Baby Shower

The day finally came for Ruth’s baby shower and what a celebration it was! The day began very early as I woke up to music, TV, and people calling out to each other around 7:30am. I’m certainly not a morning person…ugh! I was surprised that everyone was up and prepping for the party when it was 11 hours away, but I guess they had a lot to do. I got up to have breakfast and the kitchen was crowded. Then they told me that they had to move my clothes that were hanging up outside because they were cooking something on the fire out there. Unfortunately all of my clothes smelt like smoke already and they had piled them up on the washer when they were still damp. This was a little frustrating. Then, I was making some poached eggs in the microwave in between trying to bring my clothes inside and find places to hang them up and spray them with febreeze, but my sister was trying to take my eggs out because the microwave beeped. They needed to cook a little longer so I punched in some numbers and walked away as she hovered near. I finally got my breakfast and moved some clothes inside and snuck back into my room to hide from all of the commotion. My saving grace was Friends; my favorite TV show was on (in English) so I watched it as I ate breakfast and my worries slowly melted away.

After breakfast and a little “cool down”, I went into the kitchen and chatted with Jasser as he was making yet another craft for the baby shower. I asked him what I could do and said I could get the cake. Well, I didn’t remember exactly where that was and I didn’t really want to go by myself because it still had to be paid for, so he recruited Hazell to go with me. We walked to Boaco arriba and found the cake place and carried the cake out of the shop. A weird thing here with cakes is that they don’t come covered. There is no top part that the bakery gives you to cover your cake to protect it from you know, dust, dirt, lingering fingers tempted by frosting, etc. So, we walked a little trying to find a taxi to pick us up. I was carrying the cake and man, this thing was heavy! I also was worried that I was going to trip or drop the cake. These thoughts kept flying through my mind as Hazell tried to guide me down the cobblestone street because I couldn’t see all that well around the cake and yes, I was wearing flip flops. We finally found a taxi and I’m not entirely sure if that was much better. The roads aren’t in that great of condition and the taxis drive around like they have a death wish. We stopped quickly one time and the cake almost slammed into the dashboard, or almost the alternative: my face slamming into the cake. We got home and everybody oooed and awed over the cake and I finally got some rest for my arms.

I joined in cutting out glittery stars for Jasser’s next project, as cooking was taking place in the kitchen, chairs and tables were delivered, and everybody else rushed around completing tasks. Jasser then had Diner, Hazell, and I help him clean and decorate the living room for the party and put the chairs together.

We all ate some of the food before the party started so we wouldn’t have to worry about that when we were serving the guests. This was great because I was tired and hungry! They had tons of food which was arroz valenciana (white rice mixed with small pieces of veggies, chicken, and of course cut up hotdogs…) and tropical fruit fresco (yes, with rum). It was delicious :)

The party started around 6:15pm. The guests actually arrived closer to 6pm than I expected, as Nica culture usually starts things late. People trickled in, put gifts on the table, and we passed out drinks. Jasser got started on the games and played music on the stereo in between. The first game was a contest to eat baby food the fastest. Little did the participants know, Jasser and I had chosen the flavor “chicken with vegetables” and removed the labels for this reason. Jasser counted to three and they each took a big bite…and then they all made faces like they had something rotten in their mouths. It was hilarious, and not much of a contest after that because no one really wanted to finish the jar to win.

They also did a game where two women who had children came up and had to “feed” two other guests milk from a bottle. They had to race to finish the bottle first.

Then, it was time for dinner and I helped serve the food.

They played pin the bow on the stork and did a little dancing before it was time to cut the cake. After the cake was served, the guests left pretty quickly. I have come to find out that usually at parties here, they wait for awhile to serve the food and dessert because once people eat, they leave. There’s not much socializing that goes on after.

My favorite part of the night was after all the guests had left, after we danced a little and ate some more cake, Ruth, Diner, Carmen (my host mom), Hazell, Jasser, and I sat in a circle of chairs and brought the presents over. They handed out presents to each of us and we went around the circle opening them one by one. This was really special and made me feel like part of the family. Even though none of the gifts were for me, it was exciting to participate in this experience and open the gifts and show Ruth and Diner what they received.

We were all exhausted after that but we did some cleaning because we knew it would be too overwhelming in the morning, and I’m a night owl so I’d much rather stay up late to clean then get up early. Plus, I knew I was going to need to sleep in after that long day.