Ezra's African Adventures: Thanksgiving Chaos

One of the things I've missed about the US is holidays. A Halloween-less October was bad enough, but as November flew by I discovered that I missed Thanksgiving even more. Family, Food, And Football-- a hard to beat celebration, and having everyone back home talking about it didn't help.

Fortunately, we decided to bring Thanksgiving to the Southern Hemisphere this year, albeit a day late. Because there is no such holiday here, Friday morning meant work and school, so we pushed back our feast to that evening.

Everything started off smoothly enough. On Thursday I stayed up late to watch a gem of a football game which ESPN kindly broadcast here and after a few hours of cleaning and cooking the next morning, guests began to arrive around 6:00. We had decided to--in the spirit of the holiday--invite all the people who had helped us settle in Pretoria: Johann and Marie, who helped us find the house; Leon and Meleney, who are in charge of Viva; Pierre, who organized the HIV/AIDS class I took at the University; Elaine, who helped us get to know the culture here. They were all excited to experience their first Thanksgiving (since American TV is popular here, everyone grew up seeing shows and movies about Thanksgiving), and we were excited to share the wonderful tradition with them.

The local butcher had informed us that there were no turkeys in the entire province, so we made do with three delicious chickens as well as the usual Thanksgiving supplements. It was a flawless meal, highlighted by the premiere of a TV special on Viva, which we took time to watch before dessert. If there is one thing I'm thankful for now, it was having such a smooth night on Friday, because the rest of the weekend was anything but.

On Saturday night, Tim was preparing for bed when it started pouring rain. We've gotten leaky ceiling before, usually when I'm the only one up, but this was a new level of downpour. Inside one doorway connecting the main room to the extension, water was pouring in as fast as outside. The backyard was completely flooded and most of the light fixtures in the living room had water streaming through them. Following the protocol established on the night of our first flood back in August, we laid about a dozen towels across the floor and put pots, buckets, and bowls under each stream of water. However, it wasn't as easy as usual. We ran out of towels in what seemed like no time at all, so I had to sacrifice my shirt and some of the clothes from our drying rack. Not only was water pouring incessantly from the ceiling, the drywall was starting to sag in parts of the kitchen and living room, and by midnight the water had forced a nickel-sized hole in the kitchen ceiling. We warily retired for the night a couple of hours later, wondering what we would wake up to.

It wasn't as bad as it could have been. The drywall in the living room has started to form cracks, but there was no more water and we felt comfortable enough to go for a hike nearby. When we got back, things were considerably worse. The once-minuscule crack in the ceiling had become much more substantial, and we were greeted by a puddle instead of a living room. We soaked it up without too much of a problem, and continued with our lives--for another 40 minutes, at least. That was when the ceiling collapsed, leaving a 30 square foot hole in the living room roof. Upon further inspection, the only protection we had was an aluminum sheath, some insulation, and drywall. The gutters atop the house had been clogged, so water flowed under the aluminum and onto the drywall, where it sat until the weight became too great. We called in some people to fix it, and this morning we finally have a aesthetically appealing ceiling again. Nonetheless, it wasn't a Thanksgiving I plan on forgetting anytime soon.