In the past, I have been asked on my birthday "Do you feel any older today?", and the answer is always an obvious "no" because it is just another day. Somehow, when i woke up on Friday, June 27, I DID feel older. I was half expecting my apartment-mates to be waiting outside my room to kidnap me and do something incredibly stupid/funny to me, but that was saved for later that night. We bought fresh eggs the day before, and i made eggs and toast for myself, which was so tasty after having bread and jam every morning for a week straight. I know, it's very American, but it was my birthday! Before Wolof class, everyone gathered together and sang "Joyeux Anniversaire" to me (event the teacher), and then again before our history/culture class as well. There is neither a "happy birthday" equivalent saying or song in Wolof, which I thought was interesting.
After class, i came back to the apartment to get ready for the evening. All of our Senegalese conversation partners came over to hang out, eat snacks, and talk. I had my hair braided by Timi, a girl in our group, and by Adema, one of our Senegalese friends. It looked awesome. The big deal for the night was that the events were supposed to be a surprise for me, so I knew nothing at all about what was going to happen. Everyone dressed up in nice clothes, and we headed over to the main house around 7:00 where a chocolate/vanilla cake with coconut frosting was waiting for me. Written across the top was "Joyeux Anniveraire Adriane" in chocolate icing. The candles were lit and everyone sang to me once again in English and in French. It was wonderful. Afterwards, I opened up a bottle of Moroccan wine that I had purchased by myself that afternoon. Yay, my first legal drink! I have no idea what the drinking age is here in Senegal, but all of you who are reading this at home owe me a drink when I get back to the states! After much celebrating and toasting and eating, one of our Senegalese contacts arrived at the house around 11:30 to tell me that we were all going out to a popular nightclub in Dakar. I was really excited because I absolutely love dancing! So, we all packed ourselves into taxis and drove out to what looked like the middle of the desert. It reminded me strangely of Las Vegas because the night club was covered in crazy blinking lights and loud music was coming from inside. After entering, we discovered that although the music was loud and the bar was lit, there were no people out on the dance floor or in the booths. I laughed to myself and made a joke that they rented out the whole nightclub for our group of Toubabs! The actual dance room was two story, with a dance floor and booths below and more private booths above. The DJ was at the back of the club, while a stage was positioned at the front. Two hours later we were still dancing and enjoying ourselves to a mix of techno, 90's pop, and Senegalese Mbalax music. (go check it out on youtube.com: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwGFPgQIQ9E&feature=user)
Around 2:00 in the morning, there was an intermission which included a kind of variety show.
We enjoyed a comedy show, featured "karaoke stars", and hip-hop dance groups. My favorite was the group who did a medley of Michael Jackson songs . . . thee good ones. And could they dance! The guys were needless to say dressed for the part, and were synchronized and totally together on their moves. Moonwalks, floor convulsions, pop-and-lock, and of course pelvic thrusts a-la MJ himself. They performed snip-its of "Smooth Criminal", "Billy Jean", "Dangerous", and "Bad". It was awesome!
We caught a taxi at around 3:30 in the morning, and made it back to the campus about twenty minutes later. By then everyone was very tired and very silly, so probably were not very quite. As I walked to my apartment, everyone surrounded me and gave me the biggest group hug that I have had in a long time. I felt very loved.
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