December Holidays

12-30-2014

At the beginning of December, (and Hamatan), Natasha and Emmanuel hosted their transplanted  American Thanksgiving feast with their extended family, who love it and ask about it.  We celebrated on December 5^th with 40 guests.   Natasha wisely made food assignments.  We had ostrich and pork kebabs, pizza, pork and rice, salad, mashed potatoes, rolls, cream of mushroom soup, pie and ice cream.  Michael, Sam, Mariah and I made five pies:  banana cream, coconut cream, chocolate cream, pumpkin and lemon meringue.  

  

In preparation, Natasha took me shopping at an “obroni” (Twi for “white-man”—as opposed to
“bebini”, which means black man) market—a beautiful, American-style, overpriced market that is so busy with expatriate business that we could hardly find a parking space.  (Natasha commented that this is the store where we, in true Obroni style, see and ignore each other.  If Africans meet each other in America, they visit and invite each other over to their homes.  No so with the Obronis.  I wonder why.)  Cream was about twice the price as in Alaska; I just closed my eyes and paid.  (We also found and bought mousetraps—a huge coup, as we have been searching for traps for months in vain.  Here we also found Obroni hair conditioner and European cheeses.  You pay, but at least you can find it.)

Family  began arriving around 11:00 a.m.  Several of the women began assembling and grilling the kebabs; first pork, then ostrich.  Food was placed on long, vinyl covered tables in the school assembly hall.  We started feasting at noon; everyone on staff was invited, too, from the Ghanain cook to the college registrar.  As we ate. we asked everyone to share what they were thankful for.  Health, family, friends, spouses, the gospel.  Some English I could hardly understand.  Others spoke in native tongues, and had to be translated.  After the meal, while the adults digested and talked, the children, hosted by Mariah and another family teen corralled the 10 or so children and prepared a short Thanksgiving play.  Joyfully the children played dying Pilgrims and feasting Indians in turn.  We laughed as Grandpa protested, “Now you are alive again!”  Then it was time for pie and a huge tub of ice cream.  Everyone wanted a taste of every kind of pie—we got good at making very thin slices.  We lingered over the dessert, then cleaned up, chatted more, and families began to go.  A lovely holiday.

Making Ostrich kebabs for our Thanksgiving feast

On Christmas Eve, Natasha and I and Mariah and Sam spent much of the day at the chapel preparing for the evening Ward Christmas party.  (I found it interesting that the ward leadership felt that this was the perfect time for a ward party—no one really objected that it intruded upon their family time.)  The menu included Froggy Yam—originally a dish made with frogs--we substituted chicken, sobelo: a spicy drink made with boiled hibiscus leaves and lots of grated ginger, tiny hot peppers, sugar, cloves, and allspice, jalaf rice—very like (and probably the origin of) jambalaya and fried spicy pieces of plantain.  We cooked the food under the spreading branches of mango trees in front of our tiny chapel in huge cauldrons over coal pots—charcoal cookers about 2 feet tall that put out enough heat—if constantly fanned—to boil vats of juice or cook a cauldron of chicken.  It took us—about 10 RS sisters and several youth who helped with the many babies—almost the whole day to prepare the vegetables, fry up the yam, the plantain and the chicken, cook the rice and the sobelo.  It was a pleasant time to get to know the sisters and to prepare different kinds of food.  Light was off—no electrical power—but we managed to do everything without it.  I wish I had brought my camera.

Our ward chapel, under the spreading mango trees.  this is where we sat and cooked, and later, sat and ate.

In the evening was the ward party.  The men had set up chairs under the same mango trees and put up a TV/ video setup and some lights (electricity was back on again).  After a few brief words from our leaders (our high councilor taught  the round “Make New Friends”, and we sang it in four groups beautifully—though he had to tell them exactly how to sing a round first) we watched the old “Johnny Lingo” movie from BYU.  Meanwhile, sisters were busy inside, getting the food ready.  Suddenly lights went out!  Nearby, someone launched a few fireworks.  We oohed and aahed (though one toddler screamed in sheer terror), fumbled for lights and got ready to attach the generator when—hooray—light back on! (Natasha told me later she suspected the fireworks shooters had put out the neighborhood lights so they could see their display better.  Perhaps.)  Then, very like the Tongan farewell party in the movie The Other Side of Heaven, we all sat together and watched another movie: Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration.  Bottled sobolo was distributed, as was food, served in take-out style styrofoam clamshells.  It wasn’t light enough to see what we were eating, so every forkful was an adventure.  I was sleepy in the dim light and dozed.  Sam stretched out on the chairs and slept with his head in my lap.  Halfway through, at 8:30 p.m., the bishop paused the film, thanked us for coming, said we could stay and watch if we wanted, but it was late, and time to close.  Suddenly, pitch blackness:  light was off again.  Perfect timing.  Out came the big flashlights and we all cleaned up and stacked chairs, wished each other a Merry Christmas, and went home.

Our Christmas tree that Mariah painted--beautiful--with Dante and Iris and Sam

Once home, the children were jazzed—it was Christmas Eve, after all—so we gathered in our little family room around the Christmas tree mural that Mariah had painted, and pulled out the towels and robes and belts and sheets for a Christmas Story play.  Everyone had a part, with Iris trying on all the other costumes when it was over, just for fun.  Bedtime.

Iris and Dante in our Christmas Eve play

Sam begged to get up early:  “3:30, Mom, please?”  I wasn’t interested, but he persisted, and we agreed on 3:45.  However, in the morning, the power had gone out again, so both kids slept in a little.  They came in after 5 to waken us with a silly Geico commercial, and we came out to—snow!  During the night, Sam and Mariah had hung paper snowflakes from the family room ceiling.  It was beautiful.  Our lovely Christmas present from Sam.  So sweet.

We hustled together the gifts we had made for Natasha’s family and quietly put the box of them on their porch in the early dawn—but they were still there when we went over and hour later to start breakfast.  The children were still sleeping—busy late night the night before, so N set up her gifts with ours, and we got to see the children get up and see the little pile.  They were so excited!  They opened their gifts, then we waited for Opa to dress so we could watch them open the things from us.  So fun to see their happy smiles—I loved seeing Iris’ face when she saw the colorful scarves we had for her.  Dante spent the rest of the day kicking his soccer ball to Sam, and Raina enjoyed chasing her smaller ball.  At dinner, we cooked with Natasha’s new pan.  (Emmanuel’s gift will come with the interns this coming weekend—some lectures on tape.)

Sam played Santa.   Though he had no money and little more than paper and tape, he prepared nice gifts for everyone—an essay for Emmanuel, a Styrofoam bat for Dante, a special Styrofoam box for me, writing tips for Mariah, an origami jumping frog for Natasha and science quotes for Dad.  For Iris, he rescued, cleaned, and returned her lost doll from the roof.  For our little rooms, he created a magnificent “periodic chart” of family quotes (“whobody ate my cookie?” “Eggs, milk, wheat, Nutrition!” etc.)  So fun, so creative, so amazing.  I felt humbled by his persistence and desire to make Christmas wonderful for all of us.

We cooked up poloo for breakfast (a local delicacy—a kind of deep fried biscuit dough with lots of shredded coconut in it. Mmmmm.) and had a lovely day eating treats (banana cake, roasted peanuts and leftover poloo) and playing Frisbee, Quirkle, and bananagrams.  Power was out most of the day, so when it came on in the evening, we cheered and enjoyed the light during the evening by watching a rare movie with popcorn.  Even went to bed early!  Really a delightful day.

Sam after too much holiday cheer