Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Thanksgiving Day Feast(s)

One of the hard things about working internationally is that you miss spending big holidays with family and friends back home. Fortunately, we have a great group of friends here in Kenya, and we were able to spend an awesome Thanksgiving holiday celebrating with them. And what's better than one Thanksgiving celebration? Two!

We wanted to thank the team of builders and engineers who are helping install the equipment at the bridge for our water meter, as well as all the Mara Conservancy rangers and staff who help us with our work all the time, so the night before Thanksgiving, we had a traditional Kenyan goat roast with them. We bought a large goat from one of our friends, packed him up in the Land Rover and drove down to the bridge.

Thanksgiving goat
Goat in the Land Rover - awesome!
  While we worked in the river, several of the guys did all the slaughtering and preparing, and by the time we got back to camp, the goat was already cooking on the fire.

Cooking goat over the fire
We set up our camp at the Rangers' Station for the night, and enjoyed a wonderful meal of goat meat and ugali with good friends. It was a perfect way to start the Thanksgiving holiday!

At camp with Warden Konchella
Celebrating with friends
The next morning, we headed back to Maji Camp (our home base) for a traditional American Thanksgiving meal. All the Americans around (us, the hyena researchers, and the hot air balloon pilot) and several Kenyan friends and colleagues sat down to share an amazing potluck meal, complete with roast turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberry sauce and brownies. It was an incredible taste of home and lots of fun.

Dinner table panorama
Even though we were far from home, we felt very blessed to share this holiday with so many good friends.

Thanksgiving dinner in the Masai Mara

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