Monday, November 28th: Isn’t it Sonia’s birthday?

We have been making plans to celebrate Sonia’s first birthday for a few days already.  It was a full weekend and I was struggling with what is called “Berd”.  We would call it the flu ... general achiness and a mild fever.   Because of “Berd” and because life here is not run by calendar and time, I seemed to have missed the fact that today was Sonia’s birthday.

At lunchtime, Kalia came into the house from school and asked, “Isn’t it Sonia’s birthday today?”  To which I replied.  “No it is tomorrow.”  She answered, “But today is the 28^th of November.”

I was shocked.  “Really?”  I had to check the calendar on my computer and sure enough, it was staring me in the face.  Monday, November 28^th.   “Kalia, you are right.  Today is Sonia’s birthday.”  Since I had told the Schwenks and my family that we were celebrating Sonia’s birthday on Tuesday, an argument began in the classroom about Sonia’s real birthdate.

We immediately began celebrating Sonia’s birthday and she seemed to understand.  She has already taken her first steps several days ago, but this day, we saw a few more.   We sang to her, I made some cupcakes and she enjoyed her first taste of icing.  The real party was still going to take place on Tuesday.  

The afternoon was taken up by preparing doro wat (chicken stew) and white bean stew for the lunch meal we would serve.  In the evening, I baked a cake and cupcakes and icing.    Rolf was unable to find icing sugar in Addis and so making icing was truly “from scratch”.   We get unrefined sugar here which takes a lot of mixing to even partially dissolve.   I took this sugar and used my coffee blender to grind it into powder.  I used a new recipe that called for margarine.  We get “Holland” made margarine that has a lengthy shelf life.  It works well for cookies but not so well for icing.  Even my children rejected the first batch of icing that I made.  So I had to start over with a new recipe (that used a lot less margarine).

Rolf spent the evening decorating the iced cake with a huge butterfly and Sonia’s name.   Why do we go to all this work?  It seems rather strange in this environment.  But we decided it was to show our love to our kids, a way to remember their special day in the future and help them to be part of our western culture.  And of course, we couldn’t stop making cakes for our 5^th child since she is just as special as the others.  So we stayed up late and hoped it would be enjoyed by all.   

And it was a record low temperature in Gesses of 14 C last night.  I realize this may not seem cold to many of you but with our open windows and plywood walls, it is actually chilly.