Well – our youngest is now 5.
In keeping with the apparent tradition in our new community here in Kibuye -no child’s birthday party is complete without a theme. For this one it was “dress up like your favorite stuffed animal.” Alma of course was dressed up like Boing-Boing – her beloved stuffed bunny that she’s had since (before) she was born.
Plenty of others – kids and adults – played along and were dressed (quite convincingly) as their favorite cotton-filled friend.
Also, every party seems to have some version of the game: “pin the ____ on the _____” – in keeping with the theme of the party. For Alma’s 5th, it was “pin the ears on Boing-Boing” (we’ve previously had “Pin the banana on the monkey” for Matea’s African Animal themed party)
As always the cake was great (especially considering the limited resources one has to work with here) – and Susan created a pretty amazing rainbow cake.
A bit different from last year when we had recently returned to Bujumbura – but I don’t think we knew one other family who was back, so her birthday was just the 6 of us – and we had a fair bit of violence that week – so it was hard to think about going somewhere.