Phases of Sixty---Part 5

 

Birthday guests

There are only about 2 hours left in the month of February here and I want to do one more entry for this month to close some story loops. There was at least one significant social event, as well as a work trip and some school events to track. 

I will begin at the end, as we are just home from International Day at Rosslyn Academy. It is a tradition at the school that actually mirrors the same event we used to celebrate annually at Bingham Academy in Ethiopia. International Days are definitely a cause for celebration at an international school where we have over 60 nations represented in the student population. Although Rosslyn was established as  a Christian mission school, it receives students from many countries and gets a number from families of UN and embassy workers who want a good English language school. 

The festivities began about 2:30 in the afternoon on a football field at the school. Each county had a booth and people from each country prepared tons of traditional foods. Rebecca made chocolate chip cookies and a vat of mac-n-cheese as part of the America table offerings. 

The event began with a parade of nations, with each nation, represented by parents, teachers and students, in traditonal dress coming up to the stage one at a time. It took quite a while and I sensed a lot of pride for each country coming with their flags, like the Olympics. China may have had the most impressive display with a giant panda costume, and two dragon-lions with 2 people in each.

When the US came up, many students in red white and blue with flags ran up to the stage jubilantly. I admit I felt a pang of sadness and shame at the thought of the amount of foreign aid that was canceled this week. USAID families from the school are leaving. I felt like we had withdrawn all of our good will, and celebrating ourselves in this African context, where the cuts will be devastating, felt wrong. 

Nonetheless, everyone was having a great time, and after the parade people were invited to get plates and sample foods at each booths-- popular ones were India, Ethiopia, USA, Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Korea, China, all the Scandanavian countries, and Canada, where they featured a lot Tim Horton's style donuts, but no poutine. It was a really hot day today. 

After eating, we had a variety of entertainment acts from different countries. Rebecca and I were asked to lead a line dance for the US. We did Good Time, and people really loved doing it. It was actually a lot of fun to teach and watch the students and adults learn--over 100 participated. 

We came home around 5pm, made pizza, and watched an episode of The Chosen before I started this.

The other big social event this past week was my Birthday! A milestone --65, which seems very strange to me. I am convinced I did not age a day during the 25 years of my dance career, so I feel more physically in my 40s. But given it was a milestone, we decided to go all out. We invited most everyone we knew--all MCC staff, people from church, small group, neighbors, school, we even had some friends from Ethiopia who happened to be in town this week. We had it catered from an Indian restaurant which made the food really great. 

We also planned a full program of events--folk dancing (especially the Virginia Reel), a feasting liturgy, Indian food, a piñata, talent show and singing with the banjo and guitar. We were going to have some of it out and some of it indoors. 

About 10 minutes before the 5pm start time, our power went out. We were not sure how this affect the plans if it stayed off (which it did until the next day). During daylight hours we had the dancing and dinner so that was fine. (We could not do the Virginia reel because there were too many people for the driveway where we were going to do it. But we did some other dances instead.) 

It was still light at dinner and Rebecca prepared a Liturgy for Feasting with Friends from a book called Every Moment Holy. It was a great blessing that included prayer as well as raising glasses in good cheer. The dinner catered by Rosinas was fabulous. A very nice array of Indian dishes. 

After dinner, we used some strong flashlights for the piñata, and it worked well. I have made the kids piñatas for all of their Birthdays to 16, but not one for mine. I did the papier mache over some balloons and David painted it. It was not a specific character, just an abstract design. We had a large group of youths as whole families were invited, so they really enjoyed smashing it open. 

Cake and present openning followed this. I got some great gifts, including a lot of licorice (I think Rebecca must have said I like it), and some golf balls as well, which were great since David and I play whenever we can. I also got a new hat and Rebecca got me a Fitbit. 

After that it was really dark, so I lit a fire in our outdoor fire pit which made a nice light area to sit around. We had prepared a songsheet of bluegrass songs about the hear-after. It seems most bluegrass religious music is about what is to come. I played the banjo, and Rebecca played guitar with David singing. We did, I'll fly away, Sweet bye and bye, I'm gonna sit at the welcome table, Ain't no grave gonna hold my body down, All my tears, The big rock candy mountain (about hobo heaven). We also did a Porters Gate song, Teach us to number our days. It was appreciated by all, and the banjo sounded pretty good with the guitar. 

Having all of this by firelight was actually very picturesque, although it was not our plan at all. People left around 9pm I think. We spent a fair bit of Saturday cleaning up and relaxing after much preparation. We are starting to see the contours of our new community here. 

This past week we did have some unusual work activites. We had a visit to Nairobi from MCC's global finance team. This includes all finance people from all regional offices all over the world as well as US and Canada. It can be hard to find a country where everyone can get a visa--especially US and Canada. But Kenya seemed to work out fine. 

We met the team at their hotel on Tuesday and had lunch with them. They wanted to see a project, so we took them to a school and maternal child health project in an informal settlement called Mukuru kwa Reuben (that is the correct way to call a slum). It is a very poor part of town with very vulnerable families. The school has a huge impact giving many a chance to go who would never dream of going.

We went out with the 17 member finance team in a small bus that managed to get down the narrow alleys to the school, which was in session. If you are not used to seeing buildings with mud floors made of tin, it might be a shock. But the school is very well run.

We met the head teacher and project staff. We heard about the history of the school and church that built it. We had a chance to watch many songs of dances of children who entertained us. We also met a student who graduated there and was now going to University. We also met our two volunteers who work there, Deborah and Mary, Deborah works at the school, and Mary in the MCH project. 

We ate the same lunch as the students, which was a corn bean stew called githeri. It was very simple, and quite tasty. After lunch,, we visited some classrooms and then met the whole school for an outdoor assembly where we thanked them and returned to our office where we gave the team an overview of our program before they returned to their hotel. 

There were some various and sundry smaller events. We have been seeing our friends the Kontras from Ethiopia who were here for a football tournament in which Bingham came from Ethiopia to play at Rosslyn. It was great to see them and their kids. Sadly, neither Bingham nor Rosslyn won in the end, but David and Rebecca cheered them on. 

We have been working hard in choir getting ready for a March concert. David and I did get to golfing at least once this month, which is now much cheaper that he got a junior golfer card which means he can play for about 50cents per game--so only I have to pay for myself.

Big Rock Candy Mountain