quarter century

This is what a birthday looks like in Liberia.

I turned twenty five yesterday. When I woke up for community meeting, I was met by two bleary-eyed roommates, a pile of balloons, a plate of made-from-scratch raspberry muffins (which tasted amazing despite looking slightly gory) and a six-pack of diet coke. Over the course of the day I got a chance to visit with Marion (which I'll write about later), ate a fresh birthday coconut and delicious African food, played touch rugby, went for a swim in the pool and just hung out with friends who have become family. I will submit that birthdays don't get much better than that.


Or so I thought. Because the mail came today, and in it were two boxes for me. One contained all the music ever and a drawing from my little cousin Cammy. The other was possibly the best package ever, for reasons which follow in an itemized list. (Click the photo to see what I'm talking about. I numbered it all to make sure there's no confusion.)

1. Comfy t-shirts are my uniform around here. Adding one more to the pile is always a good thing.
2. The kids on the ward go absolutely nuts for colouring books and crayons. Come to think of it, half of the sixty-year olds do too.
3. Perfect size candies for bribing small children with.
4. Speaking of going nuts, the patients play Uno like it's their job, but there's only one set of cards at the moment, which means that squabbles sometimes erupt. Not any more!
5. Pajamas. I need not say more. (Especially since I wore jeans the other day and no less than eleven people asked me where I was going so dressed up. Apparently I've stopped trying.)
6. A happy birthday napkin is cheery yet also so practical! I'm sure I'll need to mop something up around here soon, given the rate at which I spill things.
7. This is my favourite kind of gum! They used to have it at the ship shop and ran out a couple months ago. My stash has just been effectively replenished.
8. We also just ran out of post-it notes for phone messages in our cabin. This bad boy even has a magnet on the back, just like everything else on this ship. Perfect.
9. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm absolutely obsessed with coloured markers. I label things. I write signs that get posted all over the ward. I use them in any way possible. Now I have an entirely fresh pack, just when the ones I brought with me from home have started to go dry.
10. And who doesn't love gummies? My roommates and boyfriend, apparently, aren't numbered among the haters, since I'm sitting here looking at suspiciously half-empty bags at the moment.
(Please note, there was also a pair of flip-flops in the box, but they didn't make it into the photo because they were already on my feet.)

Colleen and Pam - a thousand thanks. What an absolutely amazing surprise.

And to everyone else at home and elsewhere who took the time to send a card or write an email or message me on Facebook - being 4,500 miles from home has never felt so good. Thank you.