hey shawty it's your birthday

So I feel the most blessed because I got to have my 21st birthday in Uganda! It was such a wonderful experience, and I am so grateful to everyone that contributed to it.

Before my birthday, I asked quite a few people what the custom was for celebrating birthdays in Uganda. From the responses, the best that I can tell is that people don't really celebrate birthdays here. (Fun fact: I don't think they celebrate Halloween either. Or I'm just really bad at asking questions). You can celebrate your birthday, but it is certainly not culturally expected to do so. If you are going to celebrate your birthday, you would probably get a cake ordered and maybe have a small party. They do sell candles at the supermarket and the little party hats.

For my birthday, it pretty much was any normal day. People would wish me a happy birthday when they heard it was my birthday. I ordered a cake from the supermarket, and we had lots of people over after dinner to have the party. I blew out the candles, we ate some cake, and we had a dance party.

Also, I'm not entirely sure if this is a joke or if it's actually a tradition, but one of the PAs told me that you're supposed to dump water on the birthday guy/girl. Apparently they did it all the time in school. So the PA dumped some water on me for my birthday. Hopefully it's an actual tradition and not just a prank that I was subject to....

We got the chance to celebrate Dr. G.'s daughters birthday while we were here, and I got to see a little bit more of the birthday traditions. First off, they sang a totally different happy birthday song than us. So our group definitely messed up the rhythm for everyone else. There was lots of banging of pots and pans to create a nice beat to sing to. They also have kind of like a "maid of honor" for the birthday. It's the designated person to get the cake ready and lead everyone to sing and do all of that stuff. Each of the siblings gave a small speech about the birthday girl, and presented a gift. Anyone else was then invited to give a speech and present their gift, and then the birthday girl gave a small speech.

The whole family cuts the cake sort of. Kind of like a wedding "cut the cake" a little bit. Then the birthday girl fed her mom the first piece of cake, and then everyone else was able to have some. Her mom gave a speech after everyone else and shared some sweet words about her daughter. She had so many beautiful wishes for her daughter, like being educated and working hard and loving her family forever. It was far more poignant than I think any birthday celebration I've ever been to. I like how they celebrate birthdays here. It's a little bit more about the people than it is about the celebration.

Another interesting fact is that a lot of people don't know when their birthday is, or it takes them a while to think of them. In America, anyone could tell you their birth date so quickly. It's probably the fastest response to a question besides "What's your name?" But here it's different. I would ask people when their birthday is, and they would sit and think for a minute. Eventually they would say, "hmm I think on June 11." Or they would just say an approximate year for their birth. It was so interesting! I do recognize that America has a self-focused culture (both good and bad), whereas Uganda has more of a community-centered culture (again, both good and bad). It makes sense that they don't focus on their birthday because that would be a day devoted entirely to them, and they can't afford that. Their community efforts are too valuable to be spent focusing on themselves individually.

Here are some pictures from my birthday!