Friday we had another kind of party for her.  We invited every national that we know – our teachers, EB’s babysitter and her family, the cleaning lady and her family, our neighbors, our drivers and their families, and our guards.  Almost everyone came that we invited and it was a FULL HOUSE!  According to national custom, the men were hosted in one room and the women and children in another.  As we prepared for the party, we realized that we did not have nearly the supplies we needed to host so many people.  We began asking our driver/neighbor if we could borrow things from him.  He magnanimously told us that we could borrow the things we asked for, but little did we know how much we needed him!  He showed up at our house this morning with 12 serving dishes and showed us exactly how to arrange all of the pistachios, almonds, chick peas, raisins, and peanuts we had bought.  Then he went home and came back with 16 small dishes to put chocolates in.  He disappears again and came back with a serving tray full of tea glasses because he knew we didn’t have enough.  And, the piece de resistance, 22.5 pounds of cake and 6 pounds of cookies purchased at the local bakery were arranged beautifully on 10 of our neighbors serving plates.  We may have bought the food, but we were totally clueless as to how to serve it in an appropriate way – thank goodness for the awesome driver/neighbor/lifesaver who helped us pull it all together.

It was an awesome party for EB – she was doted on and played with to within an inch of her life by the 15 kids that came while my teammates and I served tea and tried to muddle our way through conversations with the 20-some-odd ladies in the room.  DB had a great time hanging out with the guys as well, and we have pronounced the afternoon a roaring success.  We feel this is a huge first step to making friends, a gigantic lesson in cultural do’s and don’ts, and some excellent practice in using our language. 

I made at least one pretty big language phopa (at least that I know about).  As everyone left, I told then boldy how happy I was that they had come to my home.  It wasn’t until I repeated the kind phrase to my language teacher that I found out I had been saying “I am so happy that you are leaving my home.”  Oh well – I hope they understood what I meant, and I think they let it slip – they all still invited me to come to their home sometime.

So our sweet EB girl enjoyed her birthday immensely and was the very bridge we needed to begin really becoming involved in our community.  I mean, one month in country and ten days of language classes – why just have a few people over?  Go big or go home, right?  At least that’s DB’s philosophy of life, and I think in this instance it was right on target!