Some tidbits about Leya’s two quinceaneras this weekend.
Saturday’s party
First a few quick anecdotes that we heard Sunday about Leya’s “friends” birthday party, which was held on Saturday:
- A girl got a serious cut that required a trip to the doctor. This was from playing in the pool.
- Later on, a boy (who is either Leya’s cousin or uncle) broke his arm.
- When it was cake time, Leya’s friends wanted to push her face into the cake, which is a big party tradition in Bolivia, I guess. But since this was a cake Yoli covered with fondant, they couldn’t get her messy. The fondant protected her from the buttercream icing underneath. No matter how many times they pushed, the cake was unharmed and Leya unblemished.
Sunday’s party
Here’s a recap of what happened during Sunday’s “family” birthday party, which we attended with Ludi and Jadzia:
Yoli finished this cake entirely at El Jordan in advance of the party. We took photos of it. Unfortunately, on our taxi ride to Tio Adonai’s, there was a big bump and some of the flowers on top were broken (The taxi driver was also talking and/or texting on his cell phone while he was driving, but I digress). The cake still looked really beautiful despite this.
Just like at Jadzia’s birthday party, all the little cousins eventually started doing their “slide traffic jam” thing where they would all slide down and bump into each other.
Leya’s parents Lucy and Juan prepared some “Keperi” beef, arroz con queso (cheesy rice), and a potato/vegetable salad to eat for dinner. It was pretty good. All the kids were together at some smaller tables. Jadzia did okay for a bit, but then decided she didn’t want to eat anything and put on a bit of a scene. But it didn’t last for too long.
Yoli’s sister Noemi led a game of trying to find out which of Leya’s parents knew the most about Leya. She asked them a series of questions and to see who knew the right answer. Sometimes it wasn’t either of them!
Later Lucy recounted the story of Leya’s birth. One of the highlights: When Lucy went out for a walk at the hospital, Juan jumped into her bed to sleep. When she came back later and woke him up to kick him out of the bed, he asked if the baby had been born yet.
The evening went later than we were planning on, but we had to stick around because we wanted to see the cake cut and eaten. Thankfully Jadzia and Ludi were playing fairly well and had not gotten to slap-happy.
Everyone really loved looking at Yoli’s cake and enjoyed eating it. But many Bolivians just don’t get fondant. Most cakes are covered here in either butter cream or whipping cream. So the chewiness of fondant makes it a bit weird for them, but it does enable some beautiful cake designs, which is why cake decorators use it.
Jadzia’s tia Sara took Jadzia on her lap to feed her some cake and try to get her to talk. They had a lot of fun.
Sara and her boyfriend Cesar gave us a ride back to El Jordan in his car. We found out the next day, though, that they had an accident at the end of our street after dropping us off. While trying to turn onto the main avenue, Cesar braked suddenly and the car behind him rear-ended his car.