finally.

A Long-term Dream

When I was in college I wanted to travel. And I did, a little.

I spent a few weeks one summer in El Salvador and I spent a month in London, doing part of my student teaching.

I seriously considered joining the Peace Corps. I called them, requested the information, even sort of settled on going to Papua New Guinea or El Salvador (I really enjoyed my time in El Salvador and at the time I knew enough spanish to survive.)

I would go to Perkins and sit for hours with a friend who would listen to me talk about wanting to travel, to see the world, to join the Peace Corps, to just do something with my life. And he would tell me to make sure I sent him a postcard from wherever I was. At the time, I was 99% sure it was what I wanted to do when I graduated. I wasn’t in a relationship, I had no desire to go to grad school and I knew that come graduation day, all my friends would be scattering all over the  country so, why not?

But plans changed in an unexpectedly good way. That same friend is now my husband. We’ve got 2 kids, a house, a couple dogs. I’m a teacher and I love my job.

And 11 years later I still  can’t shake that need to travel, to experience living somewhere that is nothing like here. So I’ve come up with a plan. An exciting plan with a very real possibility of working out.

A couple weeks ago I noticed that AHOPE, an organization in Ethiopia that cares for children with HIV, is always looking for voluteers. They specifically request people who are social workers, nurses, doctors, occupational therapists, and teachers. A volutneer needs to there for a minimum of 6 weeks but can stay longer if they wish.

Guess which teacher wants to move her family to Ethiopia for a summer?

I don’t want to go this summer or even next summer. I want to wait until Milo and Lexi are older. If we are going to move them half way around the world for a summer, I want them to experience it, to remember it, to fully participate in the experience.

I’ve already contacted AHOPE to see if this is even a possibility and got a resounding “yes” so now, we just need to make things happen on our end. It will be a lot of work to make this happen, another reason why I’m not trying to plan the trip for anytime soon, but I really think this will happen.

I’ve also got a second plan that involves staying in Ethiopia for a year but we’ll just stick to the plan of going for a summer to see how that works out for us. Then I’ll start plotting a longer stay.

It’s exciting to think about. It’s scary to think about. It makes me happy that we will be able to take Milo back his birth country and Lexi will see probably the most important piece of her brother’s life. I want this to happen.

NaBloPoMo Post #4: Children Just Like Me

Finding children’s books with pictures that represent a wide variety of children is a challenge to say the least.

When we first started our adoption process this book, Children Just Like Me, was recommended to us by several people. And I totally lucked out, I found it for $5 at a used book store.

It’s a great book. It has a wide variety of countries covering major parts of the world. It is pictures of real children and their families and their homes or schools, a few of their toys and descriptions of all the pictures. Except for Ethiopia. Every child in the book is shown with their family. Except the Ethiopian children. For the section on Ethiopia, the children featured are orphans.

Did the authors/photographers really have that difficult of a time finding one family in all of Ethiopia to interview and photograph?

I had one person say “Well, it really is kids just like Milo.” And true, Milo was an orphan in Ethiopia but this simply perpetuates the stereotype of Ethiopia that it is a country unable to care for their children. That’s not how I want my son to view his birth land. That’s not how I want anyone to view Ethiopia.

Am I calling for a boycott of the book? Do I want it removed from libraries? Not used in schools?

No. The rest of the book is extremely valuable and beautifully done.

I think what I am asking for is two things.

1. For people to realize that how they represent a country or people group may be the only small information some people may read on that particular topic. And, personally, I don’t want the world just assuming that Ethiopia is a country full of orphans because it’s not. It’s much, much, more than that.

2. For parents, teachers, grandparents, baby-sitters, anyone who reads books to kids to look carefully at the books they are reading to children and the message the book is sending.

Just to clarify, we do own this book. But for now, it will be put away until I can find enough other books that show real kids in Ethiopia with their families to balance out the picture.

Barefoot on April 16th

On April 16th go barefoot.

Go barefoot to help people understand how important shoes are.

Go barefoot so people know that some kids can’t go to school simply because they don’t have shoes.

Go barefoot so people know that one million people in Ethiopia have a disfiguring and debilitating disease from walking barefoot in volcanic soil.

