Thanksgiving Parts 2 and 3

"The river is flowing.  No cars have crossed the border yet.  We wait for two hours and then see."

Our taxi driver, Peter, met us in the Loki airport with this news.  He even took us to see the river that no one had yet crossed that day.  The border crossing that led to home in South Sudan was impassable.

On Thanksgiving Day.

Peter left us at a restaurant called 748 for four hours.  We ate our Thanksgiving Part 2 meal from an African buffet.  Please note that we did eat meat of some sort, bread, green potato-tasting mushy thing, and beans (though those weren't green).  We also each had a peach O, our orange dessert, and we even split the last peach O as if it was a wishbone.

Me with my peach O/pumpkin pie substitute and my so-bored-here-and-so-sad-this-really-isn't-pumpkin-pie face

The hours passed as we sat at the restaurant.  We heard from Peter that it still looked bad but that we should wait two more hours.  More waiting while watching a ridiculous movie on the tv in the restaurant until Peter finally came to take us to our hotel where we'd stay for the night.  The river?  Not good for crossing until morning.

At the hotel, we were blessed with an actual little house with two rooms and a large bathroom.  For dinner that night, we ate Thanksgiving Meal Part 3 from another African buffet.  More meat and green veggies and potatoes.  And then back to the house for more peach O's from a brand new bag!

Thanksgiving was definitely different this year.  A planned skype call to the family gathering back home was not only interrupted by no internet or electricity, but my phone time ran out as well.  I got to borrow Mindy's last few minutes on her phone to call my dad and talk to my grandpa too and say, "Happy Thanksgiving!" and "I can't skype because I'm stuck in Loki."

Still Mindy and I had fun watching a couple of TV shows, as long as my computer battery would last, and then eating those peach O's until we had to hide the bag to keep us from eating any more.  Those things are addictive.  You cannot eat just one.

And...I must say that I am glad and so thankful that of all the people in the world to be stuck in Loki with on Thanksgiving, I was incredibly glad I was stuck there with Nyatabo.