Thanksgiving

    Well I guess I’m making up for lost time by writing three posts in three days (maybe I’ll do a marathon and also write one for Black Friday tomorrow!) Thinking of everyone back home today and dreaming of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and family gatherings around ginormous meals full of fried turkey, green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie, oh and don’t forget Granny’s Jell-o mold! My stomach is expanding at the thought of it…

   Well, us Americans in Kasane wouldn’t let such an important holiday slip by! Last weekend the Honeys hosted our own version of Thanksgiving, including a special-ordered turkey (crock-pot cooked – yum!), cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade rolls, sweet potatoes, veggies, deviled eggs, and pecan and pumpkin pie for dessert. It was excellent! We were quite thankful to be able to have such a huge and similar meal to what we would find at home. Other than the Kasane-style heat (probably at least 90 degrees in the kitchen) and Kazungula power outage (candlelight anyone?) you could almost forget that we were halfway around the world from where we would usually be celebrating this holiday!

    After the delicious meal that ‘tryptophan’ turkey hit me and I zonked out completely! While others watched a recorded football game (not really one of our family’s thanksgiving traditions) I had a lovely nap on the couch. Although it was a bit different from the way my family will be celebrating this year, it was still such a wonderful way to thank God for the amazing experiences and people I have encountered so far this year! Happy Thanksgiving all!

The Thanksgiving spread! Keith carving the turkey by candlelight... luckily the power came back on just before we sat down to eat. 

Dreaming of Autumn

Last night, in honor of fall weather back home, I broke out my frozen pumpkin and whipped up some pumpkin soup! Although not the best I’ve ever tasted, it’s not too bad – and very easy! You really don’t need much more in there because the pumpkin is so tasty, but I added onions and carrots to mine, then some nutmeg and a bit of salt and pepper. Yummm! Gotta admit, not quite the same when its 90 degrees out, but I used my imagination. Mom sent me some fall leaves – looks like it was a beautiful autumn! Only the past few days have I really been thinking of fall weather and missing it a bit. Three summers in a row may very well be too much heat for me….

My nice big pot of soup - I'll be eating this for weeks!

Africa Time

Shame on me!! I have been slacking big time at blog posts and there is no excuse! (Other than a lack of things to write about and perhaps the lack of motivation to write at all). But, in light of my recent reception of my Botswana Residence Permit, I figured I would talk about ‘Africa Time’ a little bit (also to justify the delayedness of this post…). I know I have mentioned that things are just slower, more relaxed here, but the other day I was trying to pinpoint the difference and realized something interesting. In the States, you can plan things by the hour, and here you plan things by the day.  For example, on Africa time, one might think, okay today I will get this done, then I will do that tomorrow. Whereas in the states, you would say, today I will do this, this, this, and that in the morning…..

    And as hard as you try, you can’t try to make an American schedule/mindset fit into the ‘African time’ zone. It’s kind of hard to explain how or why, but it just does NOT work. It becomes extremely frustrating at times, but it is something you just have to accept and get used to (obviously hasn’t been that easy for me!) Although I still find it annoying, it is definitely something I have started to get used to. I'm a little worried about going back to the states and having to get back into frenzy mode! 

    On a happy note, I received my residence permit! It is amazing how long it takes to get a sticker in your passport…. After several visits to immigration to make sure I had everything that I needed (picture, copy of passport, letter from employer, letter from father, etc.) I finally turned the application in. They say they will message you when it is ready, but I decided to go check back after about a month. Still no news. After checking back in about every two weeks, it got down to the wire of when my temporary permit would expire. Finally they told me that it had been approved! But…. The machine to make the permit stickers was broken. They were sending the machine to Gabs to get fixed, so she extended my temporary permit a couple months. I went back in the beginning of November and the machine was back! But I went too late in the afternoon and the lady obviously just didn’t feel like helping me. SO, at long last, I went back the following week and they printed my sticker for me and stuck it in my passport. WOOHOO! Basically, it says I am allowed to volunteer in Botswana until July 2017.