Eid Al Shukran

Thursday, November 25, 2011 – Thanksgiving in Egypt.

Admittedly, my Thanksgiving enthusiasm was a little deflated, considering the person I planned the entire thing with and with whom I planned to de-gut the Turkey, just to say we did, was in jail, and most likely being sent back to America. But, it ended up being an amazing, amazing day, one of the best Thanksgivings I have ever had, one that I’ll remember for a long time.

My hopes weren’t high, as the night before, when Greg and I had planned to drink, play with turkey guts, and get it all on film for future documentation (remember that time we thought this was funny?) everyone left early, and I spent the night alone, foregoing my commitment to clean/marinade the turkey early, and instead I made a small cup of lemon-honey glaze, and went to sleep. The next morning, I woke up, took a short trip to the grocery store, and began… well, doing nothing relevant, really. Before everyone came over, I attempted a batch of kettle corn – attempted being the key word. Doubling the recommended portion size from 1 cup to 2, and subsequently using a large pot too large to shake, which also spilled searing hot drops of oil as I shook it, needless to say the kettle corn was a little less kettle and a little more all over my kitchen. Realizing it was impossible to shake the pot and evenly distribute the sugar over the popcorn, I lifted the cover in an attempt to stir the popcorn – attempt, again, being the key word of the morning. A split second after the cover left contact with the pot, pieces of popcorn and droplets of hot oil missiled over the stove top, into the sink, onto the floor, directly at me. It reminded me of this scene in Parks and Recreation when Leslie attempts to stop a group of boys from flinging trash at each other, and they turn on her, leaving her to defend herself with the trashcan lid wielded as a shield. I was one step away from flinging popcorn back at the pot, before I remembered that that was just ridiculous.

Once I replaced the lid, I turned off the heat, waited for the popping noises to cease, and tentatively lifted the cover. Greeted by a few belligerent pieces in my face, I managed to poor it out into a bowl, revealing a layer of barely-flavored pieces, one of purely unpopped kernels, and one of completely carmelized popcorn, difficult to chew and slightly burned. Desperate to get rid of the burning popcorn smell before everyone came over, I opened the balcony door and sprayed Glade air freshener all over my kitchen – creating an anything but mouth-watering scent of lilac, jasmine, and failure. Once everyone arrived, and valiantly tried to salvage both my ego and kettle corn, we began preparing for the day.

First, what we believed to be the removal of the guts of the large turkey. Disappointed, I told Kate that the bag sticking out of the turkey held the internal organs, and we would not be de-gutting the turkey as planned. Lukas pulled the bag out and in my quest to figure out which organ I was holding in my hands, the following conversation ensued:

(playing with the turkey… piece) “Haha, doesn’t it look like ET?”

(no one hearing this) “It’s the head.”

“That’s so weird, it looks so much like ET, what is it?” (continues playing with large giblet)…. “Oh my God, it’s the head and neck!”

“That’s what I said!”

Both: “… that’s so gross.”

Yup, we were now in possession of the entire head and neck of the turkey, and yes, he did look like ET. After a short debate as to whether or not it is safe to use the entire head of a turkey (beak excluded), I put the head in a pot. Again, another short discussion revolving around the turkey head:
“It’s so gross, can we close its eye?”
“I don’t know, it’s kind of just a hole isn’t it?”

“It’s creepy.”

(Pours water into pot, onto head – cavity previously believed to be an empty hole closes, like a real eye when mouth closes)
“OH MY GOD…. Did you see that?!”

“I’m just gonna put it on the stove now…”

(Me with the Turkey and... its former head)

Picture Credit: Charlotte

However, the turkey still hadn’t given us its worst yet – Feeling around blindly into the turkey’s cavity, Kate discovered a few more organs, and I witness the sweetest girl I’ve yet met abroad… savagely tear out the heart of a dead turkey… and parade it around in her bare hands. For some reason, I pictured braveheart, in his war make up and running towards the enemy, war cry loud in the air, crazy eyes plastered to his face.

After a few more minutes of Lukas, Kate, and I violating the turkey (Lukas fisted it for… an unusually long time, with a decidedly uncomfortable fervor), we began cleaning it, drying it with paper towels – unsuccessfully – and subsequently giving it a sensual massage with buttered hands. Prompted by everyone’s disturbance and impatience, we finally put the turkey in the oven, and…. Sat down to drink beer and watch Lord of the Rings. For about three hours, we sat, drank tea, watched tv and Elf, and I attempted a second batch of kettle corn, which, aided by Parker’s… uh, observational support, came out much better than the first. Finally, worried that we wouldn’t eat dinner until the next day, I got up and began the stuffing, which, surprisingly, came out amazing ;) (not to boost my own ego, but I rarely have those moments). Thankfully, this jumpstarted the kitchen bustle, and everyone began their various dishes.

