So it turns out that I am about as crafty in Cape Verde as I am in the United States. Not so much. In November I decided to be a joiner and attend a week-long workshop at the Brazilian Cultural Center to make holiday decorations. Being that we are going to stay put for the holiday season, I thought it would be a good idea to brighten our house with some festive decor.
After the first night was spent listening to the instructor, in Portuguese, lecture us on the appropriate colors of the holidays season [don’t you dare use purple to decorate your Christmas Tree!] I was not sure I was even going to return the second night. Turns out, I have nothing else to do. So I showed up on Tuesday with my homework complete. I was to cut out fabric Christmas Trees. Upon arrival at class I found out we were going to have to sew these things together, turn them inside out, stuff them and make little pillow ornaments out of them (see lead photo). I thought, “How hard could that be?” Wow. Sewing. Way hard. To add insult to injury I attended this class with two women, Joy who is an exceptional sewer and Susan who certainly understated her experience sewing, both from different generations than me, if you know where I am going with this. Not to replay the whole conversation, but at one point it was said, “Your mother doesn't sew, how does she get through life?”
On night three, I have decided I am just done sewing. I really don't care if everyone in the class has made four different ornaments and I have yet to finish my one. I am done. I eye the glue gun when I get there and am ready to rock it out with that. The whole night everyone is telling me how beautiful my candy dish looks the way I decorated it with these red and green rocks, so I think I am doing a fantastic job. Until I get home and show said candy dish to my lovely husband. That is when I realize this candy dish is actually kind of ugly (though now I secretly love it). What's worse is that I had three burnt fingers to show for it.
The fourth night Susan had the brilliant idea to bring wine to class. Not only did this loosen all of us up (and that is when my creative juices really took off), but it also offered us a new prop to decorate. Wine bottles!
In the end, the workshop was a lot of fun and I made several neat little decorations from it. Each year I will take these decorations out at holiday times and think of purple not being the right color, sewing is not for me, burnt glue gun fingers, and that wine makes everything just a little more fun.
Happy Holidays!
Monday, January 3, 2011
Visitors for Thanksgiving
The day before Thanksgiving, Jen Keyte and I spent the first day of her vacation in Cabo Verde making chocolate mousse, pumpkin pie, and setting the dinner the table…in bikinis. Between cooking various dishes, time was spent sunbathing or taking a quick dip in the pool. From the outside nothing seemed typical about this year’s Thanksgiving, but when the day arrived it felt like all traditions were in place.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade played on TV, and while the spectators looked cold, the sun was shining and sky was blue outside our door. The whole house was filled with the typical smells of Thanksgiving. However, the oven was full of three small stuffed chickens when we found out the only way to get a turkey was head into the “fora" and find someone to kill one for us. Football entertained the crowd after dinner was over, but I was unable to indulge in my typical tryptophan nap because my parents were not here to do all the work so I was in charge!
We certainly missed our family, but we gathered our Cape Verdean family of friends together for the big day including our visitors, Brian (who came from Liberia/Geneva where he splits his time) and Jen (who came from New Orleans, by way of many other US cities as she came on vacation off a series of work travel).
It was the first Thanksgiving that Mike and I hosted as a family ourselves and I settled (exhausted) into bed that night with the biggest smile on my face.
After recovering from the holiday, we had a great time showing Jen and Brian around our island of Santiago. We drove to Assomada, the second largest city, and took a long walk to see a huge baobab tree in the middle of a dense green valley. Though we were not sure what to expect, I think we were all quite shocked buy the enormity and beauty of this tree, rumored to be one of the oldest ones in the world.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade played on TV, and while the spectators looked cold, the sun was shining and sky was blue outside our door. The whole house was filled with the typical smells of Thanksgiving. However, the oven was full of three small stuffed chickens when we found out the only way to get a turkey was head into the “fora" and find someone to kill one for us. Football entertained the crowd after dinner was over, but I was unable to indulge in my typical tryptophan nap because my parents were not here to do all the work so I was in charge!
We certainly missed our family, but we gathered our Cape Verdean family of friends together for the big day including our visitors, Brian (who came from Liberia/Geneva where he splits his time) and Jen (who came from New Orleans, by way of many other US cities as she came on vacation off a series of work travel).
It was the first Thanksgiving that Mike and I hosted as a family ourselves and I settled (exhausted) into bed that night with the biggest smile on my face.
After recovering from the holiday, we had a great time showing Jen and Brian around our island of Santiago. We drove to Assomada, the second largest city, and took a long walk to see a huge baobab tree in the middle of a dense green valley. Though we were not sure what to expect, I think we were all quite shocked buy the enormity and beauty of this tree, rumored to be one of the oldest ones in the world.
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