March 24, 2005

My Birthday ... and how it was celebrated...

It started nice and slow. I woke up, had coffee. I went up the stairs to my office. I started working.

Then, the phone started ringing. A senegalese friend, a french cool dude, text messages from Canada... When people started making it to their computers, emails started to get in work in Canada, emails came in, from friends, old work colleagues and family.

At 6PM i left home/work and took the "car rapide" heading downtown, where I was to have a drink with a friend before we moved on to my "surpise".

Now, the surprise : a MOROCCAN restaurant straight out of the 1001 nights, and royal couscous !

I was offered a small giraffe, object full of meaning because baught in Burkina Faso by my everlaughing friend, and reminding me of the larger giraffes which welcome us at our common (excellent) friend's place. A sweet voiced buddy offered me a basket full of fruits, superb attention since I really should eat more fruits and actually adore mangos!

The meal was joyful and happy spirited, shared laughs, and, originally enough, a small origami session, yes indeed ! Happy birthday was sung to me in dutch, english, french, japanese, chinese, and wished in german...

I will sorely miss my friends in Dakar, their joy, energy, smiles. I am grateful I got to spend this pre-thirty evening with them !

So how is it to be 28 ? I feel the same as the day before, except I did have an good excuse, to party once again !

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