Apra's big second Birthday Party

As my blog entries on the weekend are always filled with a recipe and a part of my autobiography, I will report you of Apra’s birthday party today. If you just want a small summary, here it is: it was great!

First of all, the weather: it was a brilliant decision to change from 9th January to 11th January, from a cloudy and foggy Thursday to this beautiful Saturday on which the sun was shining the whole day long!

In this wonderful weather it was a joy to see the decoration of balloons in the complete Ashram garden with two balloon gates at the beginning and end of the walkway. Apart from guests who were staying at the Ashram and a nearby guesthouse, the children of our school were the first ones to arrive. They marveled at the balloons, watched how the garden was prepared with tables and chairs and cheered when the DJ arrived with his music system.

Their biggest joy however were the bouncing castles and the bouncing ball tent that we had placed in the garden. This was the first thing to start the party and the last thing that was packed because whenever it was filled with air, it was full of children jumping, playing and laughing! We joked, saying that the hardest job was the one of the people who tried to make the children stand in line for the bouncing castle and keep them from jumping into the castle in masses. Those masses were only redirected when the buffet opened!

The night before already the cooks had started preparing a delicious menu. We started by serving popular Indian snacks and when the children noticed that we had started eating, they floated over to the food stall, creating a crowd in front of those stalls that it was hard to get through! It was a joy to see them eat, not only then but also when the main buffet table opened with dishes from rice, chickpeas and vegetables to delicious sweets!

Not only the children however, also our guests enjoyed the food! There were those Ashram guests who had come from abroad, including Apra’s German grandfather. There were old friends from Vrindavan and other towns in India who had followed our invitation, even one of my German learning classmates had come. Obviously our staff members were there, too, and had brought their families as well. And there were many facebook friends who had decided to come and take the chance to finally meet in person. It was great to meet those people in real life with whom I usually interact only via the computer!

Apra enjoyed her birthday party to the fullest! She had several rounds on the bouncing castle, danced even with different guests whom she hardly knew, cut and distributed the huge chocolate cake, played with balloons and filled her belly with noodles! She got gifts throughout the day and we only yesterday got time to open all the wonderful presents people had brought for her!

It was a fantastic day but the most beautiful thing of all was to see our school children enjoy so much. They are, as you know, from poor families for whom even inviting friends for dinner becomes a strain on the family budget. They don’t get to eat so many different dishes, cannot normally choose what they want to eat and definitely don’t get to jump on bouncing castles! It was a delight to see how much fun they had. They were the life to this party and this is what we always want to do: These children should have the possibility to enjoy just as much as everyone else. They should come to our parties and have the time of their lives, forget about their poverty and create memories of a lifetime!

We definitely will always remember this party as one of the greatest up to date!

You can see pictures of our party here