Angolan Thanksgiving

My first turkey ever!

It’s hard to believe, but I celebrated my second Thanksgiving in Angola last weekend. Last year I spent a quiet evening with some American oil workers. This year Stella and I organized a huge Thanksgiving party. I started with the idea of having a dinner for CRS friends, but then the guest list exploded into about 25 people- not including around 8 children.

Pumpkin pies

I was a little concerned about having enough food for all those people, so we planned a huge menu: two turkeys, mashed potatoes (3 kg!), sweet potatoes, green beans, homemade rolls, stuffing, pumpkin pie and apple pie. We also asked people to bring a dish to round out the rest.

Truly international! In this photo we have Cubans, Angolans, Zambians, Armenians, South Africans and -of course- Americans.

That morning, I woke up around 7 and started cooking. I did not stop until 3:00, when the turkey was finally done. I had never made a turkey before so I was a little worried, but it actually turned out very well. I made two pumpkin pies from frozen pumpkin from ShopRite- they were delicious, if I do say so myself. Everything else turned out wonderfully also.

Turkey carving, Armenian style!

We didn’t have football, but we did have South Africa vs. Wales in rugby, as you can see below. Springboks won!

Around 9 pm I crashed. I managed to make it down the stairs and crawl into bed. It was a great day.

Even the kids were pooped at the end of the day!

Kids do the darndest things

These kids frequent the little playground in front of our apartment building. They also “guard” cars at one of the local supermarkets, and I pay then about US$0.75 to watch over my car when I’m there. I can’t figure out if they are street kids or if they actually have a place to sleep. Even if they don’t sleep on the streets, they certainly don’t have any adult supervision. They are very sweet kids, just without any support emotionally or financially. Sad and all too common.

Last Friday I was sitting on the playground benches with my neighbor Stella, watching her 20 month old son play with the boys. I tried to secretly take pictures of them, but as soon as they saw the camera they went crazy. They started doing these crazy hand signs, and I was a little afraid they were throwing gang signs. I asked them what the signs meant and I just got confused looks. One said, “It’s Os Nigas!” and they got all excited and started to scream “Os Nigas! Os Nigas!” I had no clue what they were talking about so I asked one what Os Nigas meant. He got really embarrassed because he clearly had no idea what Os Nigas was and the other ones started to laugh at him. An older boy, clearly a leader, said, “They are rappers!” And it suddenly dawned on me what Os Niga meant in Portuguese. (Add another “g” to the word and you’ll get it.)

I tried to convince them not to say that word, that it was very bad, but to no avail. Just another American cultural export, unfortunately.

This is how they look when they are not trying to be OGs.