My Birthday in Kenya

Written Thursday, April 12th

On Thursday, April 5 I celebrated my 25th birthday. As I was contemplating this event and taking stock of my life, I realized how happy I with where I am in life. Truly God has been good to me. I’ve graduated from one of the Canada’s best universities in a program that I love and here I am in Kenya having been awarded one of the relatively few CIDA internships. I’m working at an incredible organization doing very rewarding work. The experience will be a great asset to me wherever I decide to work or continue with education. Five years ago, even three years ago I never would have seen myself here, but I know that it is the right place for me to be.

Thank you to all of you who sent birthday cards or emails. A great big THANK YOU to Jennifer Ferris who sent an absolutely wonderful birthday package that arrived in plenty of time. (I've realized that I don't have a current email address for you, so that's why you haven't heard from me until now!) In it was a letter, an adorable little tiger and a huge birthday poster that had been signed by many of my friends. Thank you for remembering me! Thank you to all those who signed it – Jennifer, Jayne, Jessie-Lee, Liz G., Karl, Anna, Meagan, Sally, Natalie M., Blair, Krystal, Bob, Sarah, Nelson, Cherry, Lisa, Alice, Karen & John, Alicia, Jenn Lee, Crystal, Rob, Nathan & Cecile, Marcus, Mercedes and Baby Turner #3, Kathryn, Annelise, Jonathan, Sally, Rachel, Jason & Jessica, Beemer, Christine, David, Nicole, Kathy, Erin, Ryan, Melinda, Josh, Dennis, Becky & Tim, Nathan S., Evelyn and the three people whose signatures I couldn’t read!!! You have helped to make my birthday very special.

On the morning of my birthday I walked outside of my room to see a birthday sign that Lindsey had taped on one of our doors. That morning we didn’t have classes because it was Easter break. We had a Bible study together, Lindsey prayed for me and then I opened her gift for me. Later that day we traveled to Ndalani where we were to spend the majority of the break. This made for a very special day for me because it allowed me to see many of my friends from Ndalani. There were many birthday wishes. The evening was finished with Lindsey leading a round of “Happy Birthday to You” and presenting me with a “dessert chapatti” (a dessert chapatti is a regular chapatti with margarine spread on it and sugar sprinkled on top). The oven wasn’t working so no cake could be baked.

One Kenyan birthday tradition that I was able to avoid was being the practice of soaking the birthday person with buckets of cold water. Many people threatened but nobody followed through, which was pretty much what I had expected.