Birthdays

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday,
Pain and sorrow in the air,
People dying everywhere,
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday...

(to the tune of The Song of the Volga Boatmen )

This was one of the many birthday songs I heard as I celebrated my 28th birthday in Zambia (on 19th Feb). I was actually introduced to this song by our new friends, the Lund family. They are a family with four children from the UK/Australia, sent by the Church of Scotland to work at the UCZ Theological College. They actually learned this song from another expat friend whom they met while living and working in Malawi. Go figure! (The first picture here is me at the Ellingtons' house, with their youngest son, Christopher).

The Lunds' eldest daughter, Kathleen, celebrated her 12th birthday just a few days after mine, and it was while enjoying tea and cake in the Lunds' living room that we heard a whole slew of birthday songs.

Youngest son, 10 yr-old Taliesen prefers the kid's classic version of the "original":

Happy Birthday to you,
You live in a zoo,
You look like a monkey,
and you smell like one too!

Mum Wendy shared the evangelical version to the same tune:

Happy birthday to you
One birthday won't do
Take Christ as your savior
and then you'll have two!

Zambians sing the "original" version that we sing in the US, but always add a second verse:

How old are you now?
How old are you now?
How old are you now?
Happy Birthday to you!

Zambians also have a tradition of "spilling water" on the birthday-person. Edina Mbewe, in the TEEZ office, said had it been my actual birthday she definitely would have got me. But I would have gotten her back, because 20 Feb, the day after mine, is her birthday. Fortunately or unfortunately, I missed out on such a water fight, because I wasn't around Kitwe on the actual day of my birthday. Though I would have liked to sing "how old are you now?" to Edina, as she looks quite young but I know she is a grandmother.

We traveled to Lusaka, the capital, for my birthday weekend, and stayed with the Ellington family, our PCUSA Mission Co-worker friends. We saw a movie in the theater (Lusaka has the only cinema in Zambia) and also enjoyed grilling out, playing games, jumping on the trampoline, and even got to tag along to Clayton's science fair. It was really nice to get away, to celebrate, and to see our friends for the first time since October.

It also seemed that for about 2 weeks, every time I turned around, we were eating more cake! Ryan made a cake for me the Thursday before my birthday that we took to the office to share with our co-workers (photo at right: Esther, Molly, Henry & Phyllis). They really liked it and it was completely devoured by the end of the day. Then two days later I blew out some candles on my actual birthday in Lusaka on cake #2 which Sherri Ellington baked for me--from one of her few cake mixes brought from the US. Not long after that, we were celebrating Kathleen's 12th birthday with another cake baked by Ann and decorated by the Lund kids. Then the following Sunday, we invited our muzungu friends over to our house for tea and cake after church. This was Ryan's second cake for me--from scratch! Also, we had 17 people in our small apartment! (including us). It was crazy. We thought since everyone was attending different church services, that they'd end at different times and therefore people would trickle in and out during the late morning and early afternoon. But everyone practically came at the same time!

At this final celebration, Ann offered the following song that she learned from an Australian:

Why was she born so beautiful?
Why was she born so tall?
Why was she born so beautiful?
Why was she born at all?

That song's questions I can’t quite answer. I can say I'm happy to be alive, happy to be in Africa, happy to have good friends and family, and to have something to celebrate. Now, back to the first song with its juxtaposition of the happy with the tragic, which begs the question, how can you celebrate and be happy when there is so much struggle and sorrow all around? If there's one thing I've learned from my friends and colleagues here in Zambia, it's that we indeed must celebrate life and the blessings it brings, otherwise we wouldn't be able to endure the hardship.