Last year, for Thanksgiving, I had a lovely evening dining with the Ambassador. The atmosphere was perfect. There were red and green draped tables with paper turkeys and the food was good. But, this year, I spent Thanksgiving in Sikasso (another region in Mali).
The dinner itself was surprisingly good! There were eight turkeys, stuffing, mashed potatoes, greenbeans, fruit salad, pumpkin and apple pies, and then when everyone was done eating, the beer pong table was set up!
It was weird enough eating dinner inside of an auditorium and having Malian children staring at us, but beer pong just stripped away any sense that this was Thanksgiving. However, this occurrence brought up something that Jasmine and I have always found strange.
Back in college (wow, so long ago now!), whenever it was football Saturday's, there were always pre-game parties on almost every lawn in Ann Arbor. And when we walked along the streets, we would see families playing beer drinking games together. We would see grandpa's and grandson's throwing hackey-sacks and slugging back red cups of beer and this weirded Jasmine and I out. Like, we could never imagine drinking with our grandparents, let alone on wholesome holiday like Thanksgiving!
So, I just had to know, even if it was a stupid question, but I asked some of my white friends if this is what they do back at home? Thankfully, they all said no. And then, we all went around and said what we're thankful for, which is something my family does. With that, some of that Thanksgiving-spirit was salvaged. But, then later, we went to the club hahaha!
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