Well last week on October 1st was my birthday. I had told my Rwandan family over a month ago and not mentioned it since. I told them on Friday I was leaving to go visit my friends in Rwamagana, only 2 hours by bus from my site. So they invited me over for a birthday dinner on Thursday night. They even asked me what my favorite dish was because they wanted me to have my favorite food on my birthday. I requested noodles because of all possible Rwandan dishes that is my favorite. So they said ok. I come to the house with my roommate. I think this is just going to be like any other night. I show up and am put in a room as usual and kind of left alone as usual. I think we are just waiting for them to finish up dinner. Maybe an hour later they lead me out of the room into another house and there the whole family and friends of the family (over 30 people) are standing around a cake with candles lit and they are all singing to me. It was such a surprise. They had a DJ and speaker system set up, used toilet paper for streamers on the walls (which actually looks really nice) and my name is written in huge letters on one of the walls using toilet paper. It was crazy. The cake was cut and dancing began. At 10:00 we finally got come real food. They had made me pasta salad with green beans and carrots and mayonnaise. I have never seen a Rwandan make pasta salad before. They gave me fries and seasoned rice too. (They sure do love their carbs here.) It was a really great birthday party that I was completely surprised about.
Then in Rwamagana, my friends had another surprise for me. Sushi for dinner made from dried seaweed that one of them got in a car package. So we made avocado and cucumber sushi. To make sticky rice we just added a little more water than usual, and to put the rice into Ziploc bags to sit for an hour. For dessert we had homemade brownies from a package also! The next evening I got my favorite food pierogies that we made from scratch. We made the pasta with eggs and flour. Rolled out the pasta stuffed it with cheese, and mashed potatoes with butter, garlic, milk and onions inside. (The mashed potatoes alone were incredible. My Peace Corps best friend is from Sicily so she knows how to cook really well. Then we fried the pierogies in oil. Also she made a cream tomato sauce for dipping and calls it her disaster sauce because she discovered this sauce after ruining the sauce she was trying to make and then adding ingredients to try and save the sauce. Now she purposing does all those things and makes an amazing sauce to go with the pierogies.
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