Birthday in Western Africa; with Max’s family

Happy first birthday to my daughter Kaima

Glad to have you here today. Today is a special day for my family because of life, because of friends out there who are happy with us concerning our only daughter who turned 1 year today.

What does birthday represent in your country and in your custom?

At the end of this article, I’ll like to know what birthday is to you, how you’ll want to celebrate it, and the culture by which your people celebrate it in your land.

I’ll talk about birthday in Africa, but before that, I’ll like to talk little about my daughter who is a celebrant today.

Hope you can pronounce her name; it’s a simple name, not an English name but a native name in my mother-tongue and in our native language.

My little girl was born at this time last year; 22 November 2019. It was a day of mixed feelings after the victory of child’s birthday. Maybe in developed world, giving birth or delivering a new born may be pretty easier because of C-section method and technological and medical advancements.

A Caesarean section is also common in Africa but requires huge amount of money from some hospitals and doctors who takes advantage of their people sometimes. C-section could cost up to $400 to $600 in my country depending on the type of hospital and doctor visited.

I wished all my kids were born using C-section method; my reason was to save my female half from those struggles and pains of child birth. But due to my level of income earning, I couldn’t take or admit to C-section as a choice. During the birth of my first son, my wife had some challenges and difficulties in delivering naturally which later led to her using C-section method. We spend a whole lots them. After our son’s birth, waited for several years before our second son; that was in accordance to medical advice from our doctor who suggested that we should give space of several years if we may want to try natural birthing process for our next child. We waited for the said time just to see if we could save the cost of using C-Section. Our second son was delivered naturally without difficulties; you could call it luck, but we tried applying all the natural ways of keeping a mother and her unborn child healthy, she also had a good routine checkups. Her diet was also enhanced doing her second pregnancy. Our second son came naturally and successfully without problems.

After two years and 7 months, our daughter Kaima came. She also was delivered naturally after little struggles and pains of child birth. It was really a tough day for my entire family. I felt so much for my wife during her time of labor. I went to the theater/labor-ward with her to console and to encourage her during the process. But at a point, the nurses insisted that I should excuse them. Well, for whatever that might be their reason, all that I was concerned about was the safety of my wife and our child.

After some hours of labor process, her services reached and my wife delivered Kaima. That was when the feeling mixed lol 😂

Birthday celebration in Africa.

In recent years, Africa as a continent has dropped many of her ancient cultures for western cultures and way of life. In my land, we do not celebrate birthday like you know it today. Today, people do celebrate birthday yearly, but in my culture and traditions in those days, it wasn’t so. But western cultures has taken over many ancient traditions due to colonialism that happened some years back.

Now, most of our people have started celebrating events such as birthdays, white weddings, funeral etc like the westerners. In our ancient tradition, every person has two major celebrations associated to them; birthday celebration that happens once after a child is delivered which attracts friends and well wishers coming around to welcome a newborn child with their many gifts 🎁

The second known celebration in my tradition and culture then was the celebration of life which happens after someone has passed on. During such times, families, friends and well wishers do come in a more larger quantity to celebrate and honor their dead. During this time, many gifts are contributed for the immediate family mourning their dead. But nowadays, some of these things has changed.

What do you expect to see on birthday parties.

Now, we use candle 🕯 sticks, cakes 🎂 🍰 balloons 🎈 and flowers 💐 to decorate the place of event. We expect to have some food at the event. We also expect to exchange gifts with our loved ones.

Before, we don’t use cakes, balloons and candles 🕯 in our culture, but we use them now.

Kaima’s birthday celebration 🎊 🎉 🍾 is going on even at the time of writing. We couldn’t gather people due to government’s instructions to protect toddlers from being exposed to covid-19.

Even children in kindergarten and nursery school have not started their school sessions again due to covid-19 issues.

We gathered our immediate families and few children from neighborhood for her birthday celebration.

We are not expecting much physical gifts from people due to restrictions that couldn’t allow them to come. But friends on social media have started sending their prayers and wishes.

Bitcoin Cash in conjunction with read.cash has made it possible for Kaima and her family to be able to express their gratitude to Bitcoin Cash community over their support from her birth up till today marking her 1st birthday.

Thanks for coming around to celebrate with us.

I remain your friend Max.