My 12th Birthday - August 4th

I had a great birthday in Gesses. My mom made pancakes for breakfast which is our tradition on birthdays. She had saved some blackberry sauce for the occasion. After breakfast, my dad took me to the chicken coop and showed me my hen. I named her Blackberry (after the sauce we had for breakfast). 


 She is speckled black and white. At first, Blackberry and Butterscotch (Joel's hen) were not happy to see each other but they have now become friends.


 After breakfast, one of our teammates, who is a vet, spayed our neighbour's dog. Charlotte spends half of her time at our house so most of the time she seems like she is our dog. This is the second surgery I have been able to watch. It took a long time for Charlotte to wake up and she slept most of the day. I used to want to be a vet but I prefer spending time with animals to operating on them. 


 
In the afternoon, my dad took all of us kids to a nearby river. We went tubing with motorcycle tire tubes and had a great time floating down the river. It was an unusually sunny afternoon for rainy season so we had a great time. My dad almost lost our car keys since he put them in a plastic bag in his pocket. He thought it was a good idea to put some air in the plastic bag so that if the bag fell out of his pants pocket, the bag would float. But BECAUSE he put air in the bag, it floated out of his pocket when he was wading through deep water. When he realized it was gone, it had already floated down the river but he found it stuck in a branch of leaves hanging in the water. Meanwhile my mom made one of my favourite meals - taco soup with cornbread and she baked an angel food cake for dessert topped with chocolate mousse and homemade ice-cream.








We had some guests over and played frisbee and badminton, then we had supper and ended the evening by playing a couple of rounds of Cludo. Someone acts out a person, a weapon and a place and then two other people (who are in another room) have to take their turn at acting out the three things. The last person has to guess the three things. It can be pretty crazy. Since our guests brought treats from the States, I gave all the kids treat bags to take home. (This is pretty special and we all try and stretch out the treats for as long as possible.) Even though I couldn't invite any of my (peer) friends over this year, I had a really special birthday.  Kalia





Kalia, you are full of love and laughter. You are a great communicator and love to share about your animals and adventures with others. Even though you don't particularly love the kitchen, you are a willing and competent snack maker and tortilla baker. Music is a great way of helping make mundane tasks enjoyable and you always know when that is a necessary addition! I love working together with you! You know when you need to get away and immerse yourself in a good book. Your knitting has already blessed many people in our family! Your creativity and generosity is a gift to both our family and the Gumuz that come to our door. We love you. Happy 12th Birthday