A Birthday Weekend

I'd say my birthday weekend started on Friday night. Theresa, Meredith, Christine, Aya, and I all went to New Africa for dinner and salsa dancing. The food took an hour and a half to show up (?!?!) but it was quite tasty. It was great to finally do some partner dancing again, though I have a lot more experience with swing dance than with salsa.

On Saturday, I went to circus in the morning (though I was too tired to get a lot done). I'm FINALLY making some good progress with the straddle climb, which looks good and is more efficient than most climbing methods. Right now I can do about four climbs, but I'm still not gaining as much elevation as I ought to be. Still, it's getting better each time I try it.

After lunch, I went to school, then went to the supermarket to buy ingredients for sushi and birthday cake. We also bought some frozen quiche and frozen pizza, just to be sure we'd have enough food. After that, we headed back to the Baobab Center and cooked! Aya (with help from Meredith and our new friend Remi) made no fewer than seven sushi rolls, filled with various combinations of crab, cream cheese, cucumber, carrot, and avocado. I (with help from Theresa) made my Deep Dark Chocolate Cake--the chocolate cake recipe that I've memorized and use any time I need to whip out a cake.

After the cake went into the oven, I realized we'd forgotten the eggs! We added them in, and waited over an hour (usually takes 30-45 mins) for the cakes to bake. The oven just didn't get hot enough, so we finally gave up. They were definitely cakes, but they were so moist and sticky that they were sort of like fudgy, fluffy brownies.

While we were waiting for the cakes, I made some cheese sauce for mac and cheese, which we ate from the pot while sitting on cushions on the floor and watching Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was pretty great.

After cleaning up the kitchen and classroom where cooking had happened, we bought some wine and headed to the huge monument (just bigger than the Statue of Liberty). Turns out you can't go up to the monument that late at night, so we gave up and went to MyShop, a convenience store that is a happening place on weekend nights. We drank our wine and chatted, and then I headed home and everyone else went out dancing.

Yesterday, Sunday, I went to the Baobab Center early to heat up the quiches and pizza, and then everyone met up and we headed out to Ngor. We took a boat across to the island, found a cozy spot with mats to lay on and a nice stretch of beach, and set up camp. We made some good damage on the food we'd brought and then napped for a while.  The whole time, I was marveling over the fact that here it was, early February, and I was celebrating my birthday in a bikini on a beach. I've never gotten to do that before! It was lovely to be there.

It wasn't until about 5pm that the party finally arrived (I'd told everyone to come around noon, knowing it'd be another few hours no matter what I said.

Three of my circus friends showed up, and they showed off their stuff and helped us with handstands and fun stuff. Christine came with her mom, and Youssou and Sire and Aya's boyfriend El Hadj all showed up, too. We ate cake and polished off the rest of the food we'd brought, chatted, and hung out on the beach. We made a pyramid with everyone (except Christine's mom, who we excused). When pictures go up, I'll try to post one here. I was on top, standing on someone's shoulders.

When it started getting dark, we headed to some cliffs and watched the waves for a while and chatted. Then we moved over to a restaurant, and the non-American portion of the group headed home on the last ferry. The rest of us had dinner and wine and good conversation before heading home at around 10:30.

Overall, it was a great weekend. I felt loved and honored and was surrounded by wonderful people. It was amazing to me that I didn't know/wasn't friends with any of the people there 8 months ago, and now they're important parts of my life.

And today I actually turned 21! I loved celebrating here, and I'm looking forward to doing it over again at K and in California. Look at all these communities I have now! I feel so lucky.