Thanksgiving in Photos

If these two folks look tired to you, it’s because they just prepared Thanksgiving dinner for their first time—and did it in a developing country.

Let’s look at some photos of prep. and the big day.

Daniel and our good friend Aaron Arnold were on chicken duty on Wednesday morning. They chased and caught each of the three chickens we had our neighbors buy for us at market, killed them, plucked them, gutted them, and then put them in a brine to prepare for the big day. It took about five hours.

 

Meanwhile, Danielle and Aaron’s wife Sarah were busy baking. They made two pumpkin pies, a red velvet cake, and fudge—all with a makeshift oven jerry-rigged from a little pot in a big pot on our stove.

On Thursday, we were ready and provided guests with all the trappings of Thanksgiving. Here’s a shot of Joel, Danielle, and Sarah enjoying the 2012 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on our computer.

For us and our eight guests, we had three chickens, six-and-a-half pounds of mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sauerkraut, bread, carrots, canned peas, corn, cranberry sauce, ham, five liters of tej, the local wine made from honey, and the desserts.

After the feast, we went to the college and played basketball with some of the students. It was pretty good game. In true Thanksgiving Day fashion, Daniel got a little too serious and shoved one of the college students who accidentally slapped him across the face.

After the basketball, we returned to the house and used the college’s projector to watch an old American football game we downloaded while in Germany.

All told it was a successful Thanksgiving—thanks to a little luck and a little help from our friends.