My birthday fell on a Friday this year. The night before, Beth and her family and the Shorts and I went to Arusha for dinner at the AIM mall food court, which is our standard birthday celebration when we can't think of anything else to do. I had some excellent Indian food.
Friday was a busy day at work; we had a school baraza (assembly for awards, etc.) in the afternoon. I had to watch over my shoulder all day because the tradition here is to dump water on the birthday person. Now, normally this wouldn't be an issue, because students don't typically know their teachers' birthdays...
However, I made a bit of an error in judgment way back last October in Preform. We had been reviewing saying dates in English, and I had used my real birthday as an example. I never thought the students would take much notice or remember it that long if they did...but I underestimated them. Several carefully made a note in the back of their exercise books and referenced it occasionally.
And now for the last month or so, several of the boys have been doing this thing where they wander by me and whisper "July" or "the 12th" or "Friday" under their breath, just so I know they know. So, I was watching my back (and had packed a dry shirt in my bag just in case). However, I was saved because we were having a water shortage again, so they couldn't waste any water on me if they wanted to be able to do laundry for the week. They had a good time threatening it, though.
After I finally left school for the evening, Michela invited me over to the Shorts' house. She had baked a chocolate cake for me, so I got to blow out candles. I even got lucky by sitting by Deborah-- I like a little cake with my icing, while she loves cake but doesn't care much for icing (I can't fathom a ten-year-old not liking icing, but apparently it happens), so we split up our pieces with me getting the top halves with icing and her getting the bottom halves of just cake.
So, here I am, at 35.
0 comments:
Post a Comment