So Kenyans have a number of holidays, I have already experienced at least 3 different Kenyan holidays, including a day to celebrate Moi. Moi was the longest standing president that Kenya had from 1978 to 2002. But living with a number of Mzungus, there has been the celebration of an American holiday, Thanksgiving, along with American traditions of Christmas preparation. For the past few weeks, Sarah Ellen Mamlin (wife of Dr Mamlin the IU AMPATH director) has been preparing for numerous Christmas parties that will take place in the hospital, with AMPATH and other outlying AMPATH clinics in the area. She determined that this year she needed to make 1400 Christmas cookies for the parties and hundreds of gifts for the children. So in a matter of two weeks, myself and a few other people volunteered to help make all the cookies. We did sugar cookies with icing. It took a week just to roll out the dough, make the shapes & then bake the cookies. The following week we did the icing & decorations on all 1400 of them. I definitely found it strange making Christmas cookies in November in a very hot climate too!
In addition to Christmas preparations, we celebrated Thanksgiving here at the IU House last Thursday evening. We had both Americans & Kenyans at our dinner, totaling about 60 people. It was the largest Thanksgiving I have ever been to and probably the most food as well. Of course, there was turkey & stuffing & mashed potatoes & cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. I made the pumpkin pies (3 in all) from scratch, from the pumpkin. It was quite an experience. Kenyans don't ever bake and they have these small half ovens (often they don't even work) and it was fun trying to find oven space for 3 pies that afternoon. But they turned out well! Along with our American food there was lots of Kenyan food as well. Kenyans cannot have a celebration without goat (called Nyoma Choma) and Ugali (cornmeal mixture that I dislike). We had quite the feast. I definitely savored every bite of the dinner, Thanksgiving has never tasted so good!
In addition to Christmas preparations, we celebrated Thanksgiving here at the IU House last Thursday evening. We had both Americans & Kenyans at our dinner, totaling about 60 people. It was the largest Thanksgiving I have ever been to and probably the most food as well. Of course, there was turkey & stuffing & mashed potatoes & cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. I made the pumpkin pies (3 in all) from scratch, from the pumpkin. It was quite an experience. Kenyans don't ever bake and they have these small half ovens (often they don't even work) and it was fun trying to find oven space for 3 pies that afternoon. But they turned out well! Along with our American food there was lots of Kenyan food as well. Kenyans cannot have a celebration without goat (called Nyoma Choma) and Ugali (cornmeal mixture that I dislike). We had quite the feast. I definitely savored every bite of the dinner, Thanksgiving has never tasted so good!
The IU House dining hall, decorated for our Thanksgiving meal. 
Thanksgiving decorations that Sarah Ellen provided that have been used for the past 4 years.
Dr. Joe Mamlin carving one of the two turkeys we ate!
My 3 pumpkin pies - yummy!
Lots of people eating Thanksgiving.
Christmas cookie decorating at the Mamlin's house.
Frosting the cookies during the 2nd week of cookie baking
The beautiful finished product - just image 1400 of these!
Preparing hundreds of gift bags for the children for Christmas, most included a beanie baby, a pen, small pad of paper, small candy & vaseline. You would be surprised by how many people love pens here! I am always asked if I have a pen I could give someone. 
More of the gift bags full of goodies. We tied red & green ribbons around each paper bag & colored Christmas shapes & designs on every one. 
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