Blackstone Operations

Day 33

Today was the day we celebrated Naomi’s birthday and it was quite the event. I’ve repeatedly discussed the reserved nature of many of the people here in most situations…let’s just say Cameroonian children haven’t learned the trade yet.

Marceline enlisted my help to bake a cake for the event (I made a double layer yellow butter cake) and of course I happily consented. Baking’s fun and baking for something like a birthday party is even better because I get to feel festive or something. I think I mostly I like that people will be so happy and celebratory that no one will care if the cake is actually decent!

I kid I kid. Half kid.

Baking cakes has never been a forte of mine. I attribute this mostly to a lack of interest because I’m not really a cake person but this would not be an excuse to ruin this young girl (4 years old) birthday party. As you know, baking is usually pretty exact…well, this cake was being made much as I made the key lime pie: without measuring utensils, without proper ingredients, without a proper stove, etc. I seriously think I’ve been more proud of what I’ve put together here than anything else.

Well, long story short, the cake turned out really well. However, the kids at the party were something like little bacteria running around and touching (read: destroying) everything. What’s more, though I was told to expect a small gathering of 10, something like 38 kids showed up. On thinking of how such a thing transpired, I imagine the discussion went something like this.

“Hey Noya”

“Hey Baku”

“What you doing?”

“Heading over to Naomi’s house. What you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Come with me! It’ll be fun.”
“I don’t know…”
“We can eat cake and touch all the furniture and food with our bare hands without washing them after playing outside in the dirt and touching the dog all while yelling as loud as possible and doing our best to defy authority!”

“Cool!”

I refuse to believe that the conversation could have gone any other way. Upon walking back into the kitchen to cut up the cake, it suddenly seemed a lot smaller than I remembered.

I tried my best to make the cake last through all the kids but half way through I was starting to get warnings from the other volunteers that the slices were looking kinda big and wouldn’t last through all the kids. As the slices got smaller and smaller, the looks on the kids faces as their slice was handed to them was somewhat tragic yet comical at the same time. Clearly Baku was not pleased to watch Noya happily smack on a full slice of cake while he was handed some crumbs with icing (not literally). In the end we made it through and the adults even got to try some so it was a success of some sort.