30 years (Approx. 10,950 days)

So today was the day-I am officially 30 years old. And if feeling old wasn't enough I was so freaking sore from bending over while digging and planting banana trees yesterday that I was having a hard time walking today. The entire back of my legs are solid, minimally moving tree trunks that ache when doing anything other then sitting. But even assuming sitting position is extremely treacherous! Thanks a lot universe. Bring on middle agedness!  

The day started with the cleaning ladies coming into my room and repeatedly saying happy birthday in their thick Indian accents of course. I told them thank you but asked them how they knew because I don't recall having told any of them. They pointed to the door-which was decorated with balloons and a sign. "Green house! Green house!" was all I heard among the ushering out to see it, point at it and admire it. I sure hope the residents of the green house (the Youngs) were not trying to be sneaky because they were outed in a matter of seconds of my waking up. :) And I promise Alamalu (the one in the middle) is a happy person. I promise all of them are. Indians don't really smile for pictures much-its usually all about the serious face with them.

There was a 12 hour medical camp today so it was a pretty quiet day. I didn't go to the camp for a couple of different reasons but it ended up being perfect because I had some virtual dates I had to keep.

The first was with Lindsey and the boys who sent me a video as well as face timed with me for a bit. It is always good to talk to people from home, but it is an extra plus to have them be nephews (or nieces when I get to to talk to Nicole's kiddos.) I am already envisioning the ginormous hugs I am giving each of them at the airport when I come home. Some bruising may or may not be a result but they will be bruises of love so that's okay right?

After talking with them Genna, Heather, Mimi and I all had a google hang out. Other then being on the computer it was completely normal-with lots of laughter, sometimes slightly inappropriate jokes that can be shared among girlfriends only and hats--real hats and virtual dress up hats and props we discovered on google hang outs. I love my girls. Of course I got to talk to some of my other girls as well-which was just as exciting. I think that is one of my favorite things about having a birthday-hearing from friends and family. I have been so blessed with awesome family and friends.

I followed my regular schedule for most of the day-worked on scheduling, tutoring my boys, etc. however I did take the time to cook myself some birthday foods through out the day-ie Fettuccine Alfredo, lettuce wraps and what was suppose to be Cafe Rio but then I burned the beans. Fail on my part. I'll have to try again tomorrow. And no there aren't pictures of my birthday food because I was so excited to eat it that I couldn't spare a second to take a picture.

When you have a birthday in India, it is customary for the birthday girl/boy to buy treats and then had them out to their friends. The friends in turn will take your treat and say "Many more happy returns of the day". As I came to find out today, they also say things like "I need more candy for my wife and children. You give me." and "We are good friends so you should give me more candy then that". Of course there were some regular happy birthdays and thank you's in there as well but it was pretty funny. The bluntness of this society still manifests itself in the most unexpected way. You can also wear "normal" clothes on your birthday-ie students don't have to wear their school uniforms. Since I don't have a school uniform I just worse my "normal" Indian clothing.

I purposely got enough candy to be able to hand at least one out to all the kids at playtime. And it was a little crazy, but I was expecting that. What I wasn't expecting and wish so much I could of gotten on video was the running/stampede of the kids into the candy line. It was like the word got out that I was giving out candy and spread through the entire playground in 2 second, and all the kids were in line within the next 7 seconds. It was truly amazing. It looked like one of the sped up BBC Planet Earth shots of the planets aligning-or whatever else in nature aligns in a row. And just like that I became the most popular girl on the playground.

After everyone got one, I was literally followed by a crowd of persistent little creatures insisting that I give them one more. Its only right to give them a shout out for their perseverance--but they didn't get anything extra in the end. To give some kids two candies while others just got one probably would have started world war 3. 

The candy I handed out were these little strawberry chew things that had stick on tattoos wrapped around them. I hesitated handing them out because I didn't know how the tattoos would go over with the house moms, but then I decided that it was my birthday and this is what I had to give to the kids so oh well. Im sure I will hear about it if it is a problem. And they were a hit. What little kid doesn't like stick on tattoos? No little kid--that is the answer. They were all very proud to show me their tattoos as well.

Notice the finger placement in the picture above--no she had not turned into an automatic hard A just because I have her stick on tattoos-that is just an example of how the middle finger is used for everything, even by the youngins.

Kala was out and about the playground when all this was happening. She quietly disappeared for a few minutes but came back to give me a happy birthday hug and then secretly passed me a happy birthday candy bar. I absolutely love Kala. She is SO sweet and thoughtful.

Most the group was still gone at the medical camp so dinner was just Summer, Rebecca and the kids (minus Brooklyn of course) and myself for dinner. After dinner they made me close my eyes and surprised me with noise makers and a birthday cupcake-complete with a little paper Asian umbrella. It was white cake with-get this: raspberry jam inside-and crazy yummy chocolate frosting. It was A-MAZING! Rebecca never ceases to amaze me.

