I certainly ate my fair share of thanksgiving meal favorites! It all starts on Wednesday, when we: Kerin, Ashleigh, and myself, rode tap taps to Saint Joeseph's Home for Boys. We rode public, by ourselves, without getting lost, and without getting jipped, and of course getting hit on. I am so proud of us! We took to the streets like native Haitians. We weaved in and out of motos, motorcycles, and dipping under the people carrying baskets. We dodged the other tap taps. We wound up, on time, at the large, red, front gate. Almost like the gate to enter the Wizard's door in the emerald city, but instead of emerald, this gate was fire engine red. Anyway, we were welcomed with hugs and told that dinner will be ready in ten minutes. We were ushered into our room, that was totally prepared for us , sheets on beds, towels, and wash clothes, and the cherry on top, personal handsanitzers. Michael, the founder of Saint Joesph's , is such a doll. We settled down and went got into the buffet line for rice, beef tips, special Haitian sauce, tomatoes with garlic, and fruit. I went back 3 other times for the fruit, it was delightful. We had the opportunity to speak with some visitors who came from Illinios and one lady who ventures from Australia. After our conversation of the differences between Scottish, Irish, Australian, and British accents came to a conclusion, we made way upstairs where there is internet! We obviously changed our facebook statuses and then hit the hay, we had a big day ahead of us and it started at 5 a.m. for morning prayers. Petionville is a much lower town then Fermathe, where Wings of Hope is, and I felt the weight of heat on my shoulders the moment I lied down to get some shut eye. I tossed and turned and threw sheets off of me and shedded layers of clothing. To sum it up, I was hot and 5 a.m. was coming faster and faster. I was just getting more and more disgruntled knowing I am not getting a good night's rest. I finally closed my eyes for a bit and woke up in a hurry poking at Ashleigh, waking her up. I honestly do not know if I was sleep walking or if indeed the 4:45 a.m. bell woke me up but I can say we made it to morning prayers before most of the boys. After singing some Hymns, praising, and worshipping, I went straight back to the sheets. The problem is I was so excited and nervous about preparing this huge Thanksgiving feast that all I could do was go over the steps of how to make Mirlton over and over in my head. Dang OCD, kept making my think that the mashed potatoes didn't have enough milk and the green bean casserole won't ready in time. I succumbed to the excitement and brought all of the preparations into the kitchen. Michael greeted me with music to my ears, "cheese omelet or scrambled egg?" Yes, please! We ate a filling breakfast and then went to survey our working space. We needed to find our instruments and ffigure out timing. Michael informed me that Dody, the cook for Saint Joe's would be there to help but he doesn't speak much English. I was also told that he made turkey and stuffing already and is in charge of the Mirlton. Oh thank heavens, that was a load off of my mind. The time was 7:42 and we had to have food ready for 1 pm. We can do this, plenty of time. Well, we decided to make like Haitian and watch Dody as he prepared the mirlton, and green salad, and rice and beans. That Dody had a lot on his plate. So Ashleigh designated herself as the DJ and turned on some Celine Dion, "My Heart Will Go On.: A Thanksgiving classic, in my book. In mid chop, Dody started interpretive dancing and smoozing with all of us ladies. He spun us around and danced around each one of us. Did I mention, before any of this happened he rubbed one visitor's tensed neck and fixed it? Well, he did. One talented man this Dody is, and we named him Cook Daddy because he likes Puff Daddy. After his rendition of Celine, he went back to scooping out the insides of vegetables. We then decided it was abut time to start our prep work, pealing potatoes, Of course we were doing it incorrectly and Cook Daddy showed us what is up. He was pealing 3 potatoes to every 1 of Ashleigh's potato. Ashleigh threw in the knife and went back to coffee and music. Next step was tossing the 28 or so potatoes into the boiling kettle and wait. And wait. And wait. Potato masherless we used the next best thing, spatulas. After using our resources and spatulas, we threw together the green bean casserole as Kerin mixed up the corn bread. We dumped it all in the oven and waited again. Michael briskly walked into the occupied kitchen and put his sweet potato/apple dish onto of the mirlton or green bean casserole or corn bread. I don't know which one. We made do with the small oven and stacked dishes on top of one another. It was quite precarious. Amazingly all the sides were ready and it was ten minutes until one! As my Dad would say, we were "Time on Target." We put everything out and then realized how much food was out there: rice and beans, green bean casserole, turkey and rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes/ apple carreroll, mirlton, cornbread, green salad with every vegetable imaginable, apple pie, peach cake, pecan pie, and cheese cake. It felt like it never ended and I ate like it was closing in 3 minutes. I stuffed myself silly, literally. After overindulging, I partook in the second Thanksgiving tradition, napping. I could not get comfortable with such a full belly but because of that full belly, I also couldn't move. Typical Thanksgiving. Renee thought ahead of time and hired someone to pick us up from the house and how grateful we all were. Kerin was sprawled out in the front bench, I was in the middle and Ashleigh in the back. We did make a noise, besides some rumbling tummies. We got home and I immediately went straight to my bed. I had the gift of being able to talk to my family while they were at their Thanksgiving table and was passed around. It felt like I was on a ship and I was getting sea sick. Too much food, consumed too quickly. I forgot that my body has been used to processing only rice and beans or rice and corn meal for quite some time now. Because of my peculating tummy, I stayed up well past my bedtime but that gave me a great opportunity to finish my book. I woke up after the feast-ival and still had a rumbling tummy after 12 hours of digesting. I started of slow with bread.
This was definitely a Thanksgiving to remember and one for the record books. I hope your Holiday was even more fun!
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