thanksgiving

i woke up in the sahel desert on thanksgiving morning. well, more like i woke up in the sahel desert around 3 o clock thanksgiving morning because our campfire had gone out and i was so cold i couldnt feel my feet or fingers. my memory of the next three hours vaguely resembles the drowning scene in titanic as ceri and i desperately clung on to each other in order to escape the cold as we rolled in and out of conciousness, rubbing our feet, praying to allah that things would get warmer. how romantic.
(post desert-spooning incident. eating the only meal of thanksgiving day)

around six o clock we mounted our camels for the 2 or 3 hour ride to gorom gorom and the somewhat legendary thursday market. walking with us were various nomadic people from around the desert making their way to gorom as well.

the bus from gorom was to leave at 12, so Ceri and I moseyed our way over to save our spot at 11:30. we had only eaten some leftover baguette for breakfast but weren't feeling especially peckish, so decided to wait to eat until Dori, about 2 hours away. That was a big mistake.

our bus pulled out at about 2:00. late, but not especially horrendous for african standards. 45 minutes later, in the middle of desert nowhere we stopped. ceri and i thought it was a piss break, but after half an hour, we became suspicious. every else seemed to have vacated the bus. directions had been shouted in french, though i hadn't payed enough attention to understand any of it. i decided to go for a walk to a tree i saw in the distance until the bus left. 20 minutes later i watched as the empty bus did just that... back towards gorom gorom. as i jogged back to the road, ceri was running towards the fleeing bus pleading for her bag (in english). hopeful, i started running behind her screaming "SAC! NOTRE SACS!!!" one of the workers looked confussed and then held up a water botttle as the bus speed off.

the passengers were all walking in one direction, so I asked a swiss guy named Steffen what the hell was going on. He said that we were heading to the next village to wait for the bus to be fixed. we arrived at the village (consisting of about 10 mud huts) at around 3. we were famished and tried to buy a pack of glucose biscuts from this guy selling assorted crackers. We only had a 10,000 CFA bill and he refused to take it. seriously, why do they print those things if you can't buy anything with them. (okay, i admit it's probably more than he makes in a month and really i should have stepped back to look at the big picture and not be bothered but i was fucking hungry)

by sundown we had made friends with a belguim guy who gave us a packet of peanuts and some angel of a man who gave us change for our 10,000 bill and we had our glucose biscuts (they taste as nasty as they sound and we could only eat two each before feeling naucious).

by 8pm ceri had passed out on a mat provided by some villager who apeared to be the cheif. by 9, dressed only in track pants and a linen short-sleve button down, i was freezing. steffen went to search for a blanket and found a millet storage room. we slept in that millet storage room, which for some reason felt tropically warm. cozy as three starving and dirty clams we squeezed ourselves into a five by eight foot clearing on the floor on which Steffen had spread our mat. happy thanksgiving.

bitching aside, i had a memorable thanksgiving. it meant something for the first time ever. for the first time in my life, i wasn't at home eating Nana's sweet potatos and Aunty Leally's lillikoi chiffon pie. i was in the middle of the desert with little grasp of the language, no way to call home, no way to leave the scene, nothing to eat and nothing warm to wear in the cold. for the first time since i reached africa, i missed home. i felt like a dumbass thinking back to last thanksgiving, when i woke up hung over as fuck at around 11 am and then ditched my family to go get high and swim at the admiral thomas with jun, matt and sam only to return home for dinner irritated and stoned.

i put my family through hell sometimes. i refuse to go to college, openly drink myself stupid, run away to alaska only to have them bail me out. i never studied very hard or cared very much about doing well in a school they shelled out some 60 grand for me to go to. i buy too many clothes, use too much gas, eat out too much and don't do enough chores, but that doesn't matter. when i called home when i reached Ouagadougou at 10:30 the next morning, my mom was so happy she sounded close to tears. i missed them so much i cried (something i never thought i would do. i blame the hunger). my family loves me more than anything and for that i am thankful.