Thanksgiving in my household always brings some new discovery where I actually realize that I can get a refreshing taste of culture besides American anywhere in the state of Arizona. The fact of the matter is that if you need to practice Spanish- you can just Waltz (or Salsa) into a local hole-in-the-wall Mexican store and jabber away in your hopefully only slightly horrible Spanish. If you want to practice Sign Language, there is most likely an ASL club at your local community college and if you want to learn Swahili, find one African person in town and they will know the rest of the African population there. I promise. This is where my always-interesting Thanksgiving comes in. We usually have our holiday at Priscilla and Deans house with a conglomeration of families and friends. Priscilla and Dean are interesting because they met in Africa and fell in love there. They then moved here and create an interesting couple because Priscilla is very African and Dean is very American but they somehow fit like milk in African Tea (very milky and sugary black tea).
This Thanksgiving Bunny and Tony (my other parents), bring their two teenage kids. One being Julie (the very sweet silent one) and Jimmy (the one who’s blossoming in to a Joe Dimaggio). Julie, very sweetly, decided to wear an African shirt that Priscilla gifted Bunny a while ago (and looked just great in it). As Priscilla and I marvel over Julie’s beauty in the shirt Priscilla exclaims, “Yeees! I thought you could go boogy or something with it on.” (It should be noted that boogy implies dance clubs, flashing lights and hip-happy African music). I love that at this point Priscilla can imagine Julie being caught dead “boogying” in anything or in front of any one being that she’s a little bit shy and an American teenager but hell…who needs to be presumptuous at this point? I try to explain boogy to Julie but Priscilla had the better idea to show Julie a dance called Ndombolo on YouTube. “Come here! I will show you boogy!” We all run excitedly to the computer room (I had to drag Julie with me a bit but she still came) and Pris finds some Ndombolo. I watch, slightly scandalized. I imagine if Julie had the courage to do this at school she might just get kicked out for indecent behavior here in America…just watch the first video at the side of this blog. You’ll see. Anyways, I realize that Ndombolo is no specific move but does include an impossible move I’ve only seen my friend Liz imitate of skillfully undulating your knees meanwhile swiveling your pelvis in one direction or another (AKA “grinding). I, of course, try it even though I’m 5-months pregnant (pictures will come soon, I swear…not of me dancing though) and Julie watches me like she always has (with a mixed look of slight envy and pity at the same time). I look at Julie and say “yeh, you can bring this dance to your school and impress your friends in the hallway!” Julie’s eyes get big and she nods a big exaggerated “yes.” Which is to say, “I would rather do headstands in the cafeteria than be caught doing that.”
Later I demonstrate my dance to our new African friends at the party – at this point Pris is turning purple with laughter. Mom looks at one of the African boys and says, “I doubt you ever expected to see that while you were here – just like Africa right?” He replies, get this, “No. I can proudly say that I’ve never seen it done quite as skillfully as she’s doing it in Africa.” The sweetheart.
The dinner was WONDERFUL, the mix of African, American and Mexican (my husband made a dish too) somehow reminded me of the first Thanksgiving where it was a true sharing of cultures and food and family…Even here in a small town in the middle of Arizona.
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