The Reason For A Blog.

I have been writing this blog for three years. First it was me blathering about loss and longing. Recently it has become me blathering about loss and having. I am 'having' a lot these days. So. Much.

My chairs are full.


I have two special someones tugging on my apron strings. I have become something that I didn't ever imagine myself being.

I have become a happy person.

There have been several guest bloggers on this blog. One of them wrote this:

Here is something I think about which falls a bit outside the usual discussion: whether adoptive families will in time become engaged advocates for Ethiopia. It isn’t sexy, the long term business of pushing for a democratic government or good US foreign policy in the Horn or advocating for infrastructure or the development of good farming practices. It isn’t nearly as clear-cut or gratifying as responding to a heart-breaking famine or loving a beautiful child. But Ethiopia desperately needs such advocates. I don’t mean to say that adoptive families have a special obligation – I know that decisions about what causes to support and how are personal ones informed by many factors. But if such families do help raise awareness about Ethiopia, or if they do become involved with these issues, then that, I think, would be a significant and very welcome consequence of adoption.

I think about this a lot. I have absolutely no idea how to help bring democracy to Ethiopia. I recently read an article about Obama putting pressure on Zenawi to clean up his human rights policies in Ethiopia. Zenawi basically told Obama to suck it. I'm paraphrasing here, but the gist of the article was that Zenawi is perfectly comfortable getting anything he may ever need from China, and really doesn't need the good U.S. of A to help him with anything. If Obama has no influence, how on earth would someone like me attempt to change anything? Someone whose concerns lie more in the mundane challenges like, "How do I get M&m to ingest one green vegetable this month?" Not bloody likely that I'll be able to do anything to help Ethiopia become more democratic.

Nine months ago I wrote an e-mail to another guest blogger, Jane Kurtz. I asked her if Ethiopia Reads would ever consider building a library in M&m's hometown. Fast Forward.

She said yes.

She said yes!

Ethiopia Reads will build a library in my son and daughter's hometown. I just need to raise the money.

If every person who hit this blog yesterday sent 50 bucks, it would be done. Just like that. Now I know that a lot of those hits were people Googling things like, "What kind of family picture should I absolutely NOT include in my homestudy?" and "What do you do if you accidentally feed your child spoiled sweet potatoes?" and that about sixteen of those hits were most likely my mom looking at these pics over and over, but nonetheless, it is worth giving it a go don't you agree? I know that folks are tapped out, and this is a terrible time economically. I know that everyone has their own cause too. That's why I don't imagine we will raise all of the money here on the eyes of my eyes site, but maybe we will raise some of it.

Last summer Meazi turned to me and said, "Mom, can you believe in Ethiopia I never even had one book?"

If you would like to make a donation to the Ethiopia Reads Library in Mudula, Ethiopia

Go HERE.

Scroll down to 'one time donation', pick an amount, and in the 'in honor of' field type- 'Mudula'.

And so we begin. The Reason for a Blog, Part I- A Library.

Friday Friend or Family Feature: Guest Blogger Edition- Rebecca Haile-Part II. Ms. Haile answers our questions...

First, thanks to everyone for all of your positive comments. Really, I could be a guest on this site any day.

Here are my responses to your questions, in no particular order.

I'm curious how often, if ever, she goes back to Ethiopia? Does she take her children?

I have only been back once since my family left in 1975/1976. We left as refugees, and for years returning was out of the question for safety reasons. In later years we didn’t go because we didn’t have the money for the trip and because I’m not sure my parents wanted to go as visitors – they were waiting for the day we could go home for good. When I went in 2001 I was an adult, I had the resources and time to make the trip on my own (my parents still have not returned), I didn’t yet have children, and I was reconciled to the idea of going as a visitor and not a citizen.

I look forward to going again, and hope to take my kids soon. (At six and four, they are still a bit young.) I look forward to exposing them to the history and culture of a country that is a part of their heritage, and I look forward to introducing them to family and having them understand that they are connected to real people who live half way across the planet. I’m excited for them to experience ways of living that will be so different from what they are used to here in New York City. And I so hope the trip will feel natural rather than forced, and that they will appreciate all that is different but also feel some genuine connection – sort of like their relationship with their grandparents. We will see how all these grand plans turn out.

I wonder if she could comment more on the dynamics between the Ethiopian-American community and the African-American community? One of the things I think about is that my future child will have a whole cultural background from Ethiopia that I want to preserve as much as possible, but that he or she will most likely be perceived as African-American in this country - what are the implications of that for raising a child?

