I guess I'm thankful that...my Thanksgiving is so restful?

It's kind of lame, but all I can think of right now. I'm desperately trying to put a good spin on what could be considered my most depressing holiday of 2009 to date.

It's not that I'm not happy to be back in France and thankful for many, many things, but last year's Thanksgiving back in Ouaga was so strange and funny and packed with good friends...

And, well, this year is kind of a contrast. Instead of 23 good friends packed into my living room enjoying a feast, there was just me and the kids nibbling away at my attempt at a mildy festive meal.

JP is in Paris for work and my few American friends in the area are too far away to just pop over on a Thursday night. Everyone has been at work all day and have to be there again early tomorrow morning. Not conducive to a holiday soirée

Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself. Just a bit.

But suddenly the weekend is promising better things! My lovely friend Lisa just now sent me an email. She and her daughter will be coming down from Switzerland on Sunday for a visit! Yay! We'll do a Thanksgiving meal then.

Now, all I have to do is find a turkey, which might be tricky. All the turkeys around here are being fattened for a Christmas demise. And I guess the farmers are planning to feed them on milkshakes and french fries from now until December 25, because they are still looking very slim at this point in time.

Be that as it may, tomorrow's task will be to hunt down possible poultry options.

I should spend tomorrow unpacking boxes all day, but tracking down a turkey sounds far more appealing.

We had an excellent Thanksgiving Day and I hope to soon have a short movie on YouTube to prove it. Not like it was easy, mind you. When I called the supermarket that morning to inquire about my fat French turkeys, I was informed that they hadn’t arrived. Due to the strikes in France, the cargo flight on Wednesday night never left the ground. OK. On to Plan B….except there WAS no freaking Plan B. So, I quickly moved on to Plan C, which involved throwing myself upon the mercy of the shop owner, begging him to find me enough turkey to feed 20 hungry people. He (a nice Lebanese gentleman) said he’d call around to some of his “connections” and get back to me. My cell phone rang 15 minutes later. I felt vaguely like I was involved in an illegal drug transaction. I was told that I could pick up my “package” in one hour.That was good, as it gave me time to pass by yet another (5^th!) pharmacy in search of the medications I needed, and mail off a Christmas parcel to some American friends in France (Hi Gina, Gaetano and offspring! Merry Noël!). At the supermarket (which is about the size of a medium-sized 7-11 in the USA) I picked up a few last minute items, then went to the butcher's counter, only to be told the order hadn’t arrived. I hung around for half an hour, making impulse purchases (I came home with a bottle of whole cloves and discovered that I already had a nearly full bottle sitting on the shelf. I guess we can make some of those spiffy old-fashioned pomanders out of apples and ribbons…..BTW-What are you supposed to DO with them.? Does anybody still use them? Do you WANT your clothes to smell like mummified fruit? I just don’t know.)The birds finally arrived, their corpses still warm and legs sticking straight up in the throes of rigor mortis. ( Yum!) The meat-counter guys stuffed them into a plastic sack, but it was too small and the stiff yellow feet poked up out of the top of the bag like a flower arrangement for the Addams family. I put this attractive bundle into my cart and rushed to the front of the shop. I had to get home and get them cooking or they’d never be ready by 6pm. And all the delay had put me behind schedule for school pick-ups…..Anyway, I finally got home and got to work. I had two boxes, as the check-out guys at the shop had separated the birds and sealed them in cartons with tape. I cut the tape and looked inside. The things looked big. Really big. Like, SO big that they would never, ever both fit into my oven, which admittedly does bear some resemblance to the Easy Bake Oven of my childhood -though it does work with a gas bottle and not a lightbulb, which is good. But I digress. I mixed up the stuffing, frantically trying to figure out who could lend me their oven for four hours. Most of the people invited to the event already had their ovens occupied by bread, green bean casseroles, pies. And my Burkinabé friends that live nearby don’t have ovens. Finally, luckily, I remembered that pal H. might have some oven space, so I ended up rushing one of the foil-wrapped monsters over to her house. When I got back, I found our Cecile (our cook) , Celine and Fanta (the maid/nannies) almost in tears over the burnt-orange tablecloths I’d had sewn up the day before. They had dried on the line wrinkled and the heavy fabric was impossible to smooth with our feeble Chinese iron. Next, they had borrowed the neighbour’s nicer one from Germany, which also couldn’t cope. It’s lucky I came home in time to prevent a melt-down. They get upset about this kind of stuff. As nearly as I can make out, they find it distressing that people would think that I have useless home helpers- the kind that don’t even know how to provide starchy-crispy table linens. After some effort, I got Cecile and Celine to leave the linens to their wrinkly fate go on home.
Then Fanta (no relation to the soft drink mentioned is my last post) noticed that the turkey was no longer cooking. Really. So, we made the world’s quickest trip to buy a gas bottle. Then there was me accidentally breaking off the pull-ring of the protective plastic tab that covers the nozzle. Time was passing and the stupid turkey was just sitting there in the rapidly-cooling oven.

