Well today I turned 21 years old, and it was a birthday I will never forget!

I woke up after sleeping in and the first thing I did was open the present that my boyfriend James Waterman sent with me. It was a scrapbook and was super adorable and sweet! Priscilla took a video of me opening it to show to James later haha. After opening the present and looking through the book a bunch, I started out the morning by going to the market with Mrs. (Anna) Wegner to go fabric shopping; we are getting skirts made! It rained pretty much all of last night, so the market was more of a mud hole than walk-able paths. We were hopping all over the place and grabbing onto each other to keep from falling. Anna wanted to show me the meat aisle and I really wanted to see it, so we started there. It was a nightmare. I mean it was so so interesting all the types of exotic meats they were selling, but it was so scary! The aisle was narrow, smelled HORRID (I almost threw up) because it is all rotting meat covered in flies, and there was blood all over the muddy ground. As I was keeping my eyes on the ground to keep from slipping two huge dead monkeys were dragged on the ground right past my feet, it was insane! They sold monkey, eel, alligator, goat, chicken, and much more in the meat aisle, craziness! After escaping from there we went fabric shopping for about an hour and I found this beautiful fabric that I’m going to have made into multiple things!

For some reason today out of any other day Priscilla and I were blown so many more kisses by Congolese men and were proposed to about twice as much as usual. Either they knew it was my birthday, or it was because we were trying to ride bikes in skirts, women don’t really even ride bikes here…, we can just go with the birthday hypothesis.  

After shopping I went back to Anna’s house to use the Internet so that I could attempt to Skype James and my family. James was somehow awake at 5am when I randomly asked if he was, so we Skyped for a while; I never got to Skype my family though. After Skyping I headed out on a long bike ride with Priscilla and another intern named Miles. We first found the legendary ice cream machine that is in the weirdest location. It is hidden behind a fence down an alley, but the ice cream is amazing. This is the only ice cream in all of Impfondo. You would think that the owner would place it somewhere that would bring more business, but whatever. After the ice cream, we road for about an hour and stopped at a large ditch filled with water to explore. We decided that we wanted to try to ride down the side of the cliff on our bikes even though it was pretty steep! It was hilarious and we all looked so stupid! Priscilla went first and crashed at the bottom when she realized her brakes didn’t actually work, Miles went down pretty smoothly, and I was pretty much a repeat of Priscilla because my brakes didn’t work either haha. When we got to the bottom a ton of Aka children came running to shake our hands and just look at us. The Aka are jungle-dwelling people, literally pigmies! The men are about 5 feet tall and the women are even shorter! They tend to live very simple lives deep in the jungle and are often the poorest of all the people in Congo; they even have their own language. We played with the kids for a while and took pictures before heading back to the Mission for my birthday party!

The Harvey’s hosted my birthday party and it was perfect! They decorated, invited everyone, and even made cakes with my name on them! We played games, ate cake, and I even had presents to open—how sweet is that! The people here have been such a blessing, they have only known me for two weeks but they got/made me presents! Anna made me a surgeons cap and an apron, the Harvey’s bought me a skirt and bracelets, and Mama Sarah made me a promise book (which is basically a book with different things she wanted to do with me, like going on a boat ride on the river, a jungle hike, and making cookies!). I had such a fun night, and I will never forget my 21^st birthday in Congo!

After the party Priscilla, Claire Harvey and I went back to our little house and started taking out my braided hair that had been in all week, it took about an hour (there were 75 braids in it!). We also drank beer (we took a picture just to pretend I had drank beer on my 21^st birthday but it actually against the Mission’s policy, so we drank this sparkling apple juice that looks like beer but has 0% alcohol; I had my finger attempting to cover that 0% alcohol sign).

My birthday was so much fun and such a party. Thank you to everyone back home and here in Congo who made it so special, I am so loved! I have been so blessed these past 21 years and can’t believe that I get to spend my birthday in Congo doing the things I love! God is so good.