I’ve thought about a lot about the dynamics between these two communities, and happened to address the question in my joint remarks (with my dad) at the Harvard conference last April. Here is what I said then:


“A third prediction is that the new generation will redefine the relationship between Ethiopians and the existing African American community. The relationship between Ethiopians and African Americans has not always been good, and I’ve found this to be a very sensitive subject for the first generation. At worst, Ethiopians can be overly prejudiced – this is the uncomfortable flip side of what my father has described as our sense of ourselves as a separate peoples. At best, we come to the United States with little appreciation of the history associated with African American culture and are therefore susceptible to all manner of misunderstandings. For example, when I was a freshman, Williams College invited me, as it invited all African American freshmen, to come to campus a few days early for orientation. Neither my father nor I knew what to make of the invitation – in retrospect I know that I did not have the cultural compass with which to decipher the meaning of the gesture. Did Williams think black kids needed special help? Did it expect its black students to be part of a unified group? Was there something going on I did not understand? Clearly, there was.

For its part, the African-American community has not always been understanding of the culture and history that is specific to Africans or Caribbean blacks.

The next generation is changing all of this. We reject the prejudices of our parents and have developed a much better understanding of the complexities of race in the United States. Moreover, as we come of age in the United States, particularly in urban areas, we often find that an “African-American” identity is as reflective of our experience as any. Again, in the interviews I conducted in Los Angeles, “African American” was a top choice.”

If I am right, as I hope, the historic disconnect or unease between Ethiopians and African-Americans will be less of an issue going forward.

How will Ethiopian children be perceived or self-identify? As I wrote in my initial post, the Ethiopian-American population is growing, and that growth brings greater opportunity for cultural preservation. At the moment the Ethiopian or habesha identity remains strong among those born in Ethiopia or born to first generation parents. But even a community of 500,000 is a tiny minority in the United States, and adopted children will have a much weaker tie to Ethiopian culture. So I think it is quite likely that adopted children will find a home within the African American community, and that they will almost certainly be seen as African American by others.

I’m not sure what the “implications” of this will be. Obviously, every parent in a biracial family should be prepared for the issues associated with raising a child that does not look like his/her parents. But since the adoption of Ethiopian children is a relatively new phenomenon, the question of how this particular group of internationally adopted black kids experience the added element of coming from Ethiopia -- or even whether there will be a general, rather than family- or child-specific, experience that can be described -- remains to be seen. In my own multi-cultural family, the plan at the moment is to incorporate all of our cultures into our lives as much as we can (again why I am so grateful for my parents and look forward to visiting Ethiopia). Going forward, I hope I can take my cues from my kids to figure out what they need and what they enjoy and try to respond to both.

I have been thinking about what you wrote about being a child in Ethiopia. I am remembering, too, that you wrote in your book, "Ethiopia is not a country where adults fret over children's feelings." Would you expound on that a little bit? Is this a cultural or generational difference in your opinion?

I think it is both. Clearly, attitudes toward parenting and children have evolved in this generation. There is no question that children are treated with much more respect, and that parenting is a far more thoughtful and intentional enterprise than it was twenty or thirty years ago.

But in the case of Ethiopia there is also a strong societal element. Ethiopia remains a traditional, conservative country that has not experienced anything like the relatively steady (if turbulent) expansion of human and civil rights that Western countries have witnessed over the last 50-100 years. Ethiopian children simply don’t have the rights and respect that children in the United States have. Violence toward children (corporal punishment is widespread and socially acceptable), low school enrollment rates, child labor, female genital mutilation, discrimination toward children born out of wedlock, born with disabilities or orphaned because of HIV/AIDS – the attitudes and statistics regularly reported in United Nations or private studies on these topics are simply appalling. All of this feeds into a societal view of children as second-class citizens who are expected to defer to adults at all times. Even in urban, professional families, children just are not seen as individuals with opinions that matter or preferences that should be respected.

Sometimes when I’m with my sister or cousins and one of our kids throws a tantrum or refuses to eat what’s been served or demands red rather than blue socks when everyone is already late, and the parent of said kid is working hard to reason with or settle down the kid, another one of us will joke: “Just one summer in Ethiopia! Just one short summer, that’s all it would take and this kid would shape right up.”

Ethiopia has a long, long way to go on this front.

