juggling birthday commitments

Friday was doubly-celebrated: día de la amistad (friendship day) as well as my birthday.  Paraguayans celebrate the former by buying all of their friends huge stuffed toys that say ILOVEYOUFRIENDYOUARETHEBESTEVER!!!! and also sing insipid songs, sometimes while moving their little stuffed limbs.  And they celebrate the later by customarily imposing upon the birthday girl/boy, who is expected to throw a party for all of the friends/relatives (i.e. they usually show up empty handed and drink beer/eat asado on the  celebrate-ee's dime.  Pretty slick system, for party goers at least!).  So I was sort of dreading a mountain of awful stuffed toys *plus* having to throw multiple parties for myself.  

And true to form...baking my own birthday cake at KM11:

Jazz hands help the cake-baking juju.  Baking a cake under rather uncertain conditions was less daunting the second time around, but still...

Ña G. looked on with skepticism.  I think she was excited about the cake extravaganza (and thus suffered my presence in her kitchen) because she wanted the 'workshop' so that she could later bake cakes to sell in her grocery shop.  But the look on her face as I explain the fine art of pastry-making... priceless!

But apparently there was a squabble over where to have my birthday party...complicated by the fact that it was supposed to be a surprise (yippee!!  If all I have to do is bake the cake and leave the whole lunch extravaganza up to somebody else, so much the better!!!).  But the ladies at the neighborhood lunch program got all bent out of shape because they wanted the party *there* where they cooked at the community center [of sorts...i.e., shack with a table and benches]...while Ña F. decided that it absolutely had to be at her house and spent all morning cooking and prepping (to the stress of the lunch-program cooks, since she was too busy with birthday preparations to help cook lunch for the kiddies).  All of this is to say: drama.  Yikes!  Too many birthday commitments, and suddenly I seemed to be in the middle of a neighborhood row.  But luckily everything seemed settled over lunch, and all ruffled feathers smoothed by some conciliatory words (by me) and a peace offering of asado (from Ña F.)...and everybody ended up at her house after all.

Complete with lots of cute kiddies that demanded photos... [I've sort of become the de facto neighborhood photographer, which is great.  But stressful because later everybody of course wants prints.  Good thing my trusty little inkjet printer hasn't been sold off in the massive moving sale yet!]

...And grilled intestines for lunch.  Mmmmmmm!!!  Just what I wanted for my birthday!  Luckily there was some fish on the grill before the innards were BBQd, as well as a piece or two of chicken.  But I never seem to be able to escape without trying *everything* ['come on Caroline...it's delicious!!!!].  The worst part is that cow entrails don't even give me pause anymore.  With lot's of lime juice, they are actually quite palatable.  I must be going native...

We spent a lot of time blowing up balloons for decorations.  Which was quite cute!

And Fundación Paraguaya intern Mary got put on baby duty [pretty much all girls who don't have their own children yet get stuck caring for infants.  I get off the hook by being generally surly and emphatically non-maternal.  But anybody who so much as smiles and coos at one of the little buggers gets slapped with kid duty in a jiffy!]

And our cake with fresh coconut buttercream frosting: success!

...and then it apparently is a tradition to throw flour on the hair of the birthday girl.  Eeeek!  Not expecting that!  But since the neighborhood ladies had already pooled their money to buy me a lovely necklace and earrings, some well-meaning hazing seemed good spirited.  And luckily most of it missed!!!

And then on to the second (third?) party, with more cake [Ña G. had been taking careful notes and had baked *another* cake while I was at the other party!].  The ladies of her microcredit committee were celebrating friendship day, and had an elaborate merienda [afternoon snack/tea] to commemorate the occasion.  And send more birthday well-wished my way, of course.  Delightful.

So then Mary and me ran for the the last bus out of KM11 to head back to the office, where the staff of Fundación Paraguaya was *also* having a friendship day merienda.  So more cake.  And stuffed toy gifts (an office 'secret friend' gift exchange had been planned a couple days ago).  I might never eat cake again.  It was a *big* day.

So with a week and a half to go in the long fieldwork odyssey...it was a touching and heartfelt goodbye celebration with my friends here in paraguay.  Hopefully I won't be dusted with flower, offered BBQ innards, or caught in the middle of neighborhood rivalries upon my return.  But I sure will miss all of the excitement!