Dear Friends in Tanzania...

...who live in my old house.

A long while back (think October), I started looking forward to Thanksgiving.  I'm pretty sure you did too.  I have long since gotten to see your abundant stash of food items in preparation for making this holiday a huge multicultural success, despite being far away from home.

On the other hand, I know how hard it is to celebrate such a familial holiday in another land, so I decided to send you some goodies to make it more special.

I'm sure the chocolate will be well-melted by now,
but we all know you just break it apart there and eat it anyway. 

Turns out, I forgot how long it takes to send packages to Tanzania.  So, if these things ever get there, I hope you find a reason to enjoy them none-the-less!  (And maybe stow the paper turkey away again to be used next year?)

I had high hopes of sending you snow (the powdered kind that you just add water to) and other snowy items to make Christmas seem real.  (Because we all know that powdered fake snow on the table would make it feel cooler.  Ha!  It would probably just melt.)  However, I'm remembering that if you were going to get that in time, I should have sent the package several weeks (or months?) back.  So instead, maybe you can stick the melted chocolate in the freezer, and eat them one... at ... a time... while they're still cold and pretend they're delicious snowflakes falling from the sky.

Or, just stand in front of the freezer itself and will yourself to remember that 100 degree weather with 96% humidity will not in fact last forever. 

Miss you!

(Note: I wrote this in November... and was putting off actually posting it because I didn't want to give away what was in the package.  By Christmas I gave up and assumed it would never make it.  Just heard it finally arrived in Dar just after the new year!  Hopefully those melted-frozen chocolates will still be good for cooling them down ... in the 90% humidity forecasted for tomorrow!)