Winner, Winner, TURKEY dinner!

I am aware that the question on most people’s mind is… “What happened to that crazy turkey?” Well, I am here to report that I did have a meat meal yesterday! And yes, it was turkey! Now, I am sure you are wondering, “Who killed that turkey?” As you may guess, there is not a meat processing plant down town where you take your animals, leave for a few hours, and return with beautiful butterball turkeys with thermometers in them. Nope, you have to kill it, de-feather it, and gut it yourself. Once again, please keep in mind that I am not from a farm area. So, on Wednesday we set out to prepare Tom for dinner the next day. Luckily, Mr. Mike had removed a few “necks” before so he took the liberty of making the first chop. I joined in to remove the feathers and the “middle”! I must admit that the experience was… well… interesting. If I am ever present at a Thanksgiving celebration that does not know how to remove the feathers or prepare a turkey, I’ll be ready. Once the meat inspection was over and the turkey was deemed “good enough to eat”, I proceed to have a biology lab class for John. You guessed it, this included walking through the anatomy of the bird, hands on of course. I am so thankful to the Buddingtons who gave me the initial experience. And, Dr. Buddington if you are reading this you will be glad to know that I asked what shape the colon took in the bird and everyone (including the vet) looked at me like I had three heads.

As for other interesting news, last night was quite the…celebration? Around mid-night I was startled by the booming sounds of explosion. My heart immediately started pounding and preparing for the war cries. I was just taken by such surprise that I had no idea was the noise could be. It was shaking the house! I was at Mrs. Terry’s and turned to ask her what it was. We proceeded to go outside (why, because we’re just like white people in scary movies!) to check out the situation. In the near distance, we could see fire explosions and hear the boom. We watched for about 45 minutes as every speculated to what the cause could be. The original idea was that they were fireworks from the Asian community that might be having a celebration of some kind. This made since to the locals because that had happened before. However, I kept asking if fireworks look like FIRE! Eventually, we learned that a government building that has gas containers in it for the use of the government had exploded. Somehow the building caught on fire and all the cylinders begin to explode at random after that. Oh but wow, the commotion. I really felt like I should have been writing the star-spangled banner from the safe distance of shore as I watched the explosions, smoke, and horrible noise rise up.
Once the excitement settled down, we took the moment to look up at the stars. The night is so dark in Kenya and the stars are absolutely beautiful. They seem to extend from the highest sky to the point of connection between sky and ground. It’s Amazing! Some things never cease to amaze me, “as I consider all the worlds thy hands have mad