Thanksgiving minus the turkey, the football, the pumpkin pie and well, pretty much everything else.

Complete with the Thanksgiving Day pinneapple

Thanksgiving came and went pretty quickly this year. Sonia was just getting back to village and Ryan was in a village meeting about 15km away until 6pm. But Sonia brought some goodies back from the big city and we had a quasi-normal Thanksgiving meal together (candle lit of course, which unfortunately losses some of the ambiance when you eat that way EVERY night). Instead of a turkey we cooked up a rooster a group of traditional medicine men had given Sonia to say "welcome back". And we made mashed sweet potatoes which was good. But we could have used some stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. It was more of a "cock-a-doodle-doo" than a "gobble gobble". Maybe next year.

After our meal, we broke out a bag of marshmallows we imported back from South Africa and introduced the ritual of roasting marshmallows over an open-fire to our little family here. The kids loved it. Sonia even taught them how they could spell their names with the red hot stick in the air.


Mmmmmm. Reese's peanut butter cups. Melted but still delicious!

Otherwise, we are both super busy for the time being. Sonia is working hard on a vaccination campaign, planning Aids Day activities and working with her community health management group. Ryan is planting lots of Moringa trees and hoping a BIG grant comes through in the near future to revolutionize the local onion farming. November was kind of a blur. And December is looking like it's going to be more of the same.


my friend the camel, near Ouahigouya

We're looking forward to a break in activities around Christmas ans spending some quality time (eating) with all our village friends. We can't believe our second Christmas in Africa is right around the corner. Crazy.

Thanks for all of the warm thoughts on Turkey Day. We look forward to connecting with everyone around Christmas as well. The phone lines are open. Give us a call (but just remember the time difference). Until next time. Us :)

Oh yeah, one last thing. While biking back from another village I ran across this pack of cows. Kind of felt like the running of the bulls for a moment.


Moo!