Know Birthday, Will Travel

A friend of mine has been denied a simple US visit visa for what I find to be the feeblest of reasons. That he did not know the birth day of the sister he was to visit! I don't know whether its derisory or woeful. And in either case who is to be laughed at or pitied. The drift is that after I heard the story, I did a quick and dirty 'survey' on my friends and discovered that a majority of them did not have such information either. In fact they dint even know their own parents birthdays. Birth years, yes but not the day! Am told in the first world things are so good that they don't have grounds for divorce so such mundane issues like not remembering your significant other's birthday can cost you a marriage and send your kids into full lives of stress and related abuse.

But I would understand them, its probably just a cultural thing. In Kenya celebrating the date of birth is quite a new affair and again its mostly done for kids below 5. The fetes normally fade in significance as years advance. However even the birthdays I have attended never even looked like such. Picture this one where we went to celebrate the first born's first year. There was bbq (nyama choma, kawaida yao), crates upon crates of tusker, pisner and even my favorite WC. There was mukwangala and even mugithi the dance that gives neighbors and friends the moral right to hold each others wives at the waist. I wondered how that was a kids birthday celebration. I even wondered if it would be remembered at a random questioning eg at the embassy!