Confessions

In our collective postprandial slump following the Thanksgiving holiday, I will take a moment to reflect on my meal.  My meal was rife with misdemeanors and perhaps some fellonies.  The New York Times today reports on the growing international cranberry market.  Was I part of this carbon fest?  Yes I was.

Very somber over our unsustainable indiscretions.

Thanksgiving here in Kisumu was celebrated pot-luck style with U.S. government staff from Walter Reed and the CDC, other less official Americans like my wife and I and a whole host of other internationals in the Walter Reed guesthouse.

And so, in a fit of emotional nostalgia, I did spoon some of the cylindrical cut-outs of canned cranberry “sauce” onto my turkey and gravy.  Did I feel guilty looking at the ribbed impressions of the can still evident on the jello-mold serving of “fruit?” A little bit.  Like I said, emotional nostalgia.  Another of my indiscretions was pecan pie (no pecans in Kenya).

Because I was worried about my karma, I hopefully offset these transgressions by:

1. Also eating some passion fruit pie–very local! Yes, I ate three deserts…don’t judge me, it’s Thanksgiving.
2. Taking spicy cornbread made of local chilis and ground maize as my contribution.
3. Using the fact that I ate cranberry “sauce” and pecan pie to help make my parents feel better about the fact that I had Thanksgiving 7867.23 miles away from home.

The above are really all excuses for laziness.  I could have boycotted the U.S. Thanksgiving and made our own local extravaganza.  But I didn’t.  And so I move on with a slightly hypocritical taste in my mouth.  Or maybe that’s the taste of the metal from the cranberry “sauce” can.