“Birth-week”

For the most part, I had a good birthday. On the negative side, my birthday was overshadowed by the sad news of two friends being robbed at gunpoint on a bus the evening before (note to self: stay away from citi hoppa buses!). On the bright side, I got to celebrate my birthday for at least three days. Wednesday was a regular working day, but I got phone calls from the important people in my life, and in the evening I was surprised by my Kenyan family and the neighbours with a small party! We had cake and soda and crisps (chips) and popcorn and some more cake. The kids (Rinna and Tanielle and the neighbours’ kids) sang for me and then proceeded to run and jump around like crazy because of all the sugar! It is a custom here to “wash” people on their birthday, meaning that you pour water on them. I was able to avoid that, but was face-painted with cake icing instead by the kids.

On Thursday I went out for Ethiopian lunch with two friends, then in the evening I went to a concert at the Carnivore, a well-known restaurant and club serving mostly meat. Because of my birthday, I was given a CD for free! (In case you are worried about what I wrote earlier on about my friends being robbed: I am rarely out after dark here, and then not on public transport. That night we took a taxi to the restaurant and back.)

On Friday, we went for an evening service and then had a movie night and sleep over at a friend’s house. Since one is restricted by the safety issues here and since we are usually too busy to spend a lot of time with friends, it was fun to have a reason to celebrate and go out. By the time we got to Saturday, however, I was rather tired!