Yesterday was PCV Kenny's birthday and he, PCV Michelle and I all got together to celebrate with pizza from scratch and cake from a box. (Cake from a box is one of those things that I never really appreciated until I moved to West Africa. It tastes like America.) It's really nice to have other Americans around for birthdays, since birthdays aren't really a thing in Guinea. Many people here don't know their exact birth date, and people who do know the date don't generally attach any particular significance to it. Celebrating a birthday is so individualistic, I suppose that in many ways it's a very American thing to do.
In any case, it was only the three of us because all the other volunteers are stuck in village for the time being - Guinea's long-delayed legislative elections are scheduled to happen next week, and so we're all on "standfast." (Basically, that means that no one's allowed to leave their site without direct permission from Peace Corps, so that they know where we all are and can stay in communication with everyone. When I was in Senegal during their elections it was the same deal, lots of text messages and no one was allowed to leave site unless they had some sort of emergency.)
So, it was a small party but we had a good time. The pizza turned out really well, the cake was delicious, and the power was on, which was a real treat. We're really lucky to have sitemates - being on standfast really isn't so bad when you have PCV neighbors to hang out with and cakes to bake.
