Thanksgiving has always been one of my very favorite holidays, and I cannot remember celebrating the holiday without a whole lot of joy and appreciation. Thanksgiving 2015, when four PC friends visited and cooked up storms in my suddenly-small kitchen, was a great one. (Four and a half, really, as S. showed up on the Sunday morning, made us pancakes and vanished.)
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| Anneline, Dennis and Silas posed for me on the actual day for a Facebook post. The sign they're holding is one I put up on my office door to try to describe Thanksgiving to Namibian visitors. It includes the fact that about 50 million people live in poverty in the USA, so many more-fortunate folks help out at soup kitchens and food pantries as part of their holiday. Lots of people outside the US don't know that there are many poor people in our country. |
But there wasn't a brew pub in Swakop in 2015, and by 2016 there was. So a group consensus emerged that we'd celebrate there instead, and a huge number of volunteers converged on the coast with recipes and good cold cash in hand, for a Saturday-after-the-real-holiday-which-we-don't-get-here fiesta.
But before all that could happen, I was walking home Friday night and got a phone call from a number my phone didn't know, and when I answered a guttural voice said, "Hello, this is Hans. D. in Opuwo said we could stay with you tonight," and I thought, 'No way would D. give my number to strangers without telling me he'd done so... but..." So I turned 'round and went to my temporary roommate H's office, as D. is her boyfriend. She phoned him and confirmed that he had given my number to a couple strangers, and they seemed like legit Austrian couchsurfers, but he hadn't told them they could stay at my house - just that maybe they could. It being a season of sharing, and me being a person who wouldn't turn them away at any time, we flung wide the gates. Austria had given them the opportunity to quit their jobs and collect an unemployment-type stipend as long as they could claim they were engaged in educational pursuits, so they took a few courses back home and then flew to interesting places and couch-surfed. They were quite bummed that the year would be up soon, and they would have to get jobs again.
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| Two Austrians whose names I've forgotten (and they could very easily just give fakes ones, anyway) and H., snacking before falling asleep on the couch. The Austrians, that is; H. had a bed and her own room. |
And they took a long time to leave on Saturday morning, but eventually H. and I made it to Swakop. There, we had two kitchens at our disposal: one at S's, and the other at G. and N's, who also have a braai stand on which to make roosterbrood. Nonetheless, there were too many cooks for the kitchens, so I did not contribute anything culinary. Two of the cooks are vegan, and presented many tasty options over and beyond the turkey that G. and N. had scared up from somewhere. There may have been dried cranberries in one of the side dishes, too. Definitely there was J's specialty mulled wine, and A's awesome mashed spuds, which is about all I need for a happy life. Y. had the good sense to pack a generous helping of leftovers that she kindly shared with those of us hiking up to Otjiwaronjo the next day for a permagardening master class. Fab!
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| J. mulling |
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| A. preparing to mash |
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| Vegans in Namibia! E. grew up in the town next to where I grew up, though about ten years after I'd left. |
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| Some of us, eating. |
Thanksgiving food is really good, but the friends, and family if you can get them, are really the best part. You probably know that.
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| S. and her roommate/landlady generously let us stay at their place, a former B&B that now supports r/l's rescue dog and cat habit. It is so great to hang out with friendly, clean, loved domestic dogs. Billie, one whose name I never could get, and Caper. |
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