Birthday Parties- Sherehe ya siku ya kuzaliwa

 Dear beloved family,

I hope this finds you warmly snuggled next to a heat source enjoying a cold February, or alternatively snuggled next to your significant other--Valentine's Day is coming! I'm still sweating like a pig in the hot heat of Kenya, but I also know that being in the cold would no longer suit me well, since I'm slowly adapting to this climate. For now, keep the cold for me.

So this last Saturday we were asked to pause class because there was some parents outside our classroom waiting to surprise their daughter for her birthday. Brandi and I wrapped up the lesson to a good stopping point, and then shifted to get out of the way and see what would happen next.

Once we got out of the way, the family came in and started singing, and several things happened at once. Students started to sing and clap a fast paced Happy Birthday, with some Swahili mixed in ("Kata Keke tule" aka cut the cake for us) and our birthday girl stood up and began to race towards the doorway. At the same time, several of her peers stood up and blocked her from leaving by pouring water on her head and body directly from their water bottles. She is being soaked now by her peers and parents, and fighting her way to the door so she could drip outside and get away.

While she went outside, her parents laughingly began to hand out small jolly rancher types of candy to all the teachers and students, along with lollipops. Her mother passed me some, and passed some out the window to passing students not in our class. She also opens a big liter of Fanta soda and hands out little baby cups of soda to everyone in the room. She starts with teachers, and then moves to students.

In a short time, our birthday girl comes back in soaking wet, dripping, and with a very straight face begins to cut her cake that mom and dad brought. Her siblings are dancing around everyone's feet, and we wait for them to cut the cake. Our birthday girl gets fed cake by her parents, and then in turn feeds them cake and her siblings as well. Only after this ritual is completed do the rest of us have cake passed out. They place cake pieces on a plate, and then the plate gets passed around to everyone--you take what you want and then pass it down. I remember a very similar thing for my birthday in Tanzania!

Afterwards we wrapped up the celebration and our party girl had a fresh set of clothes brought by the family so she could come back to class ready to continue the lesson. We settled back into class, and ended the day by playing a game I learned from theatre class called "Big Booty," where we are synchronizing clapping and counting off depending on who is called (pictured above). My students struggled to figure this one out, but we had fun all the same, some of our other teaching staff even joined in as well.

I asked Mr. Evans, one of our English teachers, if dumping water on the birthday person was normal here. He replied that Kenyans translate "Birthday" to "Bath Day", hence why you will get showered on by friends and strangers alike once they know it is your big day. I found that to be very funny, until I realized that my co-teacher will definitely make sure people will know my birthday is in July. I will have to plan ahead--maybe bringing two sets of dry clothes! No one else in my cohort has a birthday while we are here in Kenya (conveniently).

I hope you found this a fun read, and know I miss you guys very much. A shout out to Ms. Kay and my Arizona family for calling today! Also much gratitude to my sister for sending pet photos to cheer me up from so far away.

Lots of love,

Andi