Sir Thomas Cunningham Goes to Kilwa

Tanzanians don't celebrate Thanksgiving. So last week when that festive holiday involving turkey, football and ungodly amounts of food rolled around the A-Team was on its own to come up with innovative ways to celebrate (which primarily involved laying on a beach; more on that later).

I decided that in order to make it a "real" Thanksgiving what we needed was a pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie is quintessential Thanksgiving and what's better it's easy to make! That at least was my argument standing in ShopRite in Dar trying to explain to Ameet while hauling a pumpkin on a 9 hour bus ride down to Kilwa was a good idea. Ameet had his reservations, but he eventually consented and thus we came to acquire a very special Thanksgiving guest: Sir Thomas Cunningham.

If you're going to take a pumpkin any on a wildly bumpy road, where you risk the thing rolling out of your hands or impaling you with its stem, it's best to name it first - you know, just so your on friendly terms. Andrew had warned us that the road could be a bit bumpy on the way to Kilwa, but having never been there we weren't sure what to expect. After a few hours on the bus, we stopped for a break and the bus driver handed out sodas to everyone. Being the oblivious muzungo-tourist, Ameet and I were goofing around taking pictures of ourselves and our pumpkin (STC for short), when suddenly...BAM! We hit a bump so hard that not only did STC go flying into the air, but so did my Fanta. Soda spraying all around, I somehow managed to keep a hold of the pumpkin. Soda right before the BUMPIEST part of the road? Seriously?!

For the next couple hours we oscillated between trying to hold onto the pumpkin b/c we were laughing so hard and trying to decide if our liver had actually been ruptured or just jostled over the last bump.

To get a sense of the trip, check out this video.

Despite the perils involved, STC did actually make it to Kilwa and Ameet and I suffered no serious or lasting injury from the trip or the pumpkin. We cooked Sir Thomas a couple days later & the pumpkin pie we made added a decidedly American and at home flavor to our first Tanzanian Thanksgiving.