last night was the funniest night i’ve experienced in my entire life. no questions asked, i’ve never laughed that much. i went to bed thinking fiona, heather and i were crazy, just hyper silly girls.. i thought we had turned to laughter in effort to salvage the day where (quite literally) everything went awry. but no, truly funny things happened.
it all started with the cake, the laughing that is. we’re at my family’s house and we were making a birthday cake for erin. so we google a “very moist” recipe and go for it. we even took two trips to the store to get things we didn’t have (slash, forgot.). as the ingredients were coming together my faith in the cake was crashing… it was runny, very very runny. as i put it in the oven i said, “i don’t think this is going to work….” and sure enough, one hour later, we’ve boiled a cake. yup, boiled. haha. it’s turned into this goupy brownie batter mixture, but its delicious! the day before hev & fi made a cake that, similar to this one, didn’t rise but that one tasted of gross eggs.. so in a small way this was a step up because it tasted good :o) we put the “cake” into a pot and messed with it on the stove hoping it would do something, anything, maybe even solidify enough to use as ice cream topping. the laughing fits begin when fiona very seriously asks, “want some cake?” as she drips it from a spoon. haha. at the end of the night, we’ve got our cake in a plastic crystal light container in my fridge.
at this point in the day, just before we took the cake out of the oven, only one thing had gone wrong: we came to my family’s house in hope of escaping noise and children and ended up attending the embassy’s (family) Christmas party. but that was fine, we hadn’t been upset about that because it was only one small this, thus far that is. after the cake fiasco we are ready to leave for erin’s birthday dinner. we’re in the car, making a u-turn in the street and heather states, “there’s a problem with the power sttteeerrrring (as she’s trying to turn the car around).” we try and get the guards at my uncle’s to look at it but, being Mozambicans, they really don’t drive and have cars, thus no desperately needed car knowledge. so we’re stuck at home. waiting for a driver to come from the center. the driver tells us he’s close, so (mostly me) all of us get moody and emo and very bummed that not only do we have to miss erin’s dinner but we also have to leave now and go back home. we all completely forgot we were dealing Mozambicans here, they say five minutes and mean 30! so when we think the driver will be here in 45 minutes that turns into two hours. we keep putting off watching a movie and ordering dinner because we think the driver will be there any minute. right when i get the movie going the door bell rings. so we take our cake and head off to get dinner with the drivers (who double as very fun cool guys)
after getting pizza to-go, we’ve swapped cars with the drivers. they drive home our wonky car and we stuff into the front of a pick up truck. then begins the jamming of heather’s arm into either mine or fiona’s sides as she attempts to switch gears with a person sitting on the hump seat in the middle. laughing starts again. and also fiona’s very close encounters with her hand and my mouth as she tries to lock the door from the hump seat. more laughter. we’re driving home with laptops, settlers games, and pizza in our laps. as we’re trying to pass out pizza and our arms are discombobulated and intertwined, we’re also looking for the kfc where chico and his friend are waiting for a ride home. we pull up to one and call chico, then realize we’re at the wrong kfc. there are only 3 in the city..we laugh off our stupidity. so then we’re feeling a bit confused, and naturally ask for help (because we’re girls, not boys). well the kind woman in the car next to us (the one we yelled at for ages trying to get her attention through her closed window) tells us with a very confused expression that the road we’re looking for is in fact the road we’re on. haha, we die laughing at this point and from here on our we don’t stop laughing until we’re asleep. so we drive up to the correct kfc seconds later, since we were so close, we get chico and his friend in the bed of the truck and head home. we’re flying over all the bumps and holes in the road, in true heather fashion, and we’re making it home in lightning speed. chico calls from the back of the truck and begs her to drive slower. laughing again, but apologizing at the same time.
we finally make it home to the center and as we’re dropping off the notebook with the car details i look up to heather dying laughing, wanting to know very quickly what’s funny this time so that i can join in. in one second i see why hev’s laughing… fiona is on her hands and knees having just fallen into the sand. she tripped her way off the step and all of her things that were once in her hand are now next to her strewn about on the sand and she’s not moving. other than her laughter, fiona’s not moving, and certainly not getting up anytime soon. and so, we laugh more. the night was wonderful. for a day that came very close to being dreadful, it was amazing. the kid party, the cake, eating fiona’s hand, greasy pizza in the car with three girls squished into two seats, and finally fiona’s graceless fall, the day was amazing. we had a fit of laughter again in church this morning, where hev actually left she was laughing so hard, it was a great night :o)
