Megan's Birthday

The last major event of that week was the early celebration of Megan's birthday. I have known Megan since I have known Berkeley- we lived on the same floor in the dorms. I have spoken to many people who hated dorm life, but I had a wonderful time and made what I hope will be lifelong friends there, and Megan is definitely among them. It was wonderful to celebrate her birthday here, and we had a great time, so you are going to have to suffer through a description of how to throw a party 3rd world style (we actually pulled off quite a lot). Megan had the inspiration to imitate one of the best college style parties: a room-to-room, in which each room has its own theme and the people who live there throw a "mini-party" of their theme before everybody moves on to the next room.

First was dinner: Vegetable curry and rice. Rice is not hard to find here, but a wide assortment of vegetables required a trip to Accra. The curry sauce contained three ingredients: coconut milk, sugar, and curry powder. It was amazing. The fresh smell that comes with cutting vegetables is especially aromatic when you haven't eaten them in a while. With big scoops of white rice (possibly my new favorite food)

We then moved on to Kelli and Elaine's fruit room. They had painstakingly sliced a beautiful array of fruits with Swiss Army Knives with NUTELLA in the middle (basically like liquid joy). I ate so much pineapple my mouth stung and I had to lay off of it for a week afterwards.

Next was Talia and Natalie's Tea Time, featuring honeybush rooibus tea, a wide variety of biscuits (the British did come to colonize, and while they didn't really leave a strong tea stamp, you can buy little packets of biscuits anywhere). It was lovely. Mac even brought out some fermented local alcohol that reportedly tasted like some combination of feet and ham. I don't hate myself enough to drink something with such a description, so we can't be sure

Finally was the Birthday room. Emily (Megan's roommate) decorated the room and welcomed everyone in by spraying them with silly string (the Ghanaians were really amused by that). We had chocolate birthday cake, and lollipops with whistles on the inside, and almost everyone from the program was in one room together for the first time in a long time. We focused mostly on appreciating Megan, but it was nice to survey a room full of people with whom I've shared so many wacky experiences. All in all, a very successful celebration.