One thing about the night, that I remember well, was Lukas, constantly asking to help, doing any and every small task left unattended, and clearly excited for his first Thanksgiving, it was nice to think that we were all sharing his first of something, since those are rare and few in college. (Significant firsts, anyways – other than the loss of the infamous V-card.) Anyways, the night continued and by roughly 6pm, we weren’t worried any longer as to whether or not we were actually eating that night. What I was worried about was the insanely massive mess that spanded the majority of my apartment, comprised of raw food, dirty dishes, and a considerable amount of popcorn kernels (I take full responsibility for that one). Finally, dinner time. We looked kind of like a small little family – and one random colored child, probably adopted (guess who that person was… :P ) – while we took our group photos around the table (one photo, obviously, to mourn the absence of Greg, in a completely serious, and respectful way). Finally, dinner time. Kate and I began carving the turkey – maybe not so much carving as… using knives on it the same way  a blind man would if he was asked to locate all the parts of the turkey using only a knife and a fork – and everyone was at least able to eat turkey. For the record, at least we didn’t sit at the table and stab the turkey repeatedly, then proceed to bless both the turkey and everyone’s plates of food with a dried out sprig of rosemary... Parker.

Best Dinner Ever

Sweet Potato Casserole - courtesy of Andrew

One of the little packs of food we made

Turkey Never Stood a Chance

Lukas' First Bite of Stuffing Ever

Cue the best dessert I’ve had… probably ever: Apple crisp crumble and sweet potato pie/casserole, courtesy of Andrew. After dinner, while packing up I suddenly remembered that the night before I had decided that I would make a hot plate of food for the homeless man outside of my building… but of course, I’d forgotten. Justin and I made 2 makeshift boxes of food: 1 for my bawwab, and one for the homeless man, and, along with Andrew, we went down to give it to them. I’m not going to go on and detail the “warm fuzzy feeling” I got inside from doing “a good, selfless s deed”, but I will say that it was nice to feel like we’d made a difference, a very small, fleeting one, for the homeless man. He gave us a weak smile and took the food quietly – if anything, after a week of feeling more hopeless and useless than I ever have in my life, it was nice to feel even the slightest bit valuable.

Upstairs, everyone watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the cleaning began. Thankfully, Miya, Lukas, Charlotte, and Justin did a lot of the work for me, and I ended up only cleaning for another hour or so, not first without taking a break with Khairy, Hanan, and Elezaby to take a shot of the strongest vodka (52%, homemade and minted) provided by John’s friend for whom he was throwing a going away party that night.

Cue the end of a really, genuinely good day.

Picture Credit: Mac (on my Nikon D90)

The two days after Thanksgiving ended up being really good as well. Friday, I spent the day with Andrew, Isabel, Justin, and Charlotte. First stop: The Cairo Tower, somewhere I’ve been hoping to visit before the end of the term. The view was amazing, and from way up there, it was impossible to believe that the same city we looked upon was Cairo – the largest city in a third-world country, the host of a revolution that has resulted in the death of so many Egyptians, home to some of the greatest disparities and inequalities I have witnessed. Instead, it was peaceful and calm, it was beautiful, showing no signs of anything different than a day in Fremont, back home, except for one, breathtaking sight: Tahrir Square, across the bridge, filled with chanting protestors, large flags and banners, demanding freedom, liberation, democracy. It was incredible. In a small, fleeting instant, that has hit me many times since last week, I was insanely jealous of Greg and Derrik and Luke, wanting so badly to have been there to witness it in person, but this would do for the moment.

That night, after a day in a café with everyone, the same group came back to my place and had dinner delivered. Best part of the night – the epic fight between Justin and Andrew over the small bit of Apple Crisp Crumble that Justin unknowingly ate the last of. If ever there was an awkward turtle when he fought, it’s Justin, a sort of handicapped spastic, fighting with one arm, using window cleaner and Off (the bug spray), convulsively flipping the bottom half of his leg up in an… inexplicably awkward motion. Video shown underneath of a small portion of the quarrel.*
This night proved to be somewhat of my breaking point, though. We watched Aljazeera, speculating on our nearing, possible evacuation from Egypt, and then a small bit on Palestine came up, detailing their lack of adequate schooling facilities, and all of my recently created plans, Inshah Allah, in building a school in Palestine. Shamefully, my current depressed state put a bit of a pessimistic damper on the idea at the time, and I fell deeper into my weeklong state of self-pity and despair, prompting an hour-long marathon of inspirational (not many penguins can jump the river as the couple I watched did) animal videos, until the gang headed back to the dorms.

End a bittersweet night.

* I attempted to upload the video a few times, but each time I was unsuccessful. Working on a solution. Video up soon, Inshah Allah


Additionally, as a side note - for the last few months, my blogger account has been in Arabic and I've been translating the pages and all that jazz. However, the Arabic format held, and that's why punctuation and sentence alignment has been as such. Today, miraculously, with a blogger update, the punctuation and alignment has English-fied itself once more, though I can't seem to fix the previous posts. Working on that as well.