A Little Boy's Birthday Party

Last night my host mother and I were invited to go to a birthday party! The party was for my host mother's best friend's son, and he was turning 13 years old! We left the house around 4:30 p.m. and went to a small shop to get him a gift. The shop was called "Celebrations" and pretty much had everything you could possibly think of to give as a gift- for any age too!
After buying a few nice pens and a pen holder that has a light up clock, the saleswoman wrapped the gifts in wrapping paper along with two pencils from Oregon as a gift from me. We then left the shop and drove out of the city for a few minutes before we reached a brand new house where the party was to be held. The house belonged to my host mother's best friend's sister, and it was a very nice house- complete with "Happy Birthday" decorations strung across all of the walls.
When we first arrived, we were greeted by the birthday boy and a few of his friends, and then we both sat down at the kitchen table and chatted with the other women for a while. The kitchen table was directly outside of the kitchen, and when I heard people inside I was curious to find out what was cooking. So, I went inside and sat down to watch as three of the family's maids cooked vegetable cutlets (vegetables fried in batter) over a small gas burner and a LOT of newspaper spread across the floor.
When we had cake (we ate the cake first), the whole family and the few friends that were there (most couldn't make it out to the house because of the rain in the city) gathered together in the hall and watched as four firework candles and a lotus candle that sang happy birthday as it opened, were lit. We then sang "Happy Birthday" as the birthday boy cut off a small piece of the cake and fed a bite to each of his family members and then to himself. Streamers and white "snow" that was really like silly string rained down over all of our heads, and everyone laughed as the birthday boy was attacked with the "snow" from all of his friends. By the time the cans were empty, all of the boys needed a bath so the boys washed up as my host mother and I tried to separate the cake from the bits and pieces of streamers (we ended up just scraping off the top layer of frosting...)!
When everyone had eaten a piece of cake, the kids played a few games including musical chairs that I got to participate in and won! It was a lot of fun, but it was hard to hear the music as it was coming from some one's cell phone!
We left the house around 9:30 p.m. after an amazing meal that had all of my favorite foods- paneer, parota, chapati and fried rice! It was a fun night and very cool to see the cultural differences when celebrating a birthday!