For those who don't know, I am married to a Kenyan. Today we celebrated Thanksgiving with a house full of Kenyans, most of them Luo, the same tribe as my wife and our new President elect. For the most part, it was a typical Thanksgiving, except that the food was a mix of American and Kenyan food, mostly Kenyan since I was the only American present.
For most of the afternoon it was like any other Thanksgiving; we cooked a lot of food, prayed over the meal, ate way too much, watched football until the games got lopsided, and socialized...while the children retired to the basement for quality time with the Playstation. Most of the time people were in small groups talking, mostly about things going on in Africa, which left me somewhat out of the loop, but eventually all of the adults ended up around the living room and one of them spoke up.
He said, "I know this is an American holiday, but the truth is that we all have a lot to be thankful for. We are all in this great country and we can take advantage of the opportunities that America has to offer. I think we should thank God for that."
The whole point of this holiday hit me at that point. Here I had been eating too much food and complaining that the football games were lopsided and not interesting, and then this man who came here from another country stands up and earnestly says that he thanks God for the ability to be here. I became more thankful at that moment myself, glad to not only have a lot of food and friends to spend a day with, but thankful for the opportunities that have been afforded me in this country. I guess viewing America through the eyes of a foreigner made me even more grateful for what I have and where I live. We truly have a lot to be thankful for.
