Twenty-Eight is Great!

When I was growing up, having a birthday near Christmas meant celebrating with friends weeks in advance. Then, on my Big Day, we'd pile into the family minivan for an 8-hour road trip Upstate. My parents listened to Canadian talk radio while my brother did everything in his power to annoy me once the batteries in our Walkmans died.

Being surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents was nice. (And, it usually resulted in multiple parties—which as we all know, means multiple cakes.) But I guess I assumed that once I grew up, and once my parents relocated to Upstate themselves, those birthdays spent in the backseat of a crowded vehicle would be a thing of the past.

Then I moved to Africa.

Sure my friends knew I’d be turning 28 while we were on our big holiday adventure. (I’d reminded them at least a hundred times.) And of course I’d made a special request to not be in transit on my special day. But as we all know, buses in Africa—more specifically, buses in Malawi—can be extremely unpredictable in terms of arrivals, departures and estimated travel times.

So we waited, backpacks piled high, for six hours in a bus station with no toilets, no walls and no distractions. We were bound for Mzuzu, but in the end, settled for a packed-to-the-gills mini bus with baskets of rancid fish, no ventilation and a driver named Cabbage.

He only took us half way, charged us 300 kwacha more than any other passenger and may have left us in the middle of the sketchiest town I’ve ever seen. But that just meant I got to ring in my 28th year here:











Since my first birthday celebration could have passed for a scene from Saw II (and because I have the world’s greatest friends), they more than made up for it with a real cake (complete with trick candles) once we made it home to Namibia.