Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays -- it signals the start of the long holiday season, it's not grotesquely commercial like Christmas, and at the end of the day it's all about football and food. In 26 years I've been home for all but one Thanksgiving. So it feels strange to be 10,000 miles away from home for this one. I'm in Entebbe, Uganda, waiting for a UN flight later today to eastern Congo, where I'll spend the next week or so reporting on the post-civil war humanitarian crisis there.

I'm traveling with Evelyn, an American photographer based in Nairobi. We were hoping to arrive in Congo in the morning, so at least we'd have a couple of hours to try to find some Americans working for aid agencies or the local UN mission to spend Thanksgiving with. But the UN postponed our flight to 5 pm, so it will be nearly dark by the time we arrive -- and therefore no going out. Thanksgiving dinner will be whatever is provided by the Catholic nuns who run the guesthouse we're staying at. Fortunately, Evelyn had the idea of stashing wine from last night's flight out of Nairobi, so at least we'll be somewhat lubricated.

This got me thinking about major holidays I've spent away from home. There haven't been too many, but three Christmases ago I flew from Kansas City to New York, where I met Yatin for a New Year's trip to London and Dublin. The trip itself was great, but Christmas day was less than ideal: I left KC in subfreezing temperatures, we were forced to eat at the airport T.G.I. Friday's, and the rest of my family was together in Houston (on the phone my mom said I should never spend Christmas away from them ever again).

Then a huge ice storm blew into New York and delayed our flight for about six hours. The airport terminal ran out of food (even McDonald's stopped selling fries) and once we boarded the plane, the horrific crunching sound of them de-icing the wings did not exactly instill confidence in me and Yat that we would make it to London alive.

Last July 4, I was on a reporting trip in Zigong, China, with my buddy Peter, a Chinese-American photographer named Mimi, and our translator Mr. Guo. We'd just spent a depressing day interviewing peasants who'd been forced off their land and into destitution by the local government. Our hotel restaurant was deserted, so we commandeered the place. We ordered every vaguely American item they had -- chicken strips, fries, pizza -- and laughed at the menu's ridiculous translations like "sliced potatoes in the fried way of American."

Then we migrated to the hotel bar (also deserted) where Peter made them play his rap CDs while he got behind the bar and began mixing drinks. As I recall (correct me if I'm wrong, Boylan), that was the night the Sichuanese bartenders learned what a screwdriver was. It was the weirdest, best Independence Day in memory, capped off with a bit of American cultural imperialism, just the way the Founding Fathers would have intended.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone -- eat a little for me and Evelyn.