Happy Birthday to Me

I just turned 23. Wow, that seems so old especially now that I'm out of college.

I've done several things for this particular birthday. On Tuesday, I make chocolate chip cookies and shared them out at work. That night I went to West Side Plaza to dinner with Chucky, Sarah, Selwin, Symeon, and Rajin (Sarah's brother). I had baked chiken, chowmein, and a few Banks beer. On Wednesday, I had a birthday get together with my Guyanaes friends. Out of those I invited Eavette, Nikita, and Meshana came. We gaffed and ate fish cakes and dal and rice. It was a nice time. Then today, I making pizza and cake with Liz and Lauren (two PCVs from my group). I'm excited because I haven't had American pizza since I left the states 4 months ago.

This weekend I had a chance to experience a jhandi for the first time. Liz's host mom is going to America next month and had a jhandi to celebrate. There were saris and garra's everywhere. We helped cook seven curry. You make seven different curries and eat them with rice in a big pandan leaf with your hands. The curries we had were

1. pumpkin curry
2. channa (chick peas) and potato curry
3. boulange (egg plant) and eddoe (it's in the potato family) curry
4. bagi curry (kinda like spinach)
5. catahar curry (I don't even know how to describe this starch)
6. dal (split peas)
7. mango achar (it's like a hot sauce; you eat it in small amounts)

Okay the last two aren't curried, but they're considered part of the "seven curry". For dessert we had sweet rice and parsad (the bulk being make out of flour and butter).