In the morning, Keziah, Grace and Chris invited me to their house to have birthday breakfast. They treated me to delicious scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, and banana bread. It was a special treat compared to my usual breakfast of toast, and the company was great!
After breakfast, I met up with Casey, Youvendjy, Becca, Julie, Emma, and Kara to go to a beach we call "pebble beach". The road there goes over mountains and is quite bumpy so we called our favorite moto drivers and the seven of us loaded up onto four motorcycles. The drive is about 45 minutes long with beautiful scenery the entire way.
We spent several hours relaxing in the blue water, jumping off rocks, and throwing pebbles at Julie :)
After the beach, we all went home to get ready for my birthday dinner. Since we spend so much time together as it is, we have been having theme parties for all of our special occasions. It makes things more interesting, and gives us something fun to do. When brainstorming ideas for my party theme, someone asked me, "What did you do for birthday parties as a kid?" I explained that each year I would go to my grandparents for my birthday dinner with my family. I have lots of great memories spent with my grandparents. "That it!" they said, "That is your theme: grandparents"
So, we all did our best to scrounge up some "old person clothes" and renamed ourselves things like, Opal, Ethel, Hershel, Clarence, and Cecelia.
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| Ethel and Opal |
We had my favorite Haitian dish, diri a sos pwa (rice and black bean sauce) for dinner and Julie made me cheesecake for desert. It was a VERY special treat! For birthdays, the tradition here is that we do essays. Everyone is given a piece of paper and ten minutes on the clock. You must write about the birthday girl or boy. It can be sentimental, funny, a poem, a rap, etc. There are not really any rules to how you write. I felt so loved by all the sweet words that everyone shared. Chris's essay definitely made me laugh the most. He decided to stay in character as "Clarence" for his essay. He even wrote it in shaky old man handwriting:
"Dear Ethel, I remember when we first met, it was two day ago at the social, during the meet and greet. I noticed you taking Rupert's medicine while you pretended to wipe the mustard off his face. That's when I knew we would be friends. Happy birthday, doll. Here's to a few more good years.
-Clarence C. Byrum"
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| Chris and Jake aka Clarence and Hershel |
It was a birthday to remember, and I'm so thankful for everyone here that made it extra special. I love you all!
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