Usually on Thanksgiving DeeDee and I are with one of our families. Every year we swap whose family we are with and I think this year we were supposed to be with my family. Needless to say, being in Guatemala makes it very difficult to be with our families every holiday, but Thanksgiving is one when you really desire to be with your family. Yesterday we were with family, just a much different family than we are used to.
One piece of advice we received before moving to the Valley was to take every opportunity you have to create the normal routines we have in the States. This usually takes form in DeeDee and I having a date night (or here an overnight trip to Coban), but for this week in celebration of Thanksgiving we decided to have a traditional Thanksgiving Day and meal here in the valley. In preparation for this day DeeDee and I made a big trip to Coban, hunting for all the goodies, including a turkey, not knowing yet how we were going to cook said turkey. We also decided to invite a few families to our table for Thanksgiving. We invited the families of Roberto and Julio, two men we work with every day and have grown very close to. We also invited Manuel and Roberto, the two men who have been working very hard on our homes. By early Wednesday morning we had made all the invitations and acquired all the needed ingredients for our feast of celebration.
As with any family in the States, one of our biggest tasks was to determine how we were to cook the turkey. Given that we do not have an oven in the Valley and that frying a turkey did not seem reasonable, we had to go looking for other methods. Getting hints from a 25-year missionary in Guatemala and some quick Google research, we landed on cooking the turkey in a pit fire. This was new to me, but the basic concept is dig a hole in the ground about 1 foot bigger than the turkey in each direction, line the hole about a foot and a half with rocks, build a huge fire in the hole and wait for about a foot of coals to be in the bottom. Digging the hole seemed to be pretty easy, and collecting the firewood for about 2 hours with the help of Roberto and some machete lessons was not too bad. With the help of a bit of kerosene we got the fire going, but then it decided to start raining. We rigged up a tarp to cover the fire and us a bit and after about 5 hours (yes- FIVE hours) of feeding the fire we finally had the coals we needed.
Earlier in the evening Cata and DeeDee seasoned the turkey with some butter, rosemary and honey and then wrapped it up in tinfoil. We finished it off by wrapping it with about 6 layers of banana leaves, some chicken wire and rebar tie-wire. At about 9:30pm Wednesday night we laid the bird to rest in the ground and covered it all back up with dirt in hopes that after about 12 hours it would be done and ready to eat.
About 11am on Thursday we un-earthed our turkey hoping to find it done and close to being ready to eat; lunch was at 2:00pm. Much to our relief, the turkey was done, so we wrapped it back up and placed in on the coal until time to cut. When that time came around, I was so happy to find a turkey that was done, extremely moist and flavorful.
Around 2pm all of our guest arrived, we explained the significance of our day together, including a historical presentation by the Colvett boys in Spanish and sat down to one of the best Thanksgiving Day meals I have ever had – including both food and company. It was a heavenly and spiritual experience to be sharing the table with Native Americans and speaking three different languages. I pray that God was glorified through our day together.
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