Turkey Update

You may recall that I've been having some trouble getting turkeys into the country. It is now about 6:00 in the morning on Thanksgiving and the turkeys are not here. By the time the flight gets in this afternoon, if the shipment is even on it (yesterday they somehow got left behind on their layover), they'll be too late for today's dinner. 

We'll be having a big roast chicken dinner today and there will be plenty of turkeys in the freezer for Christmas next month.

More than one person back in the States has said something along the lines of "It's Africa, why can't you roast an ostrich or some other big bird?" The answer is we don't have those in Burundi. We have chickens. All other birds have to be imported, and expensively. I did find some frozen turkey on the local market yesterday, imported from France. They cost nearly $100 for a six-pound bird. 

Even by Africa standards, we don't have a lot of variety in our consumer goods here. And we have so few flights coming in and out. Even once you find the product you want to bring in and make all the arrangements, if there's a problem with just one flight somewhere on the continent, the whole schedule could be thrown out of whack. 

All the questions I've been fielding from people back home have bumped me out of the little groove I've created for myself. We've grown accustomed to life here. I don't like thinking about all the things I'm missing.