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.
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