A Swazi Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in Swaziland is never a dull holiday, but I have a feeling that in several years, I will forget the odd things that have happened over the years as I have celebrated this American holiday in a different country.  The count now is that 2 years I have celebrated with chicken and 2 years I have celebrated with turkey.  But this year, I cooked the turkey myself, and so am writing this for your entertainment but also because I don't want to forget the uniqueness of this Thanksgiving!  Though many parts of this are normal for life here, I know that it is so different from what a lot of you have experienced this holiday, so I thought I would share. 

How To Have Thanksgiving In Swaziland...

1.  At the beginning of November, start asking about pumpkins and turkeys.  You can't assume that either will be sold in a grocery store, so it's time to start asking around the community & keeping your eyes open for homesteads that have both.  I remember last year seeing a friend pushing pumpkins in a wheelbarrow, so she was the first person I asked where I could get one.  Unfortunately, people aren't growing them this time of year, but lucky for me, there were 2 pumpkins at the grocery store the next week!

2.  Once you find a homestead to buy a turkey from, negotiate the price and make a plan to go buy one.  I found out this year that you shouldn't tell people you are going to butcher a turkey, because then they will give you the sick or old one.  But you also shouldn't tell them you want to raise turkeys because then they will sell you one with small chicks. 

3.  The week of Thanksgiving, go buy the turkey.  We had made a plan to pick up the turkeys on a Monday, but when we called the homestead to tell them what time we would be there, they said no one would be home until Friday.  So...starting from scratch again, we called anyone we knew who had turkeys for sale.

Mxolisi making sure that he is understanding the
directions from our 10 year old guide down this
driveway/road/hiking trail.

4.  Find another turkey to buy.  On Tuesday afternoon, we found another homestead with turkeys for sale, so began the 35 minute drive to the homestead to get the (live) turkey.  We followed dirt roads, hidden driveways, and still couldn't find the homestead (though at one point we saw it from a distance), and so stopped to ask a 10 year old boy if he knew where the homestead was.  It just so happened that he lived there & was on his way home from the store, so we gave him a ride & he led us to the driveway (more of a hiking trail) to his home.  

5.  Pick up the turkey.  Once at the homestead, one of the young girls helped her older sister carry the turkey to us & tie it up, while another kid looked for another turkey to show us as well.  We explained again that we didn't want to buy a turkey with young chicks, so bought the one turkey, put it in the back of the car and left.

6.  Take the turkey home.  We drove the 35 minutes home with no incidents (and no turkey poop!), so much so that we forgot we had a turkey in the car and when it jumped as we turned, it scared both of us!

 
7.  Butcher the turkey.  Neither Mxolisi or I wanted to kill & clean the bird, so we asked Phindile if we could pay her to do it for us & she gladly agreed (knowing that her family would get the turkey feet, head, and all of the insides - which they fry up & enjoy!). 

8.  Pick up the turkey & put it in the fridge.  On Wednesday, we got the call that the turkey was finished, and so Mxolisi went (with a cookie sheet & trash bag) to pick up our Thanksgiving bird.  When he brought it home, we realized that it still had a lot of the neck on it, so we worked together to cut it down to a normal place.

9.  Give away the turkey neck.  I could muster up the strength to cook a turkey for the first time, but I wasn't about to attempt to boil the neck & do giblets, so we called our friend next door and offered him the turkey neck.  He was more than happy to take it & add it to the beans he was cooking for dinner that night!

10.  Stuff the turkey & put it in the oven.  On Thanksgiving morning, I got up at 5 with the hopes that the turkey would be stuffed & in the oven by 6am.  I had (wrongly) assumed that because the turkey fit on the cookie sheet that I use in the oven & had fit in the refrigerator, that it would fit in the oven.  But after I got it stuffed & the legs tied together & covered it in foil (no roasting bags here!), I tried to put it in the oven to find that it wouldn't fit at all.  I angled it & smashed it, but it just wouldn't work. *note to self, I should have made coffee first thing in the morning to make all of this more bearable*

11.  Try to make the turkey smaller.  So then I pulled it back out of the oven, uncovered it, retied the legs and tried again.  But it still didn't fit in the oven.

12.  Cut off parts of the turkey to make it smaller.  At this point, I was frustrated because Mxolisi was gone doing morning chores at his homestead, which meant that I would have to be the one to cut off the legs of the turkey!  I mustered up my courage & worked to get the legs cut off while wondering if the turkey would now fit in the oven & also how I would cook the legs.  

Phindile is the real hero of the day for
butchering & cleaning the turkey
but she also enjoyed the finished product!

13.  Call mom.  Thankfully it wasn't too late in Colorado, so I was able to call my mom & ask her advice.  I felt under pressure since there would be so many people at our Thanksgiving dinner & I was cooking one of the two turkeys to feed everyone!  I finally got the turkey wrapped in foil & once it was tilted at an angle so it wasn't too tall for the oven, I closed the door & started the timer.  The only option for the legs was to cook them in the crock pot, which actually worked well & had my house smelling great in no time!

Our Thanksgiving was a success & a memorable one - with 42 of us at one of the new families' houses down here.  And if I am asked to cook a turkey in the US, it can only get easier from here, right?