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Published: October 11th 2005
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Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
I hope that you all were able to celebrate a wonderful thanksgiving this past weekend with many loved friends and family. Now, when all of you were sitting down about to stuff your faces with as much Turkey / Tofu-rkey that would fit in your bellies, you probably asked yourself, “mmm, I wonder what people in Zambia do for thanksgiving?” Well, the obvious answer is that they do what they are used to doing every other day because they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Zambia silly. However, if you were to be a little more insightful and instead ask yourself the question “mmmm, I wonder what three Canadians who are working for Engineers Without Borders in Zambia do for thanksgiving?” then all you would have to do is read the story below to find out.
It was written by my fellow EWB’r, fellow Calgarian, fellow carnivore and good friend here in Zambia, Mike Quinn. I had written my own account but his was much better so I opted to forward it on to all of you instead. Enjoy!
=^)
p.s. The following story has a VG 13 rating and may not be suitable for vegetarian/vegan
mmmm, Thanksgiving turkey
I'd never killed anything larger then a mosquito before...check that...larger then a snake before.... but tradition just had to be upheld this Thanksgiving readers. Viewer discretion is advised.
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Happy Thanksgiving everyone,
I’m sure all of you were thinking of me and pitying me as you devoured
turkey this past weekend (and if you weren’t you should have been!). But
with a little creativity and some great friends, I had a pretty memorable
Thanksgiving myself that I wanted to share with everyone.
It all started on Saturday morning. I hopped on a bus from Lusaka and
disembarked in Choma, a small town two hours from Livingstone. My EWB
colleague and fellow Calgarian “Development Dave Damberger” or “Triple D”
resides in Choma and had a brilliant idea to go on a Great Zambian Turkey
Hunt. Surely, we thought, there must be a turkey somewhere in this
country!
So we hopped on his motorbike and raced off into the bush, swerving around
giant potholes (except for one really big one that Dave for some reason
decided to take head on), and stopping at random villages asking for
turkey. It took us a couple tries to even get the message across about
what a turkey was, but we were able to learn the local Tongan word for it:
mukalakuni. Once we
Poor Jenn
She had to lock herself in my house for most the day she was so upset had that, we were set.
At the fourth village, we found a man who Dave had assisted in the past
who knew another man who kept turkeys. The excitement started to brew.
Maybe this wasn’t such a crazy idea after all! Surely enough, when we
found this man, he sent his two boys racing off into the fields while we
sat and waited in the shade under an old lazy tree. Ten minutes later,
shrieks of “gobble gobble gobble” rang across the scorching air and a pack
of 20 turkeys was racing towards us. Only that one turkey was a little
slow and couldn’t quite keep up to his buddies. Like a pride of lions who
artificially select the weakest and the slowest, we cornered and caught
this one and promptly named it “Lutaka”.
Lutaka (Tongan for “bad luck”) was strapped to the back of the bike and we
raced back to town, dreaming of the feast that awaited us. However,
Lutaka, eager to get the sacrifice that awaited him over with, nearly bit
the dust prematurely. A short bout of CPR later (from Dave of course)
revived him and he was gobbling away again. When we arrived
Twakuta maningi (we're very satisfied)
Although Zambians rarely tend to eat outside their general cultural foods, I believe we might have had a breakthrough! at Dave’s
place, we set him free in the yard. He was in shock, out of his element,
and probably aware of the fate that awaited him. But we were sure to give
him his last moments of freedom before capturing him and locking him in a
room in Dave’s office for the night. I had a good sleep that night,
dreaming of eating turkey.
The next morning posed us with a bit of a dilemma. Neither of us had ever
killed anything before. And Jenn, another EWB volunteer from down the road
who joined us, was a vegetarian for animal cruelty reasons. In fact, we
had to lock her in the house to prevent her from running out and diving in
front of the blade! Dave gathered up Lutaka and read him his last rights
while I prepared the video camera. He had a look of noble sacrifice in his
eye, glad to give his life to two homesick Mzungus on this great
Thanksgiving morning. The camera was rolling, the knife came out, and
together, Dave and I cut off Lutaka’s head.
We were both relieved to have our first kill under our belts. After a year
and a half living in Africa, I was actually quite embarrassed not to have
killed my dinner yet! But the battle wasn’t over. Neither of us had ever
cooked a turkey before (let alone pluck and gut it!) and we didn’t even
have an oven. Some foresight by Dave solved part of the problem, for
instead of working he spent Friday busily searching the internet for
instructions of how to prepare a wild turkey.
To get around the lack of oven dilemma, we improvised. Lutaka (now
resembling a turkey you would find at Safeway) was placed in a metal pan
while we prepared a charcoal stove. We took another pan and flattened it
to form a lid (well, semi flattened it after jumping on it repeatedly). We
then loaded heated charcoal on this lid to create an oven that would cook
Lutaka from the top and the bottom. This was by far the best example of
appropriate technology in Zambia I have seen yet.
Three hours later, we had one cooked turkey! Jenn somehow recovered from
her sorrow over Lutaka’s great sacrifice and went on vegetable duty,
preparing squash, pumpkin, mashed potatos, rice, and cabbage. I carved
Lutaka using a Swiss army knife and we ate with our fingers on the back of
lids (Dave is a true Zambian Bachelor and doesn’t have plates or
utensils). Three of Dave’s workmates who had never eaten turkey before
joined us and were delighted (although they were secretly wondering where
the nshima was). It wasn’t Thanksgiving back home, but for Zambia, it was
pretty damn OK.
I hope all of your Thanksgivings were prosperous and that you enjoyed your
time with your families. Personally, I am thankful for having such a great
support network of friends and family back home and the opportunity to
follow my passion. I am also thankful for creative and sometimes crazy
friends here in Zambia who make life in Zambia that much more flavourful.
But most of all I am thankful for Lutaka, who provided the ultimate
sacrifice and gave his life so that two homesick Calgarians could eat
turkey.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Mike
p.s. I hope you enjoy the attached picture sequence! Unfortunately, I
didn’t get a picture of the oven but I have a video that’s 5 MB if anyone
really wants to see it.
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Wow
I'm amazed. You seem to have a very nice job! Your blogs interested me because my dad was born in Zambia, but I have never actually been there myself. But anyway, keep doing what you do, and God Bless! Mwansa M.