Thirty!

Today I celebrated turning thirty! In Nigeria!

It was a really wonderful day. I woke up to my roommates crooning happy birthday to me while I lay ensconced in my mosquito net. Throughout the day, I received wonderful emails and messages from people all over the world, and I celebrated with two birthday cake surprises and a group of visionary experts with whom I work.

Let me explain the extraordinariness of the cakes. First, all our cooking is usually done on three kerosene burners outdoors. Secondly, one of the interns has been working on building a solar oven, but we lack certain reflective materials (enough beer cans), so the plans and skeleton of the solar oven live on the floor of our studio work space. Thirdly, the only sweets that we have access to are digestives, which are more accurately described on the label as 'wheatflour coasters.' Fourthly, chocolate is loosely interpreted as such in Nigeria.

So now, to the cakes themselves: a gluten-free chocolate-coconut-ginger cake ala Stacy and a frosted corn-muffin sponge cake decorated to say "Happy Birthday Julia" in pink frosting bought my a Nigerian architect, Deji, who transported it from Oniticha (the cake is more delicious than my description). I felt so loved and indulgent! I must give Stacy a little more credit for her feat of a cake. Having the forethought to bring gluten-free cake mix from New York, she steamed the cakes in a secret manner during the day using a double-boiler type system with kerosene burner, which is not the most consistent of flames. Then she made coconut-ginger icing and decorated the cake exquisitely. I would eat it again in a heartbeat!

Reflecting on the past year, it is amazing how much has changed. I celebrated my last birthday two days after graduating from naturopathic medical school in Seattle. Then, I passed board exams, completed an internship in Hawaii, decided that I was meant to be self-employed instead and moved to Austin in February, started a practice and network there, and then accepted a ten week public health internship to revolutionize the public health care model in rural Nigeria. What an amazing year! And I am pretty sure that the future only gets better.

I am looking forward to thirty - both this upcoming year and the decade. I like where I am headed. I love the people I have close to me in my life. And I sometimes, I cannot believe my fortune when I see how the pieces are all falling together.