My 23rd Birthday (Written April 15, 2012)

So April 10 is my birthday, and this past one was the first I´ve spent out of country. It´s hard to be away from friends and family on such an exciting day, but I think I made the best of it. Thanks to a suggestion from my Mom, I decided to make my own fun instead of hoping others would do so. On Monday I headed into Santiago, the provincial capital, and dropped a fair amount on goodies to share with students: cookies, mini Crunch bars, Oreo cookies, and peanut butter.

On Tuesday, the big day, I came to school with chocolates and cookies. I gave the cookies to the classes I was in and handed out the chocolates to everybody else. I wish I´d bought more, because those three bags weren´t enough for all those kids. But heck, chocolate´s expensive down here!

Then, to my surprise, my teachers bought me a cake and had a nice little party for me at the end of the day.

Later in the afternoon, I went out in the neighborhood with Oreos and peanut butter and gave around thirty kids the treat of a lifetime. Not only was it fun to share one of my favorites with the kids, it was also a good excuse to get out into the community and meet people. I went house to house and chatted for a while before revealing that it was my birthday and that I wanted to share a treat with them.

In exchange for my Oreo-peanut butter combo, the kids sang Happy Birthday in both Spanish and English. Their flawed pronunciation was funny enough, but the best part was the third line. I guess they don´t know the "dear someone" part, because they sang:

Hoppy beerthey to joo,
Hoppy beerthey to joo,
Hoppy beerthey, hoppy beerthey,
Hoppy beerthey to joo!

All in all, a pretty good day.