Postcards from Dakar: My Birthday

Tuesday was my 21st birthday. I had tentatively planned to spend the day at the beach drinking cocktails in observance of that auspicious occasion, but through an unfortunate combination of circumstances (laziness the weeks before, horrible headache the night before), I had a lot of homework to get done for the next day and ended up spending the day at home working on a paper. That and laundry, which, when you have to do it all by hand, is no joke.

Usually the WARC staff buys a cake for people’s birthday and you just share it with whoever is there at the time that they bring it out for you, but since I didn’t have class that day, I wasn’t going to go to WARC. I got a call from Josephine at about 6:30 wishing me happy birthday and asking me why I hadn’t come in today. I told her I didn’t have class and I had things that I needed to do at home, and she said, “Oh, okay, see you tomorrow then.” About an hour later, she showed up at my house with cake. It was totally sweet.

I didn’t think my family was going to do anything for my birthday. I had gotten text messages from Moussouba and Habibou earlier in the day, Danny wrote on my Facebook wall, and Anita sang “Happy Birthday” to me in English when she got home from school (which is a big deal for her; she hates English), but Kiki’s birthday had gone by unobserved the Thursday before, so I wasn’t hoping for much more than that.

So I was surprised and delighted when Moussouba knocked on my door at about the same time she does every night when she gets home from work, and instead of the regular, “Bonsoir, comment tu vas,” all my siblings were at my door. They presented me with a big cake complete with candles that said “Joyeuse Anniversaire Kiersten et Kiki,” turned off the lights, and sang “Joyeuse Anniversaire” to me. It was great. I made a wish and blew out the candle, and then we all went and ate cake (before dinner) in the living room. Someone even went out to buy soda, which is something that only every happens for parties and special occasions (though when I’m at school or out and about, I’m practically hooked up to an IV of orange Fanta). We had a nice time eating cake together and taking pictures and talking. It didn’t turn out to be a totally lame 21st birthday after all.