We don't have lots of access to birthday candles around here so I was more then happy with my one candle, although it could accurately represent that fact that more then likely, 1/3 of my life is over. :)

Cohen loved getting right up to my face and repeatedly blowing the noise maker over and over and over and over and over again.

And Avery made me this super cool 3-D flower out of craft paper.

I love my little siblings. :)

I ended the day by watching My Best Friend's Wedding with Rebecca and Berlyn while eating fresh salsa and drinking a cold Dr. Pepper--one of the ones I've been saving from Delhi. Truth be told, it was my second Dr. Pepper of the day because well, it was my 30th Birthday and that is reason enough to drink two coveted Dr. Pepper's in one day.

Planting Banana Trees

This morning we had the assignment of planting 18 (maybe 19) banana trees on campus. I was a littler nervous since the area we were working on is next to the place our cobra stalker has been spotted but as Dr. Susan said, "We can't not live our lives because of the cobra". True, now if only the cobra didn't have the power to force you to stop living your life if you come across it..............

This positioning was a total accident, I promise!

Banana tree planting was hard work, but it was fun. Today was the first day Berlyn had seen Indian shovels-she was a little taken back but learned to use them quickly. I (of course) kept getting holes that had monster roots in them because that is just my luck. There were a lot of worms severed and dirt moved that was simply placed back in the foot-ish deep hole in the end, but we finished faster then I thought we would, no cobra was found and cold bucket showers awaited all of us back at the elephant house. Overall, I'd say it was a great success. They say it takes about six months for them to grow to maturity so it will be fun to watch that process. Then again it will kind of suck because that means when they are grown, ti will be time for me to go back to America. Boo. Boo. Boo.    

Children's Day

Today we celebrated the children. We kind of do that everyday but today was set aside as a holiday and titled Children's Day--so basically it was a pretty big deal. I think this is the best holiday ever-we have holidays to celebrate moms and dads so why not children too?

Part of the program was in English, part of it was in Tamil. It included everything from speeches to skits to songs to dances to tongue twisters to monologs. You name it, we had it. And yes, it was pretty freaking long. But we do have a lot of kids to celebrate so I guess we should of known it was going to be pretty involved. The kids were adorable (as usual) and they were completely oozing with excitement over their parts in the program. 

The boys were SO into dressing up for their skit. The most sought after part of their costume was the drawn on facial hair many of them got to wear. They didn't wash it off until absolutely necessary though--which means they kept it on ALL day long. It was a little weird to go to playtime and see the "boys" all look like little men. 

I was really impressed with their acting abilities. They really got into their roles. 

This girl especially-you can tell she was an extremely angry witch from the second she walked on stage.

Of course the volunteers participated too-well at least those of us who are talented performers, i.e. Ciera and Brooklyn.

Brooklyn and Rebecca's choir did a couple of different musical numbers too, and Lon told an interactive story involving both the staff and children. It was a HUGE hit.

And perhaps my favorite performance was these kids-mostly just because they were dressed in these costumes:

The poor giraffe, he literally was stuck in his costume. It was so tight that he wasn't able to wear the hood part. Ill admit it, I laughed over him quiet a bit-but he didn't see me so its okay.

And of course Life Dance was the concluding performance--which was perfect for Katie since it was her last day. She has really connected with the dance students and today was a big pay day for her. Just look at how happy she is!

After the Children's Day program we had a little family picture photo shoot. I know I said it last post (and probably in many post before that) but this group of people have seriously been so great. I am sad to see it end.

And of course we had to take a silly pic or two....or 25. The pic below led to a funny story though. So Cohen, the Young's youngest child, can be extremely shy. Like EXTREMELY. They came in June and it has only been the last little bit that he will talk to me. So just to tease him, I decided to kiss his cheek for one of our silly pictures.

If I would of known that kissing Cohen was the key to breaking his shyness towards me then I would of done it 5 months ago! Later on in the night at dinner, he wouldn't show us something that we all wanted him to so I threatened him with "Cohen, if you don't let us see what you made for Camry then I'm going to have to kiss you again!" To which he screamed; "NO WAY! IF YOU KISS ME AGAIN I WILL TURN INTO HORNY THE RHINO!!!" Of course everyone else in the room starts dying laughing and Cohen just sits there with a big grin, probably thinking about how creative it was to name a Rhino horny because of the horns it has on its face--Duh. It was so innocent which is what made it so good. Im pretty sure that's going to be brought up again and again. Actually I'm sure of it. He still has a few years before he'll figure it out, but I really want to see his face when the lightbulb flips on.