Birthday Shindig

Last week was my birthday. Generally, birthdays come and go without much hoopla, which is fine with me. At home I have a nice dinner with my family, some of my friends take me out to eat, and another year begins. In Thailand, it is actually customary to buy others something on your birthday. So I've bought ice cream, or snacks. Last year I was a little low on money, so my students got chocolate milk in class! This year I was all prepared with ice cream - but there were other plans in the works!

Thursday night I sat down to an unusually quiet dinner, assuming that the boys were all out playing football, and that the girls were playing volleyball. Also, the food offerings on  hand were particularly sparse. Well, in the middle of my soup one of my students came up and asked for electrolytes so I went off to get some for him. Once at the house he asked if he could borrow my camera to put pictures on Facebook. Then as we walked out he whistled. Hmmmm... As we neared the main room all the lights were off. "Oh, what happened?" he said. So we walk in, the lights are off, and then the door to the back room opens, the keyboard starts up, and there come the students, carrying a cake and singing "Happy Birthday". I blew out my candles (5 of them!) and then lights came on, a host of other food found it's way into the room, a card from the new teacher signed by all was put in my hands and the eating began! It was a fun surprise! Definitely one I didn't expect.

Cake!

Card and present (the present was a Lahu bag).

Students enjoying the food.

While I like my low-key birthdays, it sure is nice to get a surprise sometimes!