I am curious if Ms. Haile has made any observations about what the Ethiopian community living in the US feels about so many Ethiopian children being adopted and raised abroad.

I know that readers of this blog are well aware of all the pro and con discussions surrounding international adoption, which in the case of Ethiopia generally means the adoption of black kids by mostly white families. I can’t say where the Ethiopian community comes down on these issues, as I don’t know of any surveys or studies of attitudes. Anecdotally speaking, I can report that within my own group of family and friends people generally express the same mix of support and concern I see expressed elsewhere, with the older first generation being somewhat more in favor and less concerned about how adopted children will fare in their new families than people my age or younger who’ve grown up here (which may tie to the overall generational/cultural attitudes toward children discussed above). In addition, I hear more concern about the government’s role in the process, and also some sadness around the idea that “we can’t take care of our own.”

Here is something I think about which falls a bit outside the usual discussion: whether adoptive families will in time become engaged advocates for Ethiopia. It isn’t sexy, the long term business of pushing for a democratic government or good US foreign policy in the Horn or advocating for infrastructure or the development of good farming practices (discussed below). It isn’t nearly as clear-cut or gratifying as responding to a heart-breaking famine or loving a beautiful child. But Ethiopia desperately needs such advocates. I don’t mean to say that adoptive families have a special obligation – I know that decisions about what causes to support and how are personal ones informed by many factors. But if such families do help raise awareness about Ethiopia, or if they do become involved with these issues, then that, I think, would be a significant and very welcome consequence of adoption.

If Ms. Haile would also kindly be willing to entertain the complex issue of foreign aid in Africa, I'd be very interested to know how she feels. I've heard some say that a whole generation of people in Africa know nothing but subsisting on aid as a way of life. Is aid helping more or harming more the people in Africa?

This is indeed a complex issue and I don’t have any special expertise in the area. So please take my comments accordingly.

I think that if you are looking at aid from the perspective of a hungry family, it is hard to be “against” it. I know that if my child were suffering from malnutrition and I had no options I would take any assistance I could, no matter what I felt about the source of the help or long term impact of my decision to take the help.

However, if you look at whether aid as it is currently designed is helping or hurting the goal of food-independence, there is a lot to worry about. It is sobering to think that Ethiopia was ever known as “the breadbasket of Africa.” Ethiopia has plentiful rivers, abundant rainfall and fertile farming regions. A frequent reaction from people arriving in Addis Ababa for the first time is surprise at how green the city is. Ethiopia does not, however, have modern irrigation systems; it does not have decent roads via which food can be transported from productive regions to arid ones; it does not have farmers with access to fertilizer or pest-resistant hybrids or anything remotely resembling 21st century farming practices; it does not have a market economy (all farms are state-owned) that rewards farmers for good decisions or a democratically elected government concerned with general welfare rather than self-preservation.

Direct food aid doesn’t do anything about these underlying problems. Worse, it may be counterproductive because it distorts local markets and undercuts local farmers – this in a society where an astonishing 85% of the population makes its living from agriculture. So what is the rationale for having such a small percentage of US aid to Ethiopia allocated to farming development -- less than 5% of all aid, and by several estimates less than 1% of all food aid? Or for the United States to require that all direct food aid come in the form of food produced in the US rather than allocating some money to buy food from Ethiopian farmers in regions not affected by drought?

Readers of the book will recall that my Uncle Tadesse, whom I admire, has made it one of his life’s projects to advocate for an irrigation system that harnesses the water of the highland rivers and delivers it to farming regions in a reliable manner. He is absolutely convinced that Ethiopia can feed itself.

The good news is that the shortcomings of aid are well known. And while the political realities in donor countries may frustrate reform, private foundations such as the Gates Foundation have begun experimenting with forms of aid that are designed to address the underlying issues. Hopefully these measures, together with homegrown efforts like Tadesse’s, will produce some long-term results.

[There was a question about "There is No Me Without You” but since I haven’t read the book (yet) I can’t answer it.]

Friday Friend or Family Feature: Guest Blogger Edition- Rebecca Haile

One of the reasons I wrote Held at a Distance was to pinpoint what it means to me to feel emotionally and culturally connected to both Ethiopia and America. On that topic my book is quite personal, as are the balances I have struck around identity.

For this post, and with adoptive families in mind, I thought I would share the broader contexts in which I have thought about these connections since the book’s publication.

