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Fire-Baked Birthday Cake


Most people know that I'm big on birthdays. I like being somewhere new and exciting—exploring unknown places, tastes, and streets or else relaxing somewhere special with good company. This year, I had been away from my community for a bit and was feeling extra poor, so I decided to keep it simple with a small village celebration. 

Compared to Malawi where people didn’t really acknowledge birthdays, Liberians have certain traditions depending on where you live. If you live “in town,” you might go to the ice cream shop or out to a nice dinner after taking a bajillion ‘bluffing’ pictures in a new birthday outfit.

In the “interior” (the word Liberians use to describe the bush), the celebrations are more tame and limited. If you decide to have a ‘party,’ the whole community expects you make popcorn and juice for everyone. Adult birthday parties may substitute cane juice or palm wine for sugary juice powder. Then music is played and people dance (I assume…I’ve never seen one of these in my village).

Obviously, the major difference between Liberian culture and American culture regarding birthdays is that in Liberia, when it’s your own birthday, YOU are the one responsible for providing for everyone else. This is vastly different from my own custom of allowing someone else to plan and prepare everything for me and then maybe expecting a few gifts or at least birthday drinks.

Our community in Gbediah Town boasts a rowdy population of just over 300 people. To pop that much popcorn over a fire in a big pot, sweating and shaking it constantly, did not exactly sound appealing. And imagining the crowd that would envelop my house should I have such a party seemed even less in celebratory style, and more like something that would be chaotic and anxiety-producing for me.

So, I decided to compromise by preparing some goodies for myself and for my neighbor family.

After returning from the clinic, where I was showered with happy birthdays from our staff and where my counterpart insisted that I do a mini photo shoot with her son in the boiling hot sun, I got to work. I popped a big pot of popcorn, shook a bunch of white cheddar seasoning onto it, and mixed a plastic pitcher full of pineapple coconut “juice” powder (aka sugar and flavoring).

One of my Peace Corps sisters showed up soon after, and we proceeded to whip up a chocolate cake using a shrewdly hoarded box of cake mix. I convinced my little brother to help us in the kitchen by promising him cake in return. He found a big pot we could use to create a Dutch oven over the three-stone fire, cleaned the smaller soup pot that we intended to bake the cake in, and started the fire for us. We tamed the flames, threw some coals on top of the pot lid, and let the fire do its magic.

Thirty minutes later, we had a fluffy and beautiful chocolate cake that slid right out of the pot better than just about any cake I’ve ever baked in my life. We even whipped up some chocolate frosting with baking chocolate, margarine, and marshmallow fluff and decorated it with a roll of smarties.

Unsure of how to present all the birthday celebration goodies to my neighbor family who have a mini shop that people pass in and out of all day and afraid that news of the “party” would spread like fire across the community enticing people from all corners to come and harass me for not making enough for everyone, I waited for the cloak of darkness to descend upon us.

I then slyly snuck over with my PC friend, arms fully balanced with assorted bowls of popcorn and slices of cake, the pitcher of juice, utensils, and cups. We sat around a small wooden table on the porch and gorged on sugary snacks and treats lit up by a small solar lamp. No birthday song, no candles to blow out, and no photos taken in the darkness; instead we sat around “lecturing.” The kids inhaled their slices of cake and gulped down massive amounts of sugary juice while also trying to shovel in handfuls of popcorn between it all. Our Pa warned them that they would have stomachaches tomorrow from all the sugar.

When the food was finished, we returned to my house next door. My little brother ran off to take a bath then came knocking, knowing that it was movie time. After taking a few bluffing birthday photos together, it was time to sink into my spare mattress-turned-couch and enjoy a movie (and some red wine of course).

Undoubtedly, it was not the most exhilarating or adventurous birthday of my life, but what I’m realizing as time goes on is that it’s all about appreciating the little things. Things like successfully baking a cake over a fire and bringing this concept of a birthday cake to my Liberian family/neighbors would have to suffice for the ‘wow’ factor of this year’s birthday.

PS. It was delicious.


Here are some more pics...














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