This evening the Karen woman who cleans our Teacher’s House, as well as the offices in the farm and the home of the son of my boss called me inviting all of our students and teachers to a birthday party for her twins, both students at our school (who had previously been in the Mae Surin Refugee Camp [1]) who turned 16 today. I had no problem with the request and we all piled in the truck (it was rather full), put in some chairs, and went off to the farm where the cleaning lady, her husband, and their two youngest children live.

Once all of us got to the farm and set up the chairs, and once the birthday girls’ “auntie” (every older woman seems like an “auntie” to Karen young people, and determining family relations is a rather Byzantine nightmare, especially since there are no official last names and since there is widespread fraud when it comes to keeping birthdays and other family information), I was asked to give a few short remarks. So I did, briefly explaining why we were all gathered there and joking a bit about the age of our twin students. Then a pastor the family knows gave a very long prayer that could have passed for a sermonette. Immediately after he said “Amen,” I made a joke to that effect to one of my other teachers who has a personal introduction sermonette to give this Sabbath.

Then we had a bit of time of posing for photographs (a lot of photographs) before eating, photographs with the very well dressed and somewhat heavily made-up birthday girls, who looked rather adult as opposed to the teenage girls they are. One of them even had high heels, which she walked around in a bit awkwardly. During the many photos, photos of family, of friends, of teachers, I managed to take a friendly and affectionate photograph with one of my fellow teachers that I plan on making into a Facebook profile photo shortly. I hope she doesn’t mind.

Once the food (and there was a lot of it) was finished, the birthday cake had candles stuck in it, the candles were lit, and then almost as fast as they were lit with photos taken, they were blown out by the birthday girls and many small pieces of cake were cut by the girls in a manner much like a wedding. In fact, there are many parallels between a Karen birthday party and a wedding, including the fanciness of the clothing, the general festive atmosphere, the fact that the birthday girls kept shoving pieces of cake in the mouths of guests (I ended up having to eat four pieces of cake that were shoved in my mouth). And that was only the least of the food: We kept on having snacks and drinks, and three plates of noodles with beef balls, and at least two or three bowls of soup. Seriously, all of us who were teachers were making jokes about whether we looked too skinny and having to be rolled on the truck on the way back home. Fortunately that was not necessary, but it was a near-run thing.

Of course, I kept on jokingly calling the birthday a wedding cake, doing my part to help keep it a festive and lightly humorous event. And of course I had other business to conduct while I was at the farm, namely doing some copying for my Gospels class on Thursday, when I will give the students a packet of maps and historical information from Tacitus and Josephus about Jesus Christ. Other than that, it was enjoyable to joke around with the other teachers and the students, who watch us and our habits very closely, extremely alert to the oddness of our ways, just as we are alert to the alien nature of their ways. While we waited in the dark back of the truck, lit fitfully by cell phone lights and tiny but cute lightning bugs, the girls showed us which members of a K-pop band they and other students thought the most handsome.

All in all it was a rather enjoyable evening. We left for the farm between 6:30PM and 7:00PM, shortly after a dinner (in retrospect, it was a mistake to eat seconds for dinner, as the older birthday girl was intent on being a Jewish mother: “eat,” “eat more,” and the like). we arrived back about 9:00PM or so, making the long evening rather fun, even including some singing (we sang the copyrighted Happy Birthday song to the birthday girls, which they enjoyed). Even their next oldest brother was able to take some photos, but due to some tooth problems (he had to go to the clinic to get at least one tooth pulled) he was unable to eat as much as the rest of us. Only the youngest brother of the family seemed unhappy to be dragged into endless photos, but everyone else seemed to have a very good time indeed.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/on-the-mae-surin-refugee-camp/