Hinkwenu!
Thanksgiving is all about Hinkwenu: togetherness. The togetherness we feel around a table while sharing a meal, around the campfire, around the living room, around each other. We are grateful for Hinkwenu, particularly at this time of year when we remember our blessings, friendships, and good fortune.
In the United States, we give thanks around the dinner table with a hearty meal complete with family favourites – turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. We share in the spirit of gratitude for family, good health, and fall harvest, not forgetting that many countries have their own version of Thanksgiving celebrations.
England celebrates a bountiful harvest with music and food festivals in the fall months. Joaquim Nabuco brought US traditions to Brazil in 1940s, establishing the day with a carnival, church services, and parades. Canada gives thanks on the second Monday in October by hosting a traditional feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce. In Mid-Autumn Festival in China, a three-day celebration includes a feast with mooncakes, dragon dancing, and lantern lighting. Korean Thanksgivings involve a three-day holiday during which people visit their ancestral hometowns to prepare a traditional rice cake – songpyeon – to celebrate.
This year, I think of the many aspects of Africa that bless me with each visit: the unrestricted wildlife, vast savannas, lush rainforests, dramatic mountains, arid deserts, and pristine beaches. The warm weather. The sense of community – Ubuntu – permeates through the continent. The delicious cuisine: chakalaka, Moroccan stew, koki corn, and pilau. The sense of freedom. The deep connection to the land and vistas.
With a heart filled with gratitude, I extend to you the opportunity to express your appreciation for the iconic nature of Africa. As many Thanksgiving celebrations extend past the table and onto acts of charity, sharing time with family and friends, congenial sporting events, and decorating the mantle with pomegranates, leafy boughs, and spiced oranges, my Thanksgiving celebration includes contributing to the place where I feel most connected – the place I think of as home.
And, I invite you to do the same: your philanthropy to Iconic Africa’s Foundation demonstrates a genuine commitment to the conservation of Africa’s breathtaking wilderness and the people who care for it and live amongst it. Your travel with Iconic Africa assures wilderness conservation and the alleviation of poverty on the continent: protect rhinos, conserve lions and their habitats, create green energy, support ecological research and widespread education, as well as development in rural communities.
November presents a time to express generosity of spirit. We invite you to extend the kind of gratitude that making lasting, positive change to a unique part of our world.
Celebrate Hinkwenu.
Celebrate Africa.