Go barefoot to remind people that in many countries children walk miles for food, clean water, and medical care.

Go barefoot so you can remind yourself how lucky you are to go home and pick which pair of shoes you’ll wear tomorrow.

A lot to say but not sure where to start.

Now that we are back home and not sick and not jetlaged I’ve been wanting to write about our trip and having Milo home but there is so much to say, so much to share, I’m not quite sure where to start.

First of all, thank you. Thank you to the people who brought us stuff for our rummage sale. Thank you to the people who bought stuff from the rummage sale. Thank you to the people who sent donations towards Kevin shaving his head. Thank you to the people who prayed for us. Thank you to the people who asked us about updates and listened when we were excited about updates and when we complained about wait times. There is no way we could have done this alone. So thank you.

About Ethiopia.

Ethiopia was amazing. It’s how I pictured it to be and completely different than I thought it would be. I can’t really explain it but even though I’d never been there before, everything felt very familiar. When we go back (and we will go back at some point) I want to see more of the country. Our trip was obviously focused on Milo so there wasn’t much sight-seeing or touring. What we saw was mostly out the bus window.

We went shopping at a small mercado. It was obviously designed for tourists. Then we drove through the real mercado. The small mercado was one or two streets of shops, all containing similar jewelry and wall hangings and clothes. The real mercado was huge. Single streets devoted entirely to textiles or shoes or cleaning products or clothes or electronics.

Hosanna

We drove down to Hosanna and saw where Milo lived when he was first brought into the care center. Up until recently, children were relinquished to a care center in their local area and then after a few weeks (sometimes months) transferred to the care center in Addis where they waited for a family. While we were in Hosanna we met one of the nannies who cared for Milo. We showed her a recent picture and she was very excited to see how happy and healthy he looked.

Hosanna is “the country”. It’s about 3-4 hours south of the city and looks like the pictures you see of Ethiopia. There are wide open spaces and traditional round mud and straw huts. There are donkeys carrying yellow jerry cans to fill with water and young kids driving cattle down the road.

The CHSFS bus makes the Hosanna trip every Sunday so I think we were an event for the kids along the way. They ran to the edge of the road, waved and wanted us to take pictures.

The Plane Ride

Let’s face it 20+ hours on a plane just sucks. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It was typical plane seats with minimal room and food that was pretty bland. The ride home however was great. We lucked out and got the bulkhead seats and a bassinet which meant we had leg room and Milo could sleep in a bed. And jet lag wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Milo

Milo seems to be adjusting to life in Minnesota pretty well. He sort of naps in the morning, takes a decent nap in the afternoon and only half wakes up at night for a couple of bottles. And by half wake up, I mean he wakes up, cries and then can barely keep his eyes open to eat.

It’s been fun getting to know him. He’s smiley and happy and for five months old is pretty good at letting us know what he wants.

He likes to be held but is content to hang out on the floor and play with toys.

He thinks Lexi and the dogs are fascinating.

He sucks both thumbs at the same time.

He thinks being naked is really funny. And bath time is a blast.

Along with being naked and bath time he also thinks that spit bubbles, burping, blowing raspberries and chewing on his burp rag are also amusing ways of passing the time.

He took to a bottle right away and gets MAD if he not being fed as soon as he starts to fuss for food.

He likes to be bundled up in blankets and is a total sweat bomb when he sleeps.

He likes riding in his sling. He seems to prefer the ring-sling over the others but I think it’s because he’s a little too short for the other ones.

More updates will come. Like I said – lots to say but not sure where to start.

Leaving Ethiopia

Today is our last day in Ethiopia. We head to the airport in about 8 hours. It’ll be sad to leave but I’ll be glad to be back home in a familiar place with both my kids.

I’ll be posting much more later but for now here’s some highlights:

· Going to Hosanna to meet people who are an important part of Milo’s life.

· Watching the nannies take care of the kids

· Hanging out at the guest house (with candles because of zero power)

· Watching School of Rock

· Going to Metro Pizza (it’s almost as good as Punch Pizza)

· Playing with Lily, the dog that lives at the Guest House

· Finally taking Milo home on Tuesday. No more saying goodbye at the care center.

