Lucy's Day

Lucy Sunday Umoren;
local name: Ndifreke, meaning "I shall never forget" (ND for short!)

Thursday was Lucy's birthday. She's now 26. It turned out to be a spendid day for her in oh-so many ways. Early in the morning her fiance arrived at her maid's quarters. Tuesday, he had been a total jerk (details, I will leave to your imagination) and she had broken up with him. After kneeling in front of her for four hours, weeping and begging for mercy, she forgave him. He truly is a sweetheart as he requested to speak with Jim and me to beg our forgiveness as well -- for hurting Lucy. So her day began much better than I had thought it might.

I let her have the TV on all day (something I can't stand) and she could watch whatever she wanted as she worked. OK, a whole day of Nigerian soaps is a bit much so I don't thinkI'll be making that offer again anytime soon! I had Lucy's wrapped gifts out for her to see all day. She kept squeezing the packaging and giggling! She said the wrapping was so beautiful that it didn't matter if the box just had a brick inside, it still made her soooooooo happy!

We added some people to the dinner plans so I added beef filet to the prawns and we were off and running with dinner preparations. I'd never used a rice cooker before but the facilities office delivered one to me a week ago (I hadn't requested it and am still waiting for what I did request but they said they thought I'd like this) so I'm now hooked on cooking rice in a rice cooker -- no burning, always done to perfection, and it stays warm for hours without getting sticky. I'm sure some of you are familiar with one. I told an Indonesian friend that I was afraid to try it and she just laughed and said that she's afraid to cook rice on the stove but that it's impossible to fail with a rice cooker. Indeed!

Everyone tried and most ate a lot of the guacamole and pita bread "chips." I told them that the guac was Nigerian food. "Huh?" they questioned. Well, all of the ingredients came from Nigeria, so .... They didn't buy that argument.

I wouldn't let Lucy help with anything -- I told her she was my Madame for a day. She kept giggling and offering to help. When Jim thanked God for the food, he prayed especially for Lucy. That meant a lot to her. Everyone actually loved the dinner and Prince said, "now, THIS is food, Momma!" Carrot sticks, not something they'd seen before, were a great hit and disappeared quickly. And Prince and Moses loved the baguettes with mustard -- a French delight. During dinner we were playing Nigerian music -- until Jim just couldn't handle the volume anymore. Everyone laughed when "Master" turned it off.

After dinner, I had a "special" hat for Lucy -- a clown birthday hat (something she never had as a child). So, as she moved to the "sitting room," we would say living room, I gave noise makers and balloons to her friends -- 'sounded like the last ten seconds of a tied basketball game around this place!! Lucy was so appreciative of her gifts -- what fun.

Finally, I brought out shortbread (I had found out that she reaaaallly likes it and didn't know you could bake it yourself) with one candle that sang "happy birthday to you!" Believe it or not, she refused to blow it out because of the melody still playing so we listened to that silly little music box for 15 - 20 minutes until the flame burned out and the battery died. She danced next to it the entire time. And when she left for the night, she asked if she could please keep the little stump that remained. Amazing!!

Before we wrapped up, we had Lucy teach us some Christian songs in her dialect -- Ekwiabo. What fun! And then Moses prayed over Lucy and the evening was complete! She's still floating with the love she felt on Thursday!!