Day 36, Year 4: Giving Thanks from Malaysia
Date: Thursday, November 27, 2008
Weather: Partly Sunny Day with Sprinkles Here and There
Location: Rebak Marina on Pulau Rebak Besar, Langkawi, Malaysia

We are far from home and there are no other Americans here at Rebak Marina, so we kept up the Thanksgiving tradition all by ourselves. In our “tradition”, we worked all day. Mark layed in the new shower stall floor this morning and then continued to put layers of fiberglass on throughout the day. I worked on trying to get mildew stains out of all of our extra sheets and pillowcases. I thought I had mentioned the discovery of this problem in a log a couple of days ago, but in a quick review, I
can’t find the mention. We have kept the extra sheets and pillow cases in the same place for three years, but for whatever reason, water got into that locker and wrecked havoc. After using every mold and mildew remover I have, most of the linens must be thrown out. I had not put away our very best sheets since Justin and Jo’s visit, so I am ever so grateful that I was lax in putting those away. We have been searching for days for our dinghy repair kit, and I found it this morning. So Mark also
patched the dinghy. Late in the afternoon, I started cooking our Thanksgiving meal. We just finished eating our Malaysian turkey (chicken) with stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans with almonds and locally grown baby corn. Everything was delicious and just like it would have been if we were back home. We decided not to have the prawns we bought yesterday as there was just so much food, so we will have those tomorrow. We are now getting ready to have steamed plum pudding with a Fiji custard
sauce. It’s not pumpkin pie, but it sounds good to me.

Busy as we were, Thanksgiving Day is a time when we stop and reflect on all that we have to be thankful for. Our family always comes first on that list, and then, of course, all of our friends. We recently got an email from a friend back in New Hampshire whose mother had just died a few days shy of her 92nd birthday. Our friend, Judi Stuart, sent out an email explaining that her mother, Marge, believed right up until the day she died that if all women of the world prayed for peace, it just might
happen. Judi’s email expressed that if all men and women “say a little prayer for peace to whomever your higher being might be” that maybe, just maybe, we can make it happen. On this Thanksgiving Day, we can think of no better wish. There is so much unrest in the world, yet all of the people we have met in our travels express the wish for world peace. One person at a time, we can make that happen.

So wish with Marge . . . her daughter Judi . . . and with Mark and I that we can find ways to reconcile our differences without resorting to violence. Please take a few moments out of your Thanksgiving Day to hope for a world at peace.