It's My Berfday!

Its My Berfday!!

So it’s my berfday today, and I share it with my neighbor Djonny, who turns 4, while I turn 32. Anyway, last night we had a little joint festa, the likes of which I’ve never seen. A festa to end the resta.

So it started around 7PM (it was a school night after all) and when I got there at 745, it was already in full swing. There are 397 people living in Chan di Igreja, and I think all of them were crammed into the Cruz’s apartment downstairs. Certainly the 68 kids that go to primaria (elementary school) with Djonny were all there, and I’m pretty sure EVERYONE between the ages of 2 and 20 were there. I had been smelling delicious, mind-bogglingly savory and delectable cosas (things) cooking all day (I live upstairs from their kitchen), but nothing prepared me for the spread that they had laid out on the table there…with Djonny’s grandmother acting as a bouncer to keep the kids away while Marlen (Djonny’s mom) made a few last minute flourishes, making everything Just So.

There, before me on the table, lay cookies, crackers, cakes, cokes and kolaches; pipoka (popcorn), pizza, pastels and pao (bread). Tarts, crepes, doughnuts and yogurts. Also these little fish treats. YUM. There were sodas and sumo (juice) and milk, and the adults had beer and paunche. There was a full-on diskoteka sound system that came from God knows where because I’ve never seen it before and it was BLASTING some pretty good-timing and funky Cape Verdian zook music (think Afro-Brasilian Hip-Hop). Everyone was dancing. There were party hats and balloons (which a few malcriados filled with water before the night was over) and streamers and noise makers and tinsel and glitter.

At about 9, they brought out The Cake. It said “Happy Birthday Spidermans” with the number 4 turned facing the wring direction but that’s OK), we dimmed the lights and sang parabens (happy birthday to you), Djonny blew out the candles, and finally, at long last, the kids were turned loose on the snacks….and all Hell broke loose. It was like tossing 20 loaves of bread up in the air to seagulls on the beach. Like 6 tons of chum dumped in a swarming mass of starving sharks. Little Djonny’s gramma was mowed down by an onslaught of 4 year old kids all hyped-up on zook music and the smell of sugar. The sharks and gulls were grabbing cakes and tarts and those yummy little fish-treats by the fistfuls, cramming it down their throats, trying to fend off the bigger gulls and sharks. One little bastard had a whole 2 litre bottle of Orange Dolly in his two tiny little mitts…head thrown back, just draining the thing like some kinda midget vampire. From somewhere in the chaos, an adult yells at him (I think the kid is called Oswaldo and he was one of the ones with the water balloons later) and it must have scared him because now Orange Dolly is snarfing out his nose but he doesn’t care. I see Marlen through the detritus which is now flying through the air, and she has a look of, well…satisfaction if you can believe it. Yup, it’s definitely satisfaction. All of this takes only a few minutes, and then it’s gone. The food I mean. All of it.

It got even better after that. Instantly, Marlen and a team of helpers are hauling out the tables and chairs and every other movable object in the kitchen and are using a huge sweeper broom to clean up the shrapnel while the kids are running around yelling and screaming and dancing, and blowing the noisemakers, all of them now fully fueled and ready to…Dance. Yup, the clean-up and clear-out done in the kitchen has resulted in The Dance Floor and now all the kids are crammed in there to see…that Rafaela and Sonyea have choreographed a little number, complete with matching outfits, that any mom in America probably would have passed out from having seen (even the little ones already know how to do the Nawty Dance). Anyway, its awesome, everyone is cheering and clapping and you wouldn’t believe the noise. The gals finish up and now come all the others, shaking their little booties and partying like it was 1999. Things continued on like that until well past 11PM and then, like magic, it was over. Some signal, unseen and unheard by me, and everyone starts filing out and I’m looking for Marlen and Djonny to say thanks and Happy Birthday and goodbye, and I find them in the bedroom, her and Djonny and Djon all curled up together asleep. So sweet.

Anyway, it was tons of fun, and great way to spend the night before my birthday. Today’s been great as well…I’ve had a few phone calls from the other volunteers and a few neighbors here in Chan Di Igreja, and hopefully I’ll get to talk to my sister tonight (hint hint). Tonight I dine in Coculi, where the two volunteers living there have offered to cook me sumpin’ good and I can’t wait. Thanks to everyone who’s already called or e-mailed or sent me a little something in the mail…you’ve made this 32nd birthday of mine a really great one!