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| Bowling with Emily & Sam |
I had an awesome birthday yesterday. It started with opening a package of treats
that a friend had sent over all the way from the US. I also got email and phone greetings from
family. For breakfast, I ate some
pumpkin cake made by a friend (dessert #1).
By the time I went to work, I already felt very loved.
After morning worship and prayer at the office, we had some
excellent cake made by our Ugandan cook (dessert #2). And Seattle sent me a birthday present of a nice cool drizzle. Then I got to go to the US Embassy for a
security meeting! I’ve actually been
wanting to see inside the US Embassy ever since I got here, but I never had a
reason before. It definitely felt and
looked like we were in the US. We even
noticed that employees were keeping to the right as they walked down the stairs
(as opposed to the left, per Ugandan/British convention). And they served wonderful chocolate croissants
(dessert #3)!
For lunch, I got the “special plate” (a ceramic plate with a
bison on it) and a free soda (both are an EMI tradition), and Rose had made a
fantastic birthday cake with chocolate frosting and pecans for all the July
birthdays (dessert #4)! In the
afternoon, I got a card from my office, and Sarah passed around some yummy lemon
bars she had made (dessert #5 … and #6). And I found out that Uganda gave me a birthday present of approving my work permit for another 3 years!!
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| Enjoying Pizza at New York Kitchen |
Immediately after work, I took off with 12 friends for my
birthday party. We had great pizza at
New York Kitchen, then went to AlleyGators for bowling! I’d certainly never been bowling in Africa
before, so it was quite the experiment, but we all had a great time and were
actually pretty impressed with their official-looking 6 lanes. No shoes, but socks worked just fine. And they even interrupted the adjacent dance
floor music to play Happy Birthday and For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow! Haha!
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| Having fun at the AlleyGators bowling alley! |
For the finale, we went to “Uganda’s only revolving
restaurant” for dessert! I’d also never
been there before and always wondered what it was like. Well, (I just looked it up) it actually
revolves at half the rate of the restaurant in the Space Needle, but since the
whole thing was pretty small (you know, smaller radius and all), it felt like
we were “bookin’ it” around the circle; plus add to that the back-and-forth
motion of uneven movement, and we all thought we might be a little sick at
first, like we were on an airplane or boat.
But I think we either got used to it or forgot about it after a while,
and we enjoyed the view of the city lights (we were a whopping 13 stories
high!). We even got to confirm our
suspicions that a drive-in movie theater is being installed on the roof of the
parking garage next door. They had a
live piano player, which was actually pretty nice, and he even played Happy
Birthday with everyone singing along, once we rotated to his section. I think everyone was a little under-whelmed
by the desserts, but it was fun nonetheless.
(I couldn’t really complain, since it WAS dessert #7.) I also received several presents throughout
the day, plus many Facebook greetings waiting for me online.
It was such a great birthday! (I didn’t even feel too frustrated when I got
home and found that I had no running water.)
I feel so blessed to have great friends here, a job I love, a city I can
explore, plus loving friends and family “back home.” Thanks to all who participated in my fabulous
day or sent birthday wishes!
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