Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve with dinner at our house and then drinks at the British Club. Pretty relaxed and good fun. Katie, Paul and I were joined by Hend, her friend (and our new one) Dikra, Hany and Magdi. Good times and relatively cheap drinks!

T-day

Ice Cream cake because there is no canned pumpkin pie filling in Africa.

What is in the pots?

Oh my! Carrots, gravy, lentils and mashed potatoes!

Turkey was really expensive so I opted to stuff five chickens and cook them up. Very delicious and sort of cramped.

The meal.

Our Thanksgiving took place on Saturday the 29th because we had school on Thursday and then forced "Fun Day II" on Friday. Despite the timing we pulled off a pretty good dinner even though we only have three forks and the oven has no temperature gauge. Dinner guest included the roommates and Paul, the other male interns Tom and Saleh, fellow teacher Marina and her boyfriend who brought over a bottle of champagne and made my night, and several friends.

The largest obstacle of the night was running out of propane for the oven and stove about one hour into cooking the chickens. I opened the oven door to find it oddly cold and then realized the stove burners no longer turned on. The problem was solved with an awkward half Arabic, half sign-language conversation with the door man. Then the propane man came up and after finishing wanted to take a picture of me with his young son. Very odd, I asked him to leave.

We were left with enough food for a few meals and tons of dishes!