Thanksgiving in Ghana

Holidays away from home suck, no way around it, but at least we had the other volunteers, or so we thought. PC decided to have 24 of them leave at 6 am on Thanksgiving to go to Accra to open their bank accounts. My bank, Barclay’s, didn’t need me to be there in person so I stayed behind with the few remaining PCT’s. We had planned on having Thanksgiving meal at like 1. They didn’t get back until 6 pm. So many people had gone that left getting the turkey to the pride of Jenison Adam Falk (visiting from Cape Coast!), Maria, and me. When I say getting the turkey I mean going to a turkey farmer, picking out a bird, killing it, feathering it, cutting it up, and baking it.
Maria actually ended up being the one to cut its throat but Adam and I did our share of the dirty work. It was honestly pretty cool to go through the entire process of preparing a turkey and then eating it in the same day. Despite having only like 17 people preparing food we still managed to piece together a delicious meal of turkey, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with Halloween peeps on top, apple pies, plantain chips and salsa. After dinner, Adam showed Ghana dance moves they’ve never seen before.
It was great to have someone from home here but just plain weird. He’s been here 4 months and we’ve been here 2 but he’s leaving in a few weeks, we’re leaving in a few years. He’s sad that he’s leaving so soon and we try not to think about how far away that day is. It made for some great conversations. I’m jealous that he’ll be home for Christmas....and the next one. Maria and I were dead silent when he played I’ll be Home for Christmas on his harmonica in my room. He’s jealous of how immersed we get into the culture. We really didn’t do too much, just talked a lot, but I’m extremely happy he stayed with us.
Things are much easier at training when I have the other PCT’s and get mail once a week. You never know how much mail means until you get it I guess. I mean emails and such are great but I’d even put mail over phone calls. The Sports Illustrated that Aunt Ann sent me has a long waiting list for it (I didn’t tell them about the M&Ms) and thanks to Aunt Sue many PCT’s now know that Lumen Christi killed Onsted. They’ll win it all next year. Some of them also got to see how ridiculous I looked in middle school thanks to Annie’s picture of Mrs. Loveland’s 8th grade homeroom class. Pa, Grandma, and Sister sent me a letter that almost had me in tears, in a good way.
There’s a sense of nervousness with the PCT’s. We all know in 2 weeks it’s time to be on our own and do what we came here to do. We have our huge language final on Friday and then from there training’s basically done, the final soccer match is Saturday, I’m starting my taper.

One of my counterpart’s name is Mr. Agba and I pronounce it like Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars and always say, “IT’S A TRAP!” to him, I don’t think he gets it.