First, I’ve thought a lot about Ethiopian-American culture and identity in light of the dramatic increase in the immigrant community. Before the 1974 revolution there were so few Ethiopians living outside Ethiopia. Today there are between 350 and 500 thousand of us in the US alone, truly a staggering number. And although we are still a relatively young immigrant group, thirty years is long enough for us to realize that we aren’t going back “home”. The real business of living, we know, is happening here.

The bigger numbers don’t necessarily mean that little replicas of Addis Ababa will spring up here and there (though very traditional pockets may well flourish). Rather, like groups that have come before, I imagine that we will create something different, something that combines elements of the old country and the new. Take a look at the “movie” (a combination of still images, audio clips from interviews and music) I made with my friend Ara Oshagan about Los Angeles’ Ethiopian community. In it you can hear people, especially parents and their second-generation children, searching for words to describe their identity and struggling to articulate a balance that is true to their Ethiopian-in-America or Ethiopian-American or African-American experience. Here is the link. I think the real significance of this growth is that it permits so many more options around the preservation of culture and identity. Whatever people settle upon, they will not be limited by the kind of isolation my family experienced in central Minnesota in the 1970s.

Second, I’ve been thinking about these questions as a mother. All of a sudden, it seems, my two children have grown out of toddlerhood and are old enough to notice how our family compares to their friends’ families. They know that their mother and her (very numerous) relatives are Ethiopian, that this side of the family comes in different shades of brown and speaks with a range of accents or prefers Amharic. They know that their maternal grandfather is in a wheelchair for reasons having to do with Ethiopia. They also understand that their paternal grandparents are Greek and Armenian, and that their father was raised in Istanbul. At the same time, they are Americans who are very attached to their friends and for the most part feel no different at all.

I have such mixed emotions about Ethiopia. I love the country proper; can dream up in a minute the breathtaking topography of highland peaks covered in golden brush and practically feel the clean cold air of dawn in the mountains. I love the way that nature is always at hand even in the cities, in the cattle that can suddenly block the busiest street, in the drum of summer rain on tin roofs or in the lake-sized puddles that women in heels sidestep with such skill. I love and miss my extended family; I will always be grateful for the unconditional love and safety they provided me and forever mindful of their lessons about caring for others. It is probably also true that I love the idea of Ethiopia, the marvelous historic nation that might have been. I will always wonder, as I wrote in my book, what it would have been like to grow up there, in a place where my family simply belonged.

But I also know that the many things I have come to love about being American, the many freedoms I enjoy as a citizen, as a woman and as an individual, are just not on offer in Ethiopia. And as I think specifically about children, I think about all that is wrong with how children are raised. With love, yes, but also with extreme emphasis on qualities such as obedience and conformity and a general disregard for the individual nature or needs of a given child.

So what do I want for my children? What should I do, what can I do, to give them enough of Ethiopia while also respecting their other connections as well as their right to charter their own course?

For now, here are some of my ideas:

Ethiopian history. This one is easy. There is so much there, from the achievements of ancient Axum to the 3000 year-old written tradition to the encounters and clashes with European powers from the Middles Ages on. I don’t want to romanticize or overplay anything, though. I want my children to know the good and the bad and the mundane in-between and accept it for what it is. I feel so strongly that we have to embrace all aspects of a given subject if we mean to take it seriously.

I imagine that knowing Ethiopian history in this way will matter for my children’s sense of self – we come from this place - and will also teach them to be more sensitive to the complexity of other people and cultures.

Connection/Community. This one is harder. Harder to do, and harder to know how much to do. My children won’t speak Amharic; I recognize that. So I’m very grateful that they see their grandparents and cousins often, as this is a natural way for them to be a part of something Ethiopian – nothing forced there.

In terms of connection to a bigger community, I’m quite interested in how second-generation Ethiopian-Americans are defining their identity and their relationship to Ethiopia. Not all speak Amharic, not many have spent meaningful time in Ethiopia, and yet the connection, or at least the yearning for connection, remains. Without pushing them in any way, I can see how my hybrid kids could find a space within this community that is genuinely open to them.

In terms of on-going cultural exposure -- which is both good in and of itself, like exposure to history, and a critical element of community-building - I’m sure the growth will result in more restaurants, art galleries, bookstores, community centers and organized events and more chances to come into contact with other Ethiopian-American families. For example, last April Harvard hosted a three-day conference on Ethiopian creativity that would have been inconceivable ten years ago. I learned a ton about the art, music and political activity of Ethiopian immigrants from the speakers. And I also left feeling a genuine connection with the other Ethiopian participants, something I rarely feel in more traditional settings.

