Birthday Party!

Note: Because of the lack of human interaction these past couple of weeks, this post is going to be long. I'm posting so that I don't start talking to myself. :)

So, my roommate/teammates have been on a trip out of the country for the past 2 weeks, and I have been pretty lonely. I do most of my work right now (research) on the computer, so I haven't had very much interaction with people. (Except talking to my family on Skype). (Thanks to the Father that tonight "SG" is coming home tonight!!!! I've really missed her!)

The only person I've seen on a regular basis has been our house helper and neither one of us can ever understand what the other person is saying. A few weeks ago, on a Saturday, she brought her daughter with her. While her mom was cleaning, I let her play on my computer and we had a lot of fun. Before leaving, the girl said, "Auntie, my birthday September 15."

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday, I asked the house helper to bring her daughter over today for a present and some birthday cake. And I remembered to ask if they were "veg" or "non-veg" for cake making purposes. I looked online for an eggless cake recipe and started baking away. Note: I've only ever really made one cake from scratch, and now I'm trying without eggs. Also note: read the caption of the last picture of my previous post. The batter tasted ok, I baked the cake, and was completely amazed that it didn't fall apart (all the other cakes (from a box) I've ever made tasted great, but they've always ended up looking ugly and crumbly). The icing, however, was a different story....it never thickened...so I just poured the icing soup on top of the cake. A friend, who shall remain nameless, said to me once, "We can cook!"....and I'm definitely realizing the truth of this statement. Of course I can cook, sometimes it's an experiment, sometimes it's amazing, sometime it's strange, sometimes it's ugly, sometimes it's ok, and sometimes it's just awful.

Today, I got everything ready, and an hour after I thought the helper and her daughter were coming, the door bell rang. Yay! They're here, and the son too.

We all sat down for cake, and on the inside I was laughing so much. As I watched the son try to finish his piece of cake, I had a flash back of "K" trying to finish her food at a friend's house, and of the many times I've had to eat something I didn't like in this place just to be nice. He had to eat the cake, the whole piece that I served him. Funny. It wouldn't have been so funny, except that the cake wasn't good. It was alright, but it was SO heavy, heavier than pound cake, must have been a 10 pounds cake. One bite would have been enough. I could tell he was struggling near the end.

After cake, came the presents. I gave her a Bible story book, and a couple of other small items. The book had all the essential stories, but with lots of colorful pictures; she was very excited. Even though the family is Hindu, the children go to a Christian school. Pray that Father uses these things in this family.

After presents, came pictures. I took a family picture. Note: Today the girl turned 10, and her brother is 15. They are SO small! All of their heads are shaved because of some "important" visit to the temple. The house helper's face isn't really that color yellow. Today, she just did some puja or maybe beauty routine with tumeric powder. Then, the house helper and her son tried taking a picture of me and the girl. This was funny to watch. After about a million tries, we finally got one that turned out ok.

After pictures, the kids and I played cards. War, Go fish (speaking of fish, while I've always enjoyed trout, I'm learning that fish is one of my favorite foods), and then I was out of ideas. So they decided on a game to play and proceeded to teach me.....we'll call it laljgjd;lasj;raj;lfjadlf, because I have no idea what they said. It's a great game though :)