Cluck Cluck & Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Our photo with the rooster!

Much has happened in Rundu since our last blog entry, Thanksgiving being one of them! We definitely missed our family and friends on Thanksgiving and had many thoughts of being home wearing a cozy sweater and eating warm pumpkin pie but no worries!! -- we probably had one of our most memorable Thanksgivings yet! Any guesses? Well, our entire missionary team decided since we are in Africa we might as well eat like Africans and kill our own chicken and rooster for Thanksgiving dinner. 

We realize that our current environment is much more like how God intended it to be, and if you would eat meat it would not be as frequent or as simply accessible as how it is in the western world. Living in the States makes you so detached from where your food comes from, and it was so refreshing to know exactly where it came from this Thanksgiving!! (The makers of the doctumentary Food, Inc. would be so proud!)

McKenzie and I plucking the rooster

Our Thanksgiving celebration began Saturday morning when our rooster and chicken arrived on bicycle. :) McKenzie and our Namibian friend Earnest showed up from the village with our dinner gracefully hung off the handlebars... and Kado, McKenzie and David's dog, was wrapped on McKenzie's back like a baby! It definitely was worth a few pictures! Soon after we began our preparations. First we made a fire and boiled two big pots of water. Then, bravely our culinary expert McKenzie killed our rooster. She tried to mimic to the best of her ability the method shown in Food Inc. by hanging it upside down from a tree and slitting its throat/neck. I give her a lot of credit because I couldn't have done it. After seeing that method, we thought it took too long and didn't actually seem as humane as chopping its head off with an ax (which is more common). So, Adam killed the chicken next using that method. All I can say is seeing a chicken running and jumping around the yard with its head chopped off is something we all will never forget... and we have the video to prove it (with our screams and all!)  

Ernst, Alysse, Mark, & David plucking away!

After all the excitement, we dunked the chickens in the pot of boiled water and then right after de-feathered them. This was the process Mark and I did and I have to say, it was not as bad as I envisioned. After the de-feathering, gutting, and cleaning, our chickens looked just like they do in the store! (Which reminds me of something funny a kid here told me a few weeks back. We were talking about skin color... and he looked at me and said “You look like a raw chicken you buy at the store.” --I took it as a compliment!)

I cooked the chicken in our oven while the rooster was being cooked next door, and we all made our favorite Thanskgiving fixings... including homemade pumpkin pie made from a blue pumpkin! It was a great day and one we will never forget. Mark and I are truly grateful to be here and Saturday was no exception! :) 

McKenzie and I with our squeaky clean chicken!