18 November 2006

17 November 2006

Time keeps on flying by, at least most of the times. The school year is coming to a crashing halt. Actual teaching has been done for a few weeks. Tests are ending now too, but there is still two more official weeks of school!? I am confused to. People here are also realizing that we only have 9 more months of work here to do. They are scared that they won’t get all the things they wanted out of us…funny how that is because we have spent the last year sitting!

Last Saturday was the pre-Turkey Day Turkey. Yes, it involved turkeys. Two of our friends lost the life to a delicious afterlife on our dinner table. Their names where Thomas (because it starts with a T and so does turkey…!) and Monate (Setswana for delicious).

The happening took two day. Day 1 was slaughtering day followed by Day 2 (can you guess)…Eating Day (my favorite!)

Slaughtering day was exciting as usual. The event started out with myself, Jeff and Matt handling all the activities ourselves. This is kind of scary since I am the most experienced slaughterer and I honestly don’t really know what to do. I do know the first thing to do though!? Looking all over for the ax (the nicest way for a turkey to go) was priority number one. After not finding the family’s ax, I asked the neighbor for an ax. After about 5 minutes the boy brought an ax…if that is what you want to call it. I would have called it a hammer. I know people aren’t big on having sharp things to slaughter their animals but this ax was more round than sharp. Not a good recipe for peacefully killing our dinner. Alternative number two. Knife. After catching Thomas, it was the inevitable faith of dinner. The knife was sharp…as it was mine! After killing and defeathering, our backup finally arrived. The lady a stones throw away came to help out. Which is good, because she actually knows what she is doing. That sped things up. After Thomas was gutted and hung on the clothes line to dry, it was Monate’s turn. Thomas was a petite bird…Monate on the other hand was the big poppa!

Day 2 started out early. Getting the birds prepped for their big day of being slow roasted to deliciousness! We started cooking at 8. Ate at about 15:30. The only major obstacle AND scare for that matter was the brief power failure that we experienced at about 12:30. This could have turned into a bigger problem…but lucky it was only for 1 hour! So at 15:30, 9 of us American sat down to an old fashion Thanksgiving dinner (we are going to Pretoria for actual Thanksgiving Day to celebrate with the ambassador and his friends.) It was great to come together and reflect on the last year…and look forward to less than a year!


What Jeff here is thinking, ‘Yes, the head just fell right off…I don’t know what happened!’

Our little Indian girl

Grabbing Monate and taking him to the cutting block (or tin panel?)

10 November 2006....it's been a while

Three weeks of silence on our part and not much to show for it. We have been away from home for quite a while, attending two different workshops at a lodge near Kuruman, and in-between, attending our mid-service conference in Rustenburg. The mid-service conference was fun because we got to stay at a nice hotel, eat excellent food, and hang out with all the other PCV’s from our group for a week. The food was so amazing – they even had a Mexican-themed night – you just don’t find Mexican food in South Africa – complete with taco shells, guacamole and salsa! And they had blueberry muffins in the morning with real blueberries in them! Another thing I have never seen here… Afterwards, we headed up to Polokwane to visit our old host family from training. It was great to see them again and they were so excited to have us back. A lot has changed there, and all for the better. Our father has retired and spends his days herding the cattle, sheep and goats out to the fields and back, which he enjoys. Our sister has gotten married and has been in training to become a security guard, and the brother has become a taxi driver and seems to love it. They have painted the house, put in new tile floors and gotten some new furniture so it seems as though they have been successful.

Back on the home front we are nearing the end of the last school term. We recently applied for a grant through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, to build new toilets at one of our schools, and it was funded less than a week after being posted on the internet, so thanks to all of you who donated. We are purchasing the materials today and hope to start building next week to be done before the end of the school year. It’s pretty exciting to have something like that in the works – visual progress!

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and we have been invited to the new ambassador’s house to celebrate. Our family here couldn’t accept that we wouldn’t be having that big party with all the good food, though, so we decided to hold a village celebration as well which will be happening this weekend. I think we’re going to have 7 other Americans here this year, and our host father has succeeded in tracking down two fat turkeys for us, which are happily living in the chicken pen, unaware of their fate. I’m sure we’ll have some photos and stories to share next time. Until then…

The early bird for the early Thanksgiving.

Our two friends that will be our dinner tomorrow