Saturday was Andres’ birthday…he turned twenty.  So that’s twice in one week we’ve eaten a celebratory cake.  It’s been a good week…  

This was Andres’ first birthday party.  At the boy’s home where he used to live, because of the numbers of guys living there, they just celebrated all the birthday’s of the month on one day.  I understand that…but it still makes me a bit sad.  I remember last year, I happened to be out at the home one evening and Andres came up and quietly told me it was his birthday.  I couldn’t believe it…no one knew or if they did know, remembered.  So I decided when we moved in here, that we would celebrate everything as often as we needed to (which makes August a fun month…seven of the ten of us have our birthdays in August!). 

And anyhow…I like celebrating.  We always have fun and it’s been great for helping us build community.  

A few pictures…

Andres and cake #2…

Getting his face smashed into the cake…

As a side note here, before you all send me e-mails telling me what a terrible person I am…this is not my fault.  This is Bolivian culture.  You’re supposed to take a bite of the cake without your hands and then someone “sneakily” (I’m aware it’s not a word…but it works…) pushes you face into the cake.  I’ve had my head smashed into various cakes more times than I can count.  Everyone says that this time they aren’t going to smash your head into the cake…and everyone lies.  And you know they’re lying, but you take the bite anyhow.  It’s just the way it’s done.

This was my first opportunity to be on the smashing the head into the cake side of things.  And I won’t deny it…it felt good…  =)  

Andres was a good sport about it…

All in all, it was a fun evening.  Friday night before we went to bed, we had a time of prayer and I told the guys we would be celebrating Andres’ birthday the following night because “he’d be a man” (no longer a teenager).  The guys all laughed and Andres just shook his head and said,

“Yea…tomorrow I’m a man…”