21st Birthdays

Last night we celebrated my friend’s 21st birthday. We went to an Indian restaurant, drank beer, and had a spongy, kind-of-tasteless, but icing-ed cake! Fun, random Tuesday night and Saturday we are going to Heaven to see The Nightmare Before Christmas and Julie and Julia during Happy Hour. Heaven, movies, and Happy Hour, what more could you ask for?

Heaven is an American restaurant that is crazy expensive but has good happy hour specials. On Saturday nights they show movies. They also offer unlimited free internet. Heaven’s pretty grand.

Speaking of 21st birthdays, mine is coming up! In four months. For those of you who haven’t heard, I have been accepted to the Dakar, Senegal study abroad program for next semester, which is where I will be celebrating my 21st. Guess where, according to the program’s schedule, I will be on my super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic birthday. No, not the beautiful beaches Senegal is well-known for. Guess again. Nope, I won’t be hiking in the green hill country. Try again. A mazungu resort you say, for my week long Spring Break? No, my spring break is in March. My birthday is in April. You really need to work on your guessing skills.

My super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic 21st birthday will take place during the ONLY week we are in our rural homestays, separate from everyone else in the group. Four days of the whole semester I will be staying in the middle of nowhere with people I don’t know and my super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic 21st birthday just happens to fall within those four days.

At least it’s a super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic story to tell my children. What other American has their 21st birthday in the middle of Nowhere, Africa? And because I don’t deserve your forthcoming pity, I must tell you that the day after my birthday we all return to Dakar and can celebrate then. So I get a super important, once-in-a-lifetime, epic story while also getting to do the traditional drinking and partying thing with my friends. Really, I get the best of both worlds. Only in Africa.