Two observations about adoptive families here. First, I fully expect you and your children to join this conversation and for your presence and participation to impact this evolving Ethiopian-American identity. It is entirely possible that my kids will have as much in common with yours as they will with kids whose parents are from Ethiopia.

Second, I think adoptive families may help lead the way in establishing more formal ways of transmitting culture. I get a lot of practical questions from adoptive parents – where to buy a specific kind of children’s book, where to get Amharic lessons – and often I come up blank. We don’t have such mechanisms in place yet. The reason for this, I think, is that we come from a majority culture and have only just started to recognize that Ethiopian identity in the next generations could easily disappear under the weight of the dominant American (and African-American) culture. Adoptive parents, on the other hand, it seems to me, emerge from the adoption process having already done a lot of thinking about minority culture and identity and the potential consequences of inaction. Also, of course, as immigrants we don’t have the same resources – financial or otherwise - that more established American families often do.

Communal Sensibility. Within an Ethiopian family or community, you can never think only of yourself. Everyone is very aware of how their actions affect everyone around them, and children are taught to be especially solicitous of parents and other elders. (To this day I can’t get myself a glass of water without offering one to everyone else in the room.) I hope I can pass on something of this very Ethiopian value to my children. That is, I hope they will come to understand their responsibilities and obligations as reaching beyond themselves or their immediate families. It doesn’t matter to me whether the community they think about includes people in New York City or Addis Ababa or whether it is a community of ideology rather than geography – it only matters that they think, and act, in a communal way.

Humility. Ethiopia will humble you. There is humility in being stopped cold by a power outage that leaves an entire neighborhood in darkness. In having a long anticipated trip cut short because there is just no way around a washed out mountain pass. In suffering the arbitrary actions of one repressive government after another, in living with curfews and random police stops, in having everything upended by revolution or civil war. In losing parents or children to military bullets or to illnesses that are routinely treated elsewhere.

Over the years I have found it useful to remember that even foundations can be fragile, and that the best-laid plans must be open to revision. I think some sense of humility and understanding along these lines will be valuable to my children as we move further into this unpredictable new century, a century in which America’s role in the world – and American confidence - may come under challenge. I don’t mean that I want them to throw up their hands or be fatalistic about outcomes. I just hope that some degree of humility informs their thinking and helps them make mindful, effective choices.

So that’s where I am, at least for today. No doubt my ideas will change as my kids grow and change. I’ll end with a bit of advice I got from my father when my husband and I were going back and forth on what to name our daughter: “Well, enjoy your decision. It will be the last one you make about her on your own.”

I think about that a lot.

Rebecca Haile
www.rebeccahaile.com


* Note from Julie...

Rebecca has graciously indicated to me that she would be more than happy to write a follow up post answering any questions we may have about today's post, or about Held at a Distance.

Thank you Rebecca!

Friday Friend or Family Feature...

will return next week? I sure hope so.

Here is something from someone far more eloquent. As I mentioned there was an online chat with Rebecca Haile on Monday. She is an amazing woman. I had a little trouble with the actual chat itself. When the moderator asked for questions, I panicked because I thought no one was participating. I quickly typed in a question. It wasn't that people weren't asking questions, they were asking excellent questions. They just weren't showing up on the screen yet. Here is my lame question, (Did I think I was the host of the Miss America pageant? Not my best moment.)

ME:If you had to describe Ethiopia in just a few words, what would they be? Would these be the same words you would use to describe the Ethiopia of your childhood?

Rebecca Haile: I've been putting off answering this question because it is so hard to distill. Ethiopia has so much history and beauty and culture,and yet all of that is undermined by the natural forces and political actors that have ravaged the country and its people.It is home for me, so I feel the connection to family and place that leaves me feeling uplifted after a visit.And yet I worry about the future - it is a country at a crossroads.
I did not appreciate all this complexity as a child.



Also, unrelated to this, I found out something sweet about Ethiopia in a webinar on rituals and ceremonies that my adoption agency presented. They believe in the tooth fairy in Ethiopia. Instead of the under the pillow/get cash/capitalistic American ritual, in Ethiopia they throw the tooth up onto the roof. The tooth fairy takes it and 'leaves' a new tooth. Nice huh? I like it. You will definitely see me in a couple of years, outside, standing in the grass, chucking a small Ethiopian tooth onto the roof. (Thereby solidifying my standing as mayor of Crazytown.)

