Christmas Turkey

December in any Christian community I think is hectic with more people traveling and markets bustling with holiday shoppers after a fruitful harvest. It’s especially chaotic when it coincides with the break for most school aged children, and a month of heavy tourism in Tanzania. For many Peace Corps volunteers who teach at secondary schools it is also a time for much needed breaks from our villages and a chance to recharge our relationships with fellow volunteers. The plan as of September was to have Christmas at my house in Mzumbe. I had arranged a teacher friend of mine who raised turkeys to raise a turkey for our Christmas dinner, with instructions to feed it well and make it fat. White elephant gifts were arranged and a bottle of Canada’s finest whiskey held in reserve for the occasion.
Matt from my training group arrived first he had just come from Dar es Salaam he had dropped his mother and his uncle off at the airport; they had come to visit Matt and do a Safari. So days before the other guest would arrive Matt and I where on task mode; we had a turkey to kill and cook, food and drinks to arrange, and a tubing trip to plan (keep reading). We had a great time reminiscing with people from training, running around the bureaucratic halls of the Tanzanian Forestry Department in search of permits…only to be swindled, hiking the mountains, testing local beverages, and biking the never ending dirt roads of Africa. We had a good time…
When Christmas day came and the arrival of the other party guest Matt and I had completed our entire task list except for one: Turkey. As far as cooking the turkey went deep-frying was the choice most liked by the group, and it sounded like an adventure to me. There is something about the possibility of failure in an adventure that I love, to prove the naysayer wrong. Deep frying a 10 kg turkey (that we had spent $50 for because Turkeys are rear here in Africa), 15 liters of hot flammable oil, a open charcoal flame, all to be done by Americans who had never fried a turkey before; ya this has failure written all over it I am so in! The only rule of the day was no beer until the turkey is out of the oil, I have seen one too many flaming Texans on U-tube to know better; “Hey ya’ll hold my beer and watch this?”
The turkey was paid for and would be picked up Christmas morning…of course mom it was after we went to the sunrise church service. So at nine in the morning we had a large live turkey at our Christmas feast so step one: live turkey + sacrifice = delicious food. People where most curious about the sacrifice in this equation. Only three willing to take part in the sacrifice the others had their own task, film and photo crew. I being the good host that I am and I couldn’t ask any of my dinner guests to kill the turkey so the blade was in my hands. I made quick work of it and was complimented on my surgical like knife skills while preparing and butchering the turkey for the fryer, thanks dad for all the red-blooded American service learning field experience. My neighbor Edward was tickled pink to have turkey gizzards, legs, and intestines for Christmas dinner as was I to get rid of them. I borrowed a industrial size charcoal stove made out of a old car wheel and a large pot from my secondary school, the missionary couple was graceful enough to deliver us 20 liters of vegetable oil, and Matt and I rigged up a pulley system to lift and lower the turkey into the oil and a wire basket to cook the wings and thighs. The turkey had to be cooked in two portions torso/wings and thighs in the basket; because Wikipidia said that any turkey over 10 pounds is best fried in two parts. After four hours of fanning flames, balancing pots of hot oil on rocks, checking the turkey with the pulley system and meat thermometer, and making sure no one died. The turkey was deliciously cooked and served around five o’clock and I got to enjoy the first well deserved beer of the day and the most satisfying turkey I had ever eaten before. And for all the fixings I have to thank my great partners in crime in the great Christmas feast that cooked it all from stuffing down to the cheese cake! Everything was delicious and best of all we had a community of good friends and relationships that were made from unlikely cultures and personalities.

Recovering from our gluttonous holiday weekend it was time to get to business. I real adventure, not none of this prissy cooking stuff. It was time to go tubing.