Thanksgiving Day in Swaziland

Eric's parents, Ken and Alice Higgins, came to visit us here in Swaziland on November 20th in order to see the country, visit Eric, and have Thanksgiving here in Siteki. We picked up Mr. and Mrs. Higgins in Johannesburg then took them on a short vacation up to the northern parts of South Africa to the Mpumalanga region of the country, famous for its large waterfalls. We stayed in a small town called Graskop while enjoying such sights like the Three Rondavels, God's Window, Bourke's Luck Potholes, and Mac Mac Pools before going back to Kruger National Park for a whirlwind tour through the southern part of the park. We were able to see many of the larger animals from our previous visit (elephant, kudu, hippo, crocodile, impala, etc.), this time we were also able to see many smaller, more unique animals, than we did in the 8 days on our previous trip.
The crowning achievement of our final trip to Kruger was only 2 km away from the park exit, when just to the right of our vehicle, we looked 10 meters into the bush to find a cheetah that had just brought down a kill and was chowing down right in front of us. To those who are wondering how exciting this was, many people will go to Kruger on multiple trips and never see a cheetah, let alone one that has just chased down his lunch!
We got back into Swaziland with some struggles of our own. We were driving a loaned SUV from Dr. Pons since we were going to some rugged country and while driving through some seriously hot temperatures we noticed that the air conditioning would periodically switch off. We thought nothing of it and just opened the windows. The climax came when we were driving up the steep mountain road going to Siteki when we heard a large boom from the engine and steam billowing from the hood. We were only 4 km from our destination when we cracked the radiator!
Thanksgiving was only two days away so once we finally made it back to the farm with the broken SUV we quickly began preparing our epic Thanksgiving Day meal! On the menu for this festive occasion was turkey (we had to drive 4 hours away to find one!), mashed potatoes, butternut souffle`, cranberry salad, green-bean casserole, pumpkin pie (thank you, Mrs. Higgins, for bringing the french-fried onions and canned pumpkin!), apple pie, homemade rolls, and Southern Sweet Tea! We had a total of 14 people around our beautiful table and 4 countries represented. After our meal, Eric gave a great history lesson on the beginnings of the holiday. This Thanksgiving was particularly interesting due to the vast changes in scenery and guests, however, one thing stayed the same, we ate a exorbitant amount of food for which we were suffering for 2 days afterward!
-Ben