Feb 22: Dominican Birthday

Today we attended our first basically traditional Dominican birthday party for our neighbors 1 year old son.

I say basically traditional because the father is actually from Columbia. But since we all know who puts most the effort into planning these I’m going with traditional Dominican. That and we’ve seen many pictures of similar looking first birthdays in the Dominican homes.

Really, it wasn’t too different from home. There was a fabulous looking cake, mostly because they happened to know a family that decorates cakes for a living. Maybe 50% of the guests brought gifts, which were not opened at the party. There were some traditional kids games like skip rope, musical chairs, and the chicken dance. I should not the the chicken dance was required participation for all attendees. One very popular activity here was to have a piñata full of little toys and candies. Then they spent some time, similar to a wedding, taking pictures of the family and their friends standing behind the cake under a large balloon arch. All-in-all, we felt right at home. (Click on one of the following photos to see them in a short slideshow without being cropped)

I’d also like to point out that it’s not just us who make funny gaffs learning a new language. We heard a story of a Dominican learning English who told his English speaking spouse that he had learned to play a fun new card game called “One”. After he explained what it was she quickly realized he had translated the games name from what he thought was Spanish into English; the game was “Uno”

I don’t know what the temperature got up to today, but if this is the cold season… ouch. I now understand why Dominicans will have three or more showers per day in the summer months.

For all those concerned about Ciara’s well-being as a teenager you need worry no longer. She is only going to get a little bit married so she can’t have any kids, only a baby.