My Birthday Post!!

Yes, my birthday post. A month and a half after my birthday...

Like last year, I had two birthdays- one in our village and one in Paramaribo. On my true birthday, I woke up to this awesome sign on our porch:

 Ryan also bought me some glitzy earrings and the latest season of one of my shows. Yes, my husband is wonderful.

Later that morning, I helped give a hygiene lesson with our clinic nurses (as I mentioned in a previous post) and Ryan and I gave an English lesson to our 5^th graders.  At the end of the hygiene lesson, the 6^th grade teacher turned to the kids and asked, “Do you know whose birthday is today?” To which they replied, “yes- Bendemai!” Then they sang 3-4 songs to me, which is a Saramaccan tradition. It was very sweet. Another teacher who is also a village leader appeared and gave me a 1 liter bottle of soda (an appropriate birthday gift in Saramaaka). The teachers danced me around while the kids sang. Later, various people stopped by to sing to me or congratulate me on my birthday. In keeping with Saramaccan norms, Ryan baked a cake so I could hand out pieces to people who dropped by. Our 85-year-old neighbor hobbled over and gave me a bottle of peach wine. It was adorable! Then Ryan walked 20 minutes to the port near us and bought a frozen chicken so he could cook me an awesome dinner: walnut (from America) and herb encrusted chicken with mushroom and garlic mashed potatoes complete with candle light (by choice since we had electricity!) and wine. It was delicious!

Look how cute he is!!

About a week and a half later, I celebrated with a Girls Night Out in Paramaribo with most of the female volunteers in country. Actually, there is a girl in the training group after mine who has my same birthday AND age so we celebrated together. We're twins! This is Jessica:

We went out to a fancy dinner and then checked out a new lounge which was actually pretty fun. I had a blast! It’s good for a girl Peace Corps volunteer’s soul to get dressed up every once in a while. Thanks to everyone who helped me celebrate! 

Claire, Valoria, Whitney, Summer and Meghan- start getting ready for next year- we have birthdays to make up for!!! Alysha, that would be a good time for you to visit. Just saying.

More b-day pics here.