My Birthday (Part 2)

Yesterday I told my host mom that today was my birthday, but I wasn’t sure she understood, until about an hour ago.

So I made dinner later today, around 6:30. My host mom told me to hurry up and eat so that she could mop the floor all while I was talking with my family and doing dishes. I went upstairs to finish talking with my family and to carry on with my night, including part one of today’s blog.

Later she calls me down to wash a pan that I used earlier, and I go down… all the lights are off… I enter the kitchen and SURPRISE; there was a party waiting for me. They sang in both English and Portuguese. Once she rushed me out of the kitchen, she baked a cake; and it was still warm when we ate it. (Carrot cake with brigadeiro icing… amazing). And although I am a birthday party host, I suck at cutting cakes.

They also got me two presents: a drawstring bag with Brazilian cities on them (I had only heard of four of them) and a bottle opener which doubles as a keychain and magnet. (Angela had bought the presents a while ago when she went shopping… I had no idea she knew my birthday was coming up because I didn’t tell her until yesterday.)

We sat and talked while having cake and juice. My intense Portuguese training is starting to pay off, as I could understand some of the sentences. (Albeit they had to go nearly word for word, but I’m getting somewhere.) It was the first time in a while that I’ve talked to the family (because of my bad Portuguese), but I think now I should start chatting with them more to put what I’m learning into practice.

It’s difficult enough being away from my family, especially on holidays. However, this party was really lovely and pretty similar to how it would have been in the States. I definitely enjoyed my 20th birthday. Here’s to another year down and another to go. (As long as I can get through the next seven and a half weeks…)