Thanksgiving!

I always find that one of the best ways to pass extended periods of time is to punctuate it with special events. Sometimes internet day can suffice alone, but it’s nice to have accents from home, highlighting otherwise daily activities.

Take, for example, our Halloween Maboke. It was nice to celebrate Halloween, even in our funny way!

This Thursday, to celebrate Thanksgiving, we’re going to have a Family Dinner - Adam and myself, Polycarpe, Seba and his girlfriend Beya, Jojo and his girlfriend Beya, Dido, his third wife, and Olivier.

It’s most of our staff, with the exception of a few sanctuary personnel who, for obvious reasons, need to stay at the sanctuary with the other chimps!

We plan to cook THREE chickens, a real luxury for us! Already one of them is sitting in a basket in the yard, unaware of his fate. (As the only vegetarian in the house, I think I’m the only one uncomfortable with looking at a doomed man).

We’ll have rice, and fumbwa (shredded manioc leaves), and maboke (our equivalent of yams), maize, which will not be as sweet as delicious corn on the cob, and we are fervently searching the ville for a bunch of Fantas for everyone.

We are even trying to make GARLIC bread! There is garlic here, and bread, and oil, but no butter and no basil. So, Olivier is going to try his best.

And we’ll finish off with pineapple for everyone!

It’ll probably cost us $30, which is a big expense for our regular budget, but as a one-off, I think it’s worth it. It’s important to give thanks, and currently we have a lot of great friends and staff here to be thankful for.

Adam laughed at me when I threatened to try and use leaves and sticks to turn a pineapple into a mock-Tofurkey.

“I love you, and you could probably do anything you put your mind to, but there is no way you’re turning a pineapple into a turkey!”

Harumph!

It should be an excellent night, and we’ll buy batteries for Olivier’s radio and play music and have general revelry, minus booze, which we are trying to discourage in the house. Amazingly, we had the option of buying Primus, and we turned it down!

Pictures will be taken. I’m really looking forward to it!