A Season of Birthdays

The past three weeks have been filled with lots of birthday wishes in the Kayunga/Jinja area. My PCV friend Lisa celebrated her 24th birthday in style at a lovely pool in Jinja while my friend Maggie had a visitor from the States who celebrated her 24th birthday in Jinja as well. Work has been so busy for me lately that these birthday days have been a breath of fresh air not to mention a whole truck load of fun.

Pool day for Lisa

Natalie's Birthday - NRE Sunset Cruise

The third birthday we celebrate was mine! Birthdays were always very special in my family growing up and my parents always put a lot of effort into making them into amazing birthday seasons for my brother and me. Last year it felt strange being away from my family and friends back home for my birthday, but this year all I felt was love from my friends and family here in Uganda and from everyone back home near and far. On my birthday my PCV friends and I had a wonderful pool day on Bujigali Falls overlooking the Nile and had a fabulous lunch. After traveling back to Kayunga that night (with a delicious pizza in hand from Jinja Town) I got to Skype with my family and best friend for hours. Needless to say I feel very blessed to have had such a wonderful birthday.

Birthday lunch at The Black Lantern on Bujigali Falls

I even got to have a birthday sundae with real ice cream (real ice cream is hard to find here)!

Mom even sent me cake - yummy! They were almost to good to eat, but you can't keep a Maine girl away from mini whoopie pies!

Then a couple days after my real birthday I got to have a second party with my Ugandan family. We celebrated at their favorite spot, which is the local pork joint in town. I love it there too - it has the most beautiful field to watch the sun set. All the people I love in Kayunga were there to celebrate with me and filled my night with fun and love. [Sorry for the blurry pictures - my camera is old and doesn't shoot well in the dark...oops.]

Chris and Francis - double trouble

Susan <3

Best Friends

Three Best Friends (Side note: I played them the song "Three Best Friends" from The Hangover and now it's their favorite song. Definitely my kind of people.)

Shafeke - Alisat's son who is super shy, but just started to like me. I guess I was to scary for the first 18 months - ha!

My Ugandan Family