Today is my (now) seven-year-old host brother's birthday. In many Muslim families, birthdays are not celebrated, but my family is an exception. It was basically like an American birthday celebration except there are no presents although I gave him a little bag of American bouncy balls, stickers, and pens that I brought with me from the U.S. We had his favorite meal, something that I think is a Senegalese version of Chinese food - eggroll type things with lettuce, some little spicy noodle dish, and chicken. There was definitely soy involved. Then we had fruit juices which I was so excited about - it's not often I get something cold to drink, let alone juice. We lit the candles on his cake and sang happy birthday in English, French and Wolof. It was a really fancy cake that was more like a layered custard and was delicious. All in all, a reassuringly "normal" event.
"Petit Papa's" cake
Babacar preparing to blow out the candles while waiting for us to finish the three versions of Happy Birthday. Note: this is one of the few occurrence when a light is turned off by choice. We only lost power (I'm cursing myself by writing this now ) once and Babacar cried something along the lines of "the power can't be cut on my birthday!" and then it came back on. Why hadn't anyone thought of that before? :)
A photo of Charlotte, Babacar and my favorite aunt, Astou - my host mom and uncle had gone to bed at this point and Dairra, the maid, was taking the picture. My siblings were so obsessed with taking photos that I know have a picture of every possible combination of the five of us.
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