Tropical Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

It doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving - it’s much too warm and the leaves aren’t changing, but it is.  Like many embassies around the world, the Ambassador to Liberia invited embassy personnel over to her place for dinner.  Granted, her place isn’t exactly a “house”, but it’s close enough,and better than the dining facility in Iraq.

Now the view from the Ambassador’s residence isn’t too bad.

But please don’t tell her that I think the view from the USAID Mission Director’s residence is just a bit better!  Still, it was a great view!

The Ambassador had the dinner on her back porch which is, well, large.

As you can see, once the food was set out, the line got rather long rather quickly.  Yes, it snakes from left to right, to down the stairs to the left again and out of the picture.  A few friends and I waited till the line died down a bit.

It was a long-table buffet with some Peace Corps volunteers acting as servers.

And while it wasn’t close family, there were enough friends, and people, so that nobody had to be alone this holiday.

One of the topics of conversation was how Liberia is no longer a true hardship post, which means that children can be brought here as part of an accompanied tour.  Someone mentioned that within the next month, we’ll have 6 infants as part of our community.

This place is starting to get to be normal!

I mentioned the Peace Corps volunteers.  Since I’ve been here that number has risen from 18 to 32 to 53.

Most of them teach in high schools.  The President of Liberia has asked the Peace Corps whether they can bring one teacher per each high school in the country.  That would double the number of volunteers here in the country.  Note that not all of them are fresh-out-of-college age!

As I was talking with a colleague from Nepal, I noticed a flower bud on the ground and had to interrupt the conversation to take a shot.

I then realized that if there was a flower on the ground, it had to come from somewhere, so I looked up into the tree and had to take another shot.

Face it, Thanksgiving in the tropics means something will be in bloom!

Overall, it was a very good day.  Good friends, good food, and a good view.  Not bad for Thanksgiving if you’re not at home!