· Beautiful weather. In the morning it’s a little cloudy and breezy and about 70 degrees. It gets hot around lunch time and then the evenings are cool again.

A couple of things I won’t miss:

· Flies.

· The cats. Seriously, two cats somewhere in our neighborhood would sound like it was a fight to the death every morning around 2ish.

If everything goes as scheduled we should be home by about 4:30 pm on Friday. (We’re leaving Ethiopia at 10:30pm Thursday). See you then.

hi from ethiopia

we’re here. i don’t have much time because we’re sharing a computer with others so grammar and spelling are out the window at the moment.

after a very long flight, we got in thursday night. our travel group is great. it’s been fun finally meeting people that i’ve been “computer friends” with for so long.

today we met milo. he’s tiny. very tiny. but he’s beautiful. he’s got a great smile and is completely content to just snuggle in and sleep in our arms the entire time. although this afternoon he was a little more active – laughing and trying to roll over. he also showed us how he is capable of sucking both thumbs at once.

it’s amazing to see how loved he and the rest of the kids are. the nannies take such good care of them and you can tell they will miss our kids.

we’ve been to the care center twice. do to a power outage we got a very brief orientation before meeting our kids and then got to go back in the afternoon because they couldn’t do another presentation.

we see him again all morning tomorrow.

jet lag is killing me. it’s about 11:30 here and my body is wondering why i am trying to sleep at 3:30 in the afternoon.

internet has been spotty so i’ll try and update wehn/if i can.

We’re in Ethiopia

We are in Ethiopia. I won’t be updating my blog but Kevin will be twittering (as technology allows) and he’ll be updating his blog.

I promise – I’ll have updates on my blog as soon as we are back home.

But until then, I’ll just leave you with a few very cute pictures:

Lexi and Milo at about 6 weeks old.

Lexi and Milo at about 5 months.

Cute kids, huh?

T-12 hours

Bags packed? Check.

Bags piled by the door? Check.

Grandma in town to watch Lexi? Check.

Lists of instructions printed? Check.

Ride to the airport? Check.

Completely unable to sleep? Check.

Looks like we are ready to leave for Ethiopia.

And the Randomness Continues…

• This is funny. Funny and sad. I’m not a fan of Ayn Rand. But I’m  fan of Colbert and I love this: … when millions are losing jobs, losing homes and losing hope, there is nothing more important than putting yourself first.”
• This weekend is all about the packing. I kept telling myself I wanted to be packed before this weekend but then I cam up with about 482,000 other things to do. So this weekend is packing and laundry. Well, technically, it’s laundry then packing.
• One weekend and two work days left until we are on a plane.
  
• One weekend and 5 days left until we meet our son.
• I got this update on Milo from a friend who is in Ethiopia right now: “He is beautiful and healthy and has a great smile.  He is tiny – especially his little legs and bottom, but his tummy is a good size.  No signs of any sickness at all. You may want to bring some pretty small diapers (perhaps newborn size). He spent some of the time here sitting in his bobby chair, so if you don’t have one, get one, he really liked it.  He was pushing up and holding his head up really well.  Also, he REALLY likes to be held, so that is a perfect fit for a sling wearing momma!!! You will see for yourself soon – but really, nothing to worry about at all.  He was hanging out without a diaper and had no messes, so i think any intestional issues have certainly cleared up!”

Our Time in Ethiopia

Lots of people have asked what our trip will be like. It’s going to be a whirlwind. For those of you curious, here’s a sample itinerary:

Wednesday – fly out of the Cities.

Thursday – Land in Ethiopia around 7:30. Check in at the guest house

Friday – Orientation, meet with case worker, medical staff and meet Milo (briefly)

Saturday – Hang out with Milo for the morning, shopping in the afternoon, dinner/show

Sunday – Travel to Hosanna

Monday – More hanging out with Milo, tour AHOPE and sight seeing

Tuesday – Going away celebration for the kids, Embassy appointment, Milo is in our care from now on.

Wednesday – Hanging out with Milo and other families

Thursday – Morning cooking class, Packing, hanging with Milo, head to the airport

Friday – Land in Twin Cities around 4:30.

It’s going to be one busy week.