Farewell (and birthday) party

~ a full spread for the party ~ Our move to Kenya is only a week and a half away. And my birthday is today. So we couldn't pass up the chance to throw one last big bash. Krista bought me beautiful flowers and we had almost 40 guests on the "confirmed" list. We would serve an American lunch:

• Hamburgers with all the fixin's - lettuce, tomato, dill pickles, condiments, and cheese
• Hot dogs
• Potato salad with CELERY (Celery is not normally available in Uganda)
• Carrots, cucumbers, bell peppers, about 3 pieces of celery (that weren't needed for the potato salad), and cherry tomatoes with ranch dip - the cherry tomatoes were quite entertaining as many people didn't know what they were! Someone guessed, "plum?"
• Banana chips (okay, banana chips are not American but to buy enough Lays potato chips for the party would have easily tripled the cost!)
• Krista's amazing pumpkin chocolate-chip muffins
• A wide collection of pop and beer

~ a full house - the way a party should be ~ Our farewell (and birthday) party was advertised to start at noon. So (foolishly) at 11:45 I put some burgers and hot dogs on the grill.  Our first guests arrived around 12:20 - an American and her Ugandan husband, she insisting they needed to come on time to an "American lunch," he resisting as best he could. Over the course of the next hour a few more trickled in. Finally, sometime before 2 in the afternoon the party really got going. The "slow" start made things very convenient for me manning the grill, which only holds about 16 hamburgers. People were nicely staggered as they arrived over the course of the afternoon, so no one had to wait to get a hot fresh burger. We often had to explain how it all worked - which buns were for burgers and which for hot dogs, what the lettuce, tomatoes, and pickle slices were for, how to prepare a bun and then go see Shauen on the deck, etc. Even with guidance, I often had someone come up to the grill with an empty hot dog bun and a stack of lettuce, tomato, and pickle on the side - with ketchup on top of the "salad." But as I reached for the hot dog, they'd say, "No, I want that one," and point to a hamburger! Needless to say, my very careful counting before the party to make sure we had the right number of buns for everything turned out to be a total waste of time.

~ Apparently I'm almost in my mid-30s ~ We laughed and visited and even took a few Skype calls from our family to wish me Happy Birthday - the first time we muted the 80's music to take a video call from America a great number of Ugandans gathered around to watch this amazing miracle of modern technology. It was wonderful fun. And then those delicious cakes that had been on display all afternoon were finally cut. Krista made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and a white cake with chocolate frosting. The cream cheese frosting was Betty Crocker, hand-carried from the States for this very occasion - yummy!  As usual, the cakes were quite popular. One friend has even asked Krista to set up a tour of his area to teach the women of the congregations how to make cakes!

By the end of the night, the hot dogs and hamburgers were gone, about 8 lbs of carrot sticks were gone, all the pumpkin chocolate-chip muffins were gone, all the beer was ~ My beautiful birthday flowers - Thanks, Krista! ~ gone, and all but about two bites of cake were gone. There were plenty of those "strange" cherry tomatoes left, all three of the celery sticks left (since celery is also completely unknown by Ugandans), and lots of hamburger and hot dog buns left. In Uganda presents are not usually opened in front of guests, so after the singing and the cake, the party just continued with more food and laughter and conversation.

As usual, Josiah was the hit of the party and his nursery was quite popular - at one point there were 4 infants in the nursery, some sleeping, some nursing, and some playing (as much as an infant can "play"). Babies are cuter than me, so I didn't get too jealous. All told, it was an excellent farewell and birthday party.  -Shauen