Rebecca Haile Online Chat Today...

Rebecca Haile's novel, Held at a Distance, was put on the New York Public Library 2008 Summer Reading List. In connection with that, the library is hosting an online author chat with her today Monday, June 23, at 6:30 EST.

HERE is the link. Scroll down and click on the left-hand side.

For more info about Rebecca on this blog, click
HERE .

Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd...

This coming Sunday and Monday, April 13th and 14th, there will be an Ethiopian conference at Harvard. Here is the link. The keynote speakers are Rebecca Haile and her father Dr.Getatchew Haile. They will be giving a presentation called, "Unto the Second Generation: Dual Perspectives on the Ethiopian Diaspora."

Steven and I had the opportunity to hear these two speak. I highly recommend that you give them a listen if you have the chance.


Rebecca was extremely helpful and welcoming to us. I hadn’t read her book yet, and really wished I had (I have just finished part I). Her book is all about identity issues. Here is a review from Henry Louis Gates Jr.,

"Part travelogue, part history, part memoir, Rebecca Haile's Held at a Distance shines a bright and unique light on Ethiopia, a country in whose fortunes we as Americans and Westerners have been concerned for some time, but which remains in large part a mystery to many of us. Today, Ethiopia, for far too many people, is synonymous with poverty and warfare; but for generations of African Americans, it was the font of black civilization itself, the spiritual source of visions of a united and prosperous Pan-Africa, the living testament to the glories that were Black Africa. In her bold new book, Haile moves far beyond the one-dimensional headlines that encapsulate Ethiopia in the Western press to provide as rich and nuanced a portrait of her native land as I have seen. It's an important and beautifully written volume."

Rebecca’s story is harrowing and heart breaking. In Los Angeles, when I saw her father I thought naively, 'oh, he is in a wheel chair because he is getting on in years'. Not at all the case. In fact his paralysis is the result of the violence he experienced in Ethiopia.

The two of them, like any father and daughter, or any two people born of different generations, are not in total agreement on every issue. What was evident, however, was the great love and respect they have for one another. This love between Rebecca and her father was palpable. The way that they looked at each other was something beautiful to behold. He was so proud of her, and she too, was in awe of him.




We also had the opportunity to speak to Elias Wondimu of Teshadi publishers. He will also be at the Harvard event. His company publishes and carries some great books about Ethiopia. Here is his link. Tsehai may be quite helpful for adoptive families looking for additional resources. He too, was warm and helpful to us.

If you still need a reason to go, this guy will be there too.



His name is Dinaw Mengestu. His book, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, was very good. His writing is lovely, and it is a good peek into an immigrant's view of life in America. It takes place in Washington D.C.


Steven and I got a lot out of the event we attended. One of the things that I learned by sitting in a room full of Ethiopian immigrants is that there is a longing; a deep, heart breaking yearning to see Ethiopia thrive as a democracy. There was loss in that room. There was loss of language, culture, religion and country. These are huge loses that I can’t even wrap my mind around. There is a great sadness in having left something behind. There is a constant struggle to connect with the past, while simultaneously moving towards the future. This is something our kids will have to face, and as Rebecca said, "It is very difficult, very, very difficult.”


I mentioned that all of these people were warm, welcoming and helpful to us. They all seemed to support Americans adopting kids from Ethiopia.(I guess if they weren’t okay with it, they would probably have kept it to themselves). The one thing that a panel speaker DID have a problem with, was the time spent in Addis. He found it appalling that an American family would fly to Addis Ababa and spend only one week. He flies back and forth constantly from Los Angeles to Addis, and said that the kids coming back with their adoptive parents are completely traumatized. He thought that Ethiopian children needed a lot more transition time. I know it isn’t feasible for most American families to spend a long time in Ethiopia; people have jobs, other kids, responsibilities and commitments. The adoption agencies don't allow you to spend any more time with your kids. This man confirmed my suspicions that you really won’t learn much about Ethiopia by spending only a few days in Addis Ababa. He told us to travel out of the city as much as we could, and to spend as much time in Ethiopia as possible.


The event is not all heavy academic-ey lectures! There’s music and art too!

(I think this post may be irrelevant because the only New Englander that I know who reads this blog already knows all about the event. Katy, please tell us how it was.)