Birthday number 18 for my daughter was celebrated in Nicaragua.
That year she worked at an eyeglass clinic in the Nicaraguan jungle.
The Sabalos Lodge owner presented her with a cake at Sabalos Lodge after dinner.
She celebrated her nineteenth birthday in the same place.
What are the odds one of my children would spend 10.52632% of her birthdays in the jungle?
Until 13 months ago, I would have said zero.
But your interests, your friends, and your God often take you to unexpected places and she now has unusual birthday stories to last her life.
Parents make the party!
I missed last year’s party, but this year my husband and I journeyed with her and got to watch our nearly adult child in action. A total joy.
The chatter of awakening birds greeted her the morning she turned nineteen.
They sang the sun up and the birthday girl, too. We ate scrambled eggs for breakfast with juice made from local trees–it may have been Dragonfruit that morning.
We boarded a boat three-seats-wide and cruised up the Rio San Juan, turned right at Rio Sabalos and pulled into the town dock.
A short climb up the hill to the elementary school where we had worked the day before, and her local celebration began.
On this day she worked in the “happy room,” fitting people with glasses.
In the photo at left, a client chooses a pair of sunglasses while she polishes the reading glasses she’s just fit to his face.
The Peace Corps volunteers encouraged folks coming in to wish her a “feliz cumpleanos.” On our daughter’s birthday, we saw over 350 patients, the most of the entire trip.
Sharing the presents!
After the last pair of glasses were presented, we dug out the gifts we had brought to distribute to the children of Sabalos.
“I get to give away presents on my birthday,” she laughed. 
We returned to Sabalos Lodge before sundown and had time to sit near the river and listen to the birds return to roost on the island not far away.
A monkey swung by our bungalow and posed for photos.
We ate another fine dinner in the dining room open to the jungle, this time featuring ribs brought down the river from San Carlos–along with a gorgeous birthday cake.
Ovens are not common in the jungle and birthday candles non-existent. We had vanilla ice cream to go with the cake iced with a soft meringue-type frosting.
The two layers of the yellow cake with a touch of cinnamon, included a pineapple-cream filling. The cake was a masterpiece!
I forgot to bring candles, and our gift looked pretty humble–a bar of fragrant soap–because I somehow forgot to put the note inside reading: “we’ll buy your gift in Nicaragua.”
No candles to blow out, but plenty of laughter, best wishes and a round of “Happy Birthday.”
She did get a card signed by all, a bag of peanut M&Ms and some chocolate-covered pretzels.
Nica birthday boots!
We left Sabalos Lodge and the jungle the next day after the young woman served up leftover cake for breakfast. 
While we waited for our flight from San Carlos to Managua, we wandered around town.
There, she found what she wanted for her birthday: a pair of Nicaragua cowboy boots to wear line dancing in the fall.
“Are you going to Nicaragua for your birthday next year?” several people asked.
She just smiled. “You never know.”
Note: as of 2019, she’s spent seven summers in Nicaragua and four birthdays!
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