Turkey and Trainees

Hey there, friends! We just returned from a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration where we chilled on a beautiful island and yes, even ate some turkey.

 We spent the holiday at our friend TJ’s house in Inhassorro which provided us the opportunity to relax on a beach, use electricity for cooking and a gracious hotel’s facilities for our meal. The original plan was to take a boat trip to an island on Thursday and have our dinner on Friday night since a few of the guests were not able to make it until then. But due to weather issues, the trip had to be moved to Friday.  But, not all way lost since TJ does live right on a beach. None of us really complained about spending some time in the ocean that day, even if it wasn’t off an island. And, it gave us time to prep some of our feast the day before. My contributions were cranberry sauce, stuffing and sweet potato casserole. Of course we had to make some modifications here in Mozambique. I used dried cranberries instead of fresh ones but I was really surprised at how delicious the sauce turned out. Stuffing was an easy job since it only involved boiling water and butter for 4 boxes of Stove Top stuffing, a classic crowd pleaser. The sweet potatoes were a little trickier since we had no luck finding the veggie here this time of year, so my adaptability skills came in handy. I had remembered that cassava root tastes remarkably like a sweet potato, especially the ones here since they’re not as sweet as you find in the states. Cassava, something we never see at home and I had certainly never eaten until I came here, is a common staple all throughout Africa so I thought it would be a culturally appropriate twist anyway.  I used all the same ingredients you find in regular sweet potato casserole, complete with browned marshmallows on top, and it turned out to be a hit at the buffet table!  I have to give a BIG shout out to my wonderful family who never lets me down with my care package requests. This and many American food wonderfulness I’ve had in the past year would not be possible without you. Thanks guys! So, we woke up Friday morning with half of our dinner prepped and excited to take a boat trip. Our destination was Santa Carolina Island, one of the islands in the Bazaruto Archipelago, a group of gorgeous, government protected islands in our region of Mozambique.  We boarded our dhow, a traditional colorful wooden boat and enjoyed the beautiful breeze on the open water. We reached the small, uninhabited island and had a relaxing day on the beach. We walked along the coast looking for shells, swam and snorkeled and laid in the sand. Chris and I received an impromptu walking tour from one of our boat guides as well. He saw us peeking to see what was on the other side, and offered to take us around the entire island. I always say that Mozambique is where the screen saver people go to take pictures, and our walk around this island presented many opportunities for these photo ops! We saw beautiful ocean scenery from every angle and the ruins of a once bustling and elegant hotel. It was an awesome unexpected detour in our day. We sailed back home, then hurriedly finished making all of dishes in time for dinner. In true Moz fashion, the energy went out as we were all partaking in electric stoves and ovens, but it turned back on just in time for us to finish up. Once things were ready, we headed to the hotel to get everything set up. TJ works at a vocational school for tourism and they run a hotel at her site. The hotel was kind enough to allow us to use their kitchen, dishes and silverware and beautiful location on the ocean to have our Thanksgiving. After warming things up and getting them nicely displayed on our buffet table, we partook in quite a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Aside from my side dishes, we had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, a salad, squash and green beans. We even had pumpkin and cherry pies for dessert! Everything was just awesome. I can’t imagine having a more authentic TDay meal than if we were actually in the states. Both the food, the company also lended itself to all the coziness that makes this holiday so great. We all went around the table to say what we were thankful for, we chatted and laughed and made fun of each other. They say that your fellow volunteers become your family during your service and that is definitely true. While they are wonderful friends, they also act as your family away from home. Aside from PCVs for every region, we got to share with other Americans visiting, and an Italian and a Mozambican. It was an eclectic mix which actually, is pretty indicative of the Williams’ family turkey days as Chris and his family like to joke about. So it was another nice reminder of home :) The whole day was wonderful, from the boat to the stuffing. At the end of the night, Chris and I decided that years from now we’ll be saying about this day, “hey, remember when we had that awesome thanksgiving in Mozambique… ”

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, we hosted two site visitors in Mapinhane. Trainees are sent to sites all over the country so they can get a feel for what life as a volunteer in Mozambique actually looks like. You might remember reading about our site visit experiences last year which were a lot of fun for both of us, so we were hoping to do the same for our guests. Aside from our two visitors, we had a gaggle of trainees visit volunteers in our region, and we thought there would be no better way for them to enjoy the freedom outside of their homestay families and a relentless training schedule then to hang out in Vilankulo. The whole Northern Inhambane province crew showed these trainees everything we love about the area like the gorgeous beaches and available pizza and ice cream. After two days of living in the “posh corps”, it was time to take our visitors back to Mapinhane to experience the real deal. We spent the next few days showing them that while the “posh” part of their stay was over, there are a lot of great things about our daily life in rural Africa. We relaxed by lantern light, walked around our village, chatted with some neighbors and demonstrated various forms of cooking without a standard oven or refrigerator. All in all, it was a great visit and I think the girls left really encouraged and excited about the 2 years ahead of them.  Then, a week after their departure we got some great news:  Karina, one of our visitors who I also spent a lot of time with in Namaacha at training last month, is going to be our new site mate!  For years, Mapinhane only had a private school (where Chris and I work) in our community which was a challenge for many local kids because they could not afford the fees to attend.  A new public secondary school just opened up this year providing more opportunities for kids to go to school, and an opportunity for our community to receive another volunteer. It won’t be easy navigating a new school and living in a one room hut with no electricity, but Karina is a tough cookie and she’s up for the challenge. Luckily, she was able to see the house and the school when she came for a visit so she knows what to expect and was hoping to be placed at this site. And, of course, we’ll be here for guidance along the way if she needs it. :)  Chris and I loved our experience of being the only PCVs in Mapinhane for the first year, but we are really looking forward to sharing our ‘hood in year two. She’ll be joining us at the beginning of December and unfortunately, we won’t be here to help her navigate her first couple of weeks, but we hope to be reachable if she needs us.  But, our absence is for a very exciting reason. We are going to enjoy our summer break in South Africa! We’ll be taking a 3 day safari, spending 8 days in Cape Town and ending with an overnight train ride complete with sleeping compartments and a dining car! We’re very excited for this adventure not only for the itinerary, but to enjoy some of the “first world comforts” we’ve regularly lived without for the past 14 months. We are hoping a movie theater, a real hamburger and possibly a blow dryer are involved at some point in our journey.

Can’t wait to catch you up on our South African adventures in our next post!  We hope all of our friends, family and blog followers had a lovely Thanksgiving back in the USA. <3