I wrote a birthday blog entry at home to post later, but Justin beat me to posting. So you've already heard about Juma's party and seen some pictures, but here's my version anyway:
Today we celebrated Juma’s 4th birthday. We decided to go ahead and invite some friends to a party, even though neither of us are big party people. Immediately, friends started advising us on how to go about a proper, modern Swahili birthday party—much of it adopted from Western style birthdays, and then adapted to a Swahili style. Loud music is essential, along with a three-tiered bakery-made cake, a “stage” (see the picture), the birthday boy in a proper suit, lots of food packed up in individual little containers, sodas, candies given out at the door, and dancing.
We opted out on the three-tiered cake and went instead with the basketball cake Juma has been asking for ever since his third birthday. We initially decided against the stage, thinking it too lavish, and realizing Juma would refuse to sit like a king during the whole party. But one of our friends apparently considered it so essential that he went ahead and arranged one through his friend without consulting with us first. We’re glad we had one, since now we have something to laugh about. (Juma did refuse to sit there except to cut the cake, and spend the first half of the party trying to hide from everyone.)
The whole ceremony of singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candle is pretty much the same as in the US, except that Happy Birthday sounds more like “heppy bah-thday,” and there’s no making a wish. And strangely enough, the cutting of the cake is supposed to be accompanied by Juma feeding pieces to Justin and me, and we feeding some to him and any other honored guests. To this, Juma flatly refused, and we didn’t push it (remembering what happened the last time Justin tried to “feed” me cake).
After the cake was cut up and passed out, we passed out finger foods that our friends had spent all day cooking. Donuts, katlesi, sambusa, keki, and toffess. Then our friend played DJ and blasted the music (a mix of American and Zanzibari taarab) for an hour and a half so everyone could dance. Men and women separately, of course. While a lot of fun, this noise attracted a dozen more kids and half a dozen more adults (none of whom we knew) to show up and ask to be fed. It was a faux pas on our side for not having enough food, rather than a faux pas for showing up uninvited. Indeed, we invited about 35 people, and had enough food for about 57, but couldn’t feed everyone who showed up.
All in all, the party was a huge success, we realized how many friends we’ve made in the past six weeks, and most importantly, Juma had a blast.
1 comment:
Man, that sounds like a h-u-u-g-e shindig to me. You must be the most-talked-about gringoes on the island for a few days or even weeks! Glad to hear Juma enjoyed it after the slow beginning.
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