Birthday Bash Banter

Apparently turning 25 is the new 21 and also, 27 is 21 too. How do I figure this? The shenanigans that Jason and I celebrated for our 27th and 25th birthdays, respectively, were not those of professional adults but resembled the actions of a college student who just threw out the fake ID and decides to take on the town, be it Durham or San Fransisco, for a whole week. The circumstances were just too beautiful not to take advantage and celebrate hard. My birthday was on a Wednesday, middle of the week, so instead of having to decide between one of the weekends, before or after, I decided to celebrate the whole week. Also, Jason’s birthday is the day after mine and therefore it was an absurd necessity calling for a full week celebration. To top it off, my other good friend Susan BC (not married Susan) birthday was the following Sunday.

So, where to celebrate? As I mentioned the circumstances are just too perfect. Do I want to go an hour south to Canoa to party on the beach with a bunch of local friends and x-pats or to Mompiche, a less developed but pretty beach 3 hours north with all my Peace Corps friends or stay in Tabuga? So many great options. Well, when your birthday is a week long, you can do it all. So, Jason and I started in Canoa with a bunch of friends, danced our faces off and ended up at a bonfire on the beach Saturday night. On Sunday after a day of fish soup, coconuts on the beach and general laziness Jason and I collected our things to head home. Being responsible adults that needed to work Monday.

While passing the Surf Shack, my brother’s former employer, Greg, stopped Jason and I, apologized for not making it out the night before and insisted that we stay another night. Jason and I have gotten really good at playing what we call the poor hungry gringo card which leads to us getting free food, alcohol and a bed for the night. Greg accepted the challenge and challenged us to tequila shots, on him. There isn’t a better way to make me stay then free tequila shots with good people on the beach. So, instead of being responsible Jason and I went tequila and we did it well. Jason fell of his chair and then proceeded to kick himself out of the bar with embarrassment and I drank him under the table, chatting about micro-credit and organic farming. All said, Jason passed the Canoa initiation and I continued with my reputation of competitive drinking and sustainable development banter.
Back in Tabuga, Jason and I went responsible for two days and awaited the arrival of Ryan, Akul and Elliot.

On my birthday the high school took the day off to celebrate on the beach. All the kids put in money to get groceries and we enjoyed an incredible afternoon of beach soccer, tuna sandwiches and even Frisbee. It was an awesome gesture of appreciation for me and a perfect birthday afternoon. Afterwards all the teachers came over to my America-in-a-box to give me a toast, some gifts and eat cake. The president of the community who is also the director of the high school, my neighbor and friend gave a really nice toast to my year and eight months that brought tears close to my eyes but happiness and cheap champagne wiped away the tears. It was really fun to have my work peers, my Ecuadorian brother, Jason, Ryan and Juan Carlos, a good friend from the bigger town of Jama all together on my birthday. I felt so lucky and full of love and goodness. My good friend Geomaira and other friend Fabiola gave me this really soft tiger print pillow for my birthday. Geomaira explained why the pillow was so important, she told me 1. The tiger print represents the way I attacked projects and can get really mad, 2. It says I love you in English because it’s a phrase you use with friends and I speak englihs, and 3, the light color on the tiger print is the same color as me. Hilarious!
The next day, Jason’s birthday, Akul and Elliot also showed up and we had a great birthday dinner and then played basketball in Tabuga with some teenagers in the rain. It was really awesome to have my friends in Tabuga and celebrate goodness with them.

Then, the weekend was upon us and we all headed north. Mompiche is the Esmeraldas province and was a completely different world. We are currently in the extreme dry season in Tabuga and everything looks dead and brown but up north it’s still green and beautiful. The beach at Mompiche is really nice and at the beginning stages of development. It’s the perfect place to invest in land, if anyone is interested. We’d be happy to live on it and manage it for you!

Some other friends met us in Mompiche and we spent the weekend in hammocks, drinking rum, fruit drinks, eating fresh fish, swimming, playing soccer and Frisbee. The best part of the weekend was the walk that we took to a virgin black sand beach. It was so beautiful! The sand glistened and was really brilliant. A handful of the black sand weighs so much and is just so different than regular sand. In an effort to display our politically correctness, we all covered our bodies in the black sand. It looked really awesome with my pink bathing suit and sunglasses. I’ll get pictures to post. After the black sand beach adventure we headed further north to a little island. We had to pay $1 a person to cross. The island is really small and only hosts a few habitants. We ate a delicious meal at the one ‘restaurant’ on the island and then took a walk. We attempted to climb coconut trees and drank fresh picked coconuts.

All said and done, the birthday week was absolutely fabulous and it was fun to turn 21 again!