NEEMA'S BIRTHDAY

One of our favorite nannies, Neema (a very common name that means Grace in Swahili), came to work the other night and told me it was her Birthday. Why didn’t you tell us earlier, we could have made you a cake! She admitted that it was kind of a bummer to be babysitting on her Birthday, but that there was no reason to complain. She was just thankful and praising God that she was having a 24th Birthday because she has had a good life. How sweet is that!

When we returned to our apartment later that night we realized that we had a couple things stashed away for a kid's birthday party, like birthday hats and candles. We even had a couple small loafs of banana bread and a bottle of chocolate syrup, so we added a few bananas, came up with a makeshift birthday cake, lit the candles and took in downstairs to sing happy birthday! It was really cute because she was so excited. We got the impression that they don’t do the ‘birthday candle’ thing because she looked at us like ‘why is my cake on fire’ and on of the other ladies had to tell her to blow them out. She wanted a proper birthday photo taken, so she changed from her nanny clothes into her normal clothes.

Apparently the custom is for the birthday girl to feed her guests their first bite of cake, and for someone to feed her as well. So we have photos of everyone taking their ceremonial bite!