Zegatt Yebdo 6/23

What a magical birthday! And full of surprises! I went to sleep thinking that today would be nothing special. I knew I had a card from Grace and could expect some sat phone messages from friends, but I had planned my birthday feast for next Wednesday and planned to celebrate when everyone returned to the village (all the women left to do ministry in Malam two days ago!)

Well, I should have remembered from how giddily everyone here planned Grace’s surprise birthday party that mine would be no different. I woke up to the bird calls at 6:00 am as usual, but this morning I also heard Jerry’s voice outside. Jerry lives across the village and has a very distinctive laugh and tenor. I knew something was up! I got up and instead of my usual morning routine of an hour of work and hydration before greeting the world, I got dressed, grabbed my camera and walked outside. The entire house was decorated in flowers, young bamboo shoots framed my veranda and stairs! Upon clearing the steps, I was greeted with a table laid out with six heart bouquets, my name written in tiny flowers, and a note that urged me to live life to the fullest. Stepping around the table, I faced the language house, where I saw all of my friends around the elementary blackboard with a birthday greeting. They had a guitar and sang me happy birthday, first in Ende then in English! Afterwards we took pictures and talked about how surprised I was. The men had gone out hunting but no luck. Quickly, I gathered up the rest of our rice - six kilos - and purchased 10 bags of ramen noodles, and gave them to Christina and Jenny who insisted we have a feast today on my proper birthday. This motivated some men to go back out and soon we had a wallaby to make into a soup. 

I spent the early morning reading Grace’s sweet card which she left for me and chatting with Andrey who promised to make so many birthday wishes come true. I messaged with Tessa and laughed at her Sierra anecdotes. I hit sweet wishes from Elizabeth, Penny, and my mama too ❤️. 

At nine I brought the computer out and together with some of the technology class we spent about four more hours adding narration to the movie - we nearly finished!! Feeling happily productive, I took a hammock break to say goodnight to Andrey and took a luxuriously long and much needed bucket shower. I then spent time with the feast directors, Christina and Jenny, under Tonny’s house. There were so many people (and so much food!) on the lower deck, that it collapsed! Pots and women went tumbling but luckily no one was too hurt and no food was wasted.

Eventually others from the village gathered around for the feast around 3:00. Bomso, Jerry, and Gidu made short speeches about my birthday and apologized for being so underprepared. Apparently they only learned yesterday that today was my real birthday and so scrambled to get some festivities together! I apologized for surprising them first, but thanked them for the beautiful day. I told them I often spent my birthday away from home, but this year it definitely felt like home since I had so many friends and family.

Then came time to serve! Everyone put their bowl out on the table and four men evenly divided the feast of wallaby soup with noodles and rice while women and childen shooed flies. I got the frisbees out for a bit while we waited! Then we found everyone who knew they had a June birthday and everyone who knew they were born in 1989 and took pictures together :)

When the meal was served, it was time for another birthday song! The soup was really good! Dugal cooked the meat with plenty of oil and garlic, and the rice was nicely cooked. A few people wandered in to grab food and left without saying hi (most noticeably Geoff!) but for the most part it was a happy, well-fed group. 

Now I’m sitting in my room rejuvenating from all the socializing. When the sun sets, I’ll go set up Moana on the laptop for a final birthday hoorah!