The Warden Family: Feliz Cumpleanos!

This weekend Ella was invited to her first Bolivian birthday party. It was quite the cultural event, so we thought we would share all about it.

The first birthday is a huge event here in Bolivia. The parents typically go all out, throwing a huge party for friends and family. Our landlords live in the apartment next to us and their granddaughter turned one last week. Thursday night they came over with an invitation for Ella to come to the party. Ella was SO excited, and we were too! We had heard about these birthday parties and were really interested to get to experience one.

Our landlords are a married couple, probably in their 40's. The husband, Marco, is Swiss and is married to a Bolivian woman (Ruth). We were thankful that Marco warned us about the time on the invitation. Bolivians are not known for their punctuality. Because of this, whenever Bolivians invite people for parties or set meetings etc., they always put a time much earlier than the actual start time. So, when we looked at the invitation, and confirmed that the party started at 9am, Marco quickly said, "Oh, but you are Americans so we can tell you that the party will actually start around 10:30 am." Good to know! So we showed up a bit after 10:30 am and were the 3rd family there. People continued to roll in as late as 11:45 pm!

The party was really great! The first two hours, a clown was the main source of entertainment. We think that he was pretty funny, but he spoke so fast we couldn't understand a word he said. We are getting very good at smiling and nodding our heads in agreement. Ella was also quite scared of him, but eventually participated from afar. Around hour 3 we all gathered around the cakes and the speeches began. Both parents spoke followed by all 4 grandparents. Next were the great grandparents and a few other aunts and uncles as well. Next came the breaking of the pinata, handing out gifts and then eating the cake. Despite the fact that we were the only foreigners there, we actually had a really nice time, Ella had a blast, and we learned a little more about the culture here in Bolivia. Below are some of the pictures from the day.