Then the home haircut lady, Marte, came to cut Severin’s hair. I got a neighbour to come over and help us with the gas bottle. The flower guy showed up with the floral arrangements. I set the tables and started making the gravy. Then H. called and said their car was not starting and could I please pick them up? I grabbed my keys and headed out to the car, passing by Marte, waiting to be paid for the haircut. I took care of that and was back in 15 minutes with the H. family. I walked in the door and caught sight of Severin. Marte had given him what is best described as a Dorothy Hamill wedge. He looked adorable- just like an 11 year old girl. But hey- no time for fashion recriminations! The party was starting!
The décor was much admired. Nobody cried out in horror at the tablecloths (or at Severin's hair. Alothough Tony snickered to himself. I saw that!) The flowers and candles looked great and the food was excellent. But I had to leave for a while right in the middle, as I had to pick up two little girls arriving from Mali (friends of the twins, here for a track meet). So in the end, there were 23 people at my little party!
After the meal, T. (a former Seattle barista turned missionary) made coffee and we played Apples To Apples until late in the night.
No Friday off for us. No Black Friday retail madness. Just business as usual today.

Yesterday was a busy morning, as I scurried about, getting ready for the big Thanksgiving feast scheduled to occur at my house today at 6 pm sharpish.
There was the usual stuff to buy….well, not so much. There's no cranberry sauce in the shops or canned pumpkin. But I did buy bread at the bakery, so that I could make the stuffing. I also hunted around town, trying to track down some decent soft drinks for my guests. For years, all you could get in Burkina were Coke and Orange Fanta. Over the past few years, the local bottling company franchise added Fanta Citron (lemon), Fanta Cocktail (citrus+mango) and, finally last year, the piece de resistance: Fanta Fiesta (strawberry!!). As I think Orange Fanta is a tool of Satan ("Welcome to Hell!" says Old Nick "Have a drink of this Orange Fanta, then we'll get you right to work raking live coals with your bare hands"), I was much heartened. But it was not to last. They quit making Fiesta a couple of months ago, and the Cocktail and Citron are nearly impossible to find. But after visiting several distributors yesterday, I happened upon a cache of Cocktail. Victory was mine!!!
As turkeys are rare birds (ha!) around here, I had to order ours a while back. In the interests of our holiday protein intake, I went by the butcher’s yesterday to verify that the promised birds would show up as scheduled this morning. I had to order two, as I was told they’d only weigh between 6 and 9 pounds each – a far cry from the 25 lb Godzilla-turkeys that roam the freezer sections of American supermarkets. Later, I was tempted by some inexpensive harvesty-colored fabric at the marketplace, so I suddenly decided to have new tablecloths sewn up for the event. As if I needed more to do. That involved a trip to the tailor, then they had to be picked up later, washed and ironed.
I also had a doctor’s appointment, had to get my head examined (X-rayed, specifically) and then there were many (4!) drives to various pharmacies searching for all the needed meds. My allergy woes and stomach ailments are too numerous and boring to go into. Suffice it to say that the amoebas will be gone soon and my cranium, while having a nice symmetrical configuration, has less than lovely sinus cavities.
While I was in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, I was re-reading Eat, Pray, Love. (thanks Babzee!) I came to the line where The author writes that her sister has described her sartorial style as “Stevie Nicks goes to yoga class in her pyjamas”. I once again had a good laugh at this, but glancing down at my worn tapettes, old pagne, grimy fingernails and frizzy, demented hair, I thought “Geez- My style must be: Stevie Nicks’ poverty-stricken sister goes to yoga class in her pyjamas during the sack of Rome.”