Thanksgiving Arua, Uganda 2011

Our first holiday in Africa given by Peace Corp. We spent it doing laundry, marketing, and peeling potatoes and getting squash ready for the feast. It was pot luck at Radio Pacis which is a Catholic organization that does Catholic broadcasting. Different from DIGUNA, (Lutheran) but still really great equipment and there is a huge solar net for the power. The woman in charge, Sherry has been here 20 years and has helped establish the campus (Christus Center) for workshops and retreats and visiting people that want to have a conference there. Rooms complete with shower, hot water, and mosquito nets. Kinda high end hostel and beautiful gardens that all the rooms look out on and the porch’s have comfy chairs. The radio station is run by the Camboni order of priests and brothers from Italy so they are very generous to the radio station and Sherry, as I have said before, has all the American amenities. She hosted and her house is huge. There were 34 of us with a family of 5 dropping out at the end due to illness. Enclosed is a picture of the spread. One of the women here Pam is from Tennessee and she made sweet potato pie with caramel and pecans on top. We had dishes with cheese which is a difficult commodity to come by, water chestnuts in the broccoli casserole and the 1 Italian Father brought wine made from the grapes they grow at the retreat, radio, cathedral, center. We borrowed the stove and oven from the German girls home that come to work at the station so we didn't have to lug food up the hill on our ½ hr walk to the station. (Wouldn't want you to think I didn't have to suffer a little...) So, the feast was wonderful! The people were all new and there for different reasons so conversation was good. We weren't allowed to do dishes and that for me was always part of the Thanksgiving whether at moms growing up or at St. Mary's feeding the 700. Guess some traditions are meant to be changed at least for a year. Pam and Stan have been here since early 2000's with Bible translators Wycliffe (sp) they worked in the Sudan corner of Uganda before coming to the Lugbara area. They have 3 kids who are great, the 3 women peace corp volunteers and Tom were there. Another Camboni priest that was from IL that use to drive up to Mankato and preach about missions, and has worked here with refugees and displaced people in the area. Sherry from Chicago and hostess to us, and a couple from Tenn that works with African Inland Mission and have been in country only 5 weeks. It was a wonderful afternoon and evening and I sent 3 pics of the chow line, us and friends. We stocked up on chow that night and asked God for dispensation for our gluttony... Sherry makes the Italian gelato for the top of the apple crisp so we missed the pumpkin pie but no one complained.

Thanksgiving feast

Dining room with guests

Happy Thanksgiving!