I turned the big 2-5 this year. Yep, a quarter century (gosh, how old does that make my parents??) However, when I awoke the morning of Monday, July 4, I didn’t really feel any different than the day before. To be honest, I never really understood the big deal with birthdays anyways. They really boil down to just another day. I am the same person that I was the day before and that I will surely be the day after. However, by the end of this birthday, I was reminded why it is oh-so important to celebrate birthdays.
I started the big day with a normal workday. Vincent and I mapped a couple of residential areas and a couple of channels that flow from residential areas, to the lake. We agreed to call it a night early, however, because my roommates and I had big plans to have dinner and make a cake. On the walk back to our house, I was given my first birthday gift. As we strolled through the field behind our house, I looked up and saw our cottage purchased on the hillside in front of me. Between the house and I stood a beautiful stand of yellow-barked acacia trees and natural bush land, peppered with giraffes and waterbuck. Could I ask for a more beautiful place to live?
When I arrived at the house, the festivities began. I told you we planned to make a cake, but I didn’t tell you why this cake was special. It was going to be an “Ugali cake”! For those of you who have never hear of ugali, it is hands down the most popular food in Kenya. It is so popular, in fact, that people believe that if they don’t eat ugali for dinner, they will not sleep. Ugali is quite a simple dish, made by mixing equal parts of boiling water and maize flower and mixing until the white blob has become thick enough to roll into small pieces and eat with your fingers. Because ugali is really quite moist and has no distinct flavor of its own, we decided that we could probably use it to make a cake. We got the water off to a rolling boil and before we added the maize flour to the water, I stirred a substantial amount of sugar into the flour. By this point, the Kenyans among us were already cringing – why must muzungus add sugar to all the favourite Kenyan dishes!? Thirty minutes, 2 bananas, a mango, 3 passionfruit and a bag of icing sugar later, our ugali cake was complete! Admittedly, I have had better cakes, but the entire value of the cake was in the creation. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time!
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| This is how ugali is traditionally eaten..... Mmmmmm, so good! (Side bar: this meal cost me $1) |
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| This is how we have improved (or destroyed, depending on who you ask) ugali! |
After dinner, I got to open my card and gifts. It turns out that birthday card selection in Kenya is slightly smaller than the Shoppers Drug Mart collection. The two options were “Happiness always dear 10-year old” or “May God bless you on your birthday”. This selection doesn’t come as a particularly large surprise to me, given that Vincent often reminds me that God play a very important role in maintaining order in Kenya. Kenya has good laws, but very poor enforcement capacity. It is Vincent’s belief that the laws are followed because most of the population is highly religious and believes in a God who sees and judges their actions.
Myself and my roomies, however, are from a country that seems to be less and less religious, so I got the “Happiness always dear 10 (+15) year old”. The card, with the touching messages inside are among the most unique birthday cards I’ve ever received and will definitely find a permanent home in my memories box. Finally, for the icing on the ugali cake, I got to open my gift. My Kenyan roommate, Dorothy, gave me a lovely Kenyan skirt and the rest of my friends went together to buy me a new digital camera (Sadly, one of the guests at our Canada Day party two days earlier found my previous digital camera irresistible and took it home). I was so touched by the gifts I nearly cried. All of the laughter and all of the memories that I accumulated on July 4, 2011 have reminded me that although a birthday might be just another one of the 365 days in a year, celebrating it fully every year means that you are guaranteed to accumulate vibrant, happy memories with those you care about. Always celebrate your birthday and always commemorate the birthdays of those you love!
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