Giving Thanks, Backdated Blog #2

It’s thanksgiving. People are always giving me thanks here. Going out of their way to tell you what a big heart they think you have. What astonishing feats of altruism warrant this outpouring? Lending $10 when a mother living in a distant village is sick and the money to finance a visit home is short; contributing to the cost of automatic basic human rights like an education or a decent house; letting neighbors and friends take water from my full tank during the last dry difficult weeks before the rainy season starts. All this presumed generosity on my part never really threatening my access to excess. My relationship to most of the people I know here is at least partly tinged by my role as boss or benefactor. Sometimes I feel like I represent nothing so much as a big bobbing life preserver in a sea of need.

We had an amazingly abundant Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. Nearly all expats, we gathered to celebrate the lives we were born into. Turkey, stuffing, homemade fresh mango chutney in place of the cranberry sauce, gravy, green beans, mashed potatoes. Even pumpkin pie and peach cobbler. As I drove home, sated beyond reason, I passed the lines of Mozambicans filing out of their small adobe, thatch-covered churches; walking home to their small adobe, dirt-floored homes.

It finally rained today. We can only hope it marks the beginning of the now two-month late rainly season. I would be most thankful for that.