to go now, we have to be up bright and early for our 3 hour walk, so we better head out. "Oh no you can't go, we started rice, beans, and goat for you" well no one ever walks out on goat. even if you don't eat it (me) you don't leave once someone prepared you goat. goat is expensive and probably just killed for you. so we stayed. fast forward 3 hours. its midnight and we're stuffed and walking back to my house in the dark.

at 5:30 my alarm goes off and we get up to start our walk. but wait, my neighbors come over with tea and eggs for us to take on our journey (tea and eggs is evidently some sort of magical combination) so 6 o'clock we leave. we're quite a vision. three white girls rediculously tall kenyan/tanzanian and one little dog on a chain leash. we're off. after three hours of sweating and sining as many 90's songs as we can think of. Mussa our tanzanian can join in when we do country songs - turns out he's a big dolly parton fan- go figure. we arrive in Igowole and meet up with the other half of our travel crew. Ashleigh, Brianna, Cristina, and Laura are waiting for us. In honor of giving thanks they started the festivities with sampling some of Brianna's home made pineapple wine. so we are greated with some unexpectedly glazed over eyes. Apparently Brianna and her village let the fermentation process go on a little long... oops. we get some tea and bread. give walter a little water and 9 adult sized people and one dog pile into a taxi to get to Jenny and Jeff's house. Our thanksgiving day destination. please note that none of us have every been there and we have absolutley no idea where we are going. either does the taxi driver as we will soon find out. about two hours in, walter has been so good, oh wait... says laura, me and ashleigh turn to see walter through up his breakfast, completley undigested on ashleigh's sweater and my arm. and as we get the taxi to pull over to deal with the mess and ashleigh stands up we realize that walter did not only puke on ashleigh he also pooped. four round little turds rolls off ashleighs skirt as she stands up outside the cab. this is when we're all glad for the overfermented early morning pineapple wine....so now its just funny.

so we pile back in. 4 hours, 10 wrong turns, and 3 calls to jenny and jeff later, we get there. this is honestly one of the most beautiful places i've ever been. we're in the hills covered with tea fields and forest. its some kind of mix between the sound of music and gorillas in the mist. amazing. and when we get there we are greated by 15 beautiful african children and about 20 tired but happy Peace corps volunteer faces. we made it. we all spend the day exchanging stories, cooking, doing sing alongs with jeff on the piano or bango and jenny on the viola, and playing cards. it also seems everyone has brought a sampling of their village made wine. i've now tried pineapple, mango, papaya, and cherry wine. all great however strong. walter is in heaven as he plays with their two dogs and monkey. jenny is a peace corps volunteer who has finished her service and she and her fiance jeff now work with this non-profit. they have ana amzing house that includes, hardwood floors, gas, electricity, hot showers, and running toilets. bliss.

the next morning after dirinking strabucks coffee courtesy of jenny's american family and eating pie for breakfast we all procure rides out of the mountains to a town so that we can start the next leg of the journey. on this ride walter only pees on mary's lap. i think this is good progress. next stop kitelawasi village, alee's village. she couldn't come up with the money to make it to jenny's because she spent all her money funding a pottery wheel in her village as an income generating project. so we're coming to her. she's also a trained chef. she's been cooking all day and nine of us are greeted by alee, sam (who's been down visiting) and alee's fiance teso. we have a fantasic meal of chicken soup, tortillas, and salsa. and the night is capped off by a freestyle rap battle provided by our own justin of boston mass and a Maasi secondary school teacher from the village. it goes on for hours and is actually really impressive. they end the night agreeing to record together. so stay tuned. i'll let you know when their first album titled ebony and ivory drops.

the next morning is potato soup for breakfast. alee's been sick all night and the rest of us had been planning on going to iringa, a good sized town with a hospital, to finish up a report for peace corps. we all agree alee needs to be checked out since she has a fever of 102 so half of us get geared up to go to iringa while the other half is heading back to their villages. due to walter's track record of travel i leave him with catherine to take back to her village.

we arrive in iringa to a whole other group of white faces from peace corps we didn't expect to see. so that day is spent at the restuarants that cater to white tourists so they serve milkshakes, burgers, buritos, panini's, and pizza. the afternoon is snack time, they sell pringles here, and so we watch the Bourne Ultimatum on someone's computer and forget for a while that we are in africa and work with people dieing of aids everyday. that night is disco night. we all cheers each other and dance into the morning. not a bad thanksgiving if you ask me. i hope y'all had a good one too.