Ethiopia... off the beaten path

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This video shows a montage of photos from the places we visited. Our group toured several medical clinics in the area and we also spent time in the remote village of Bora, staying in the villagers' huts and getting to know them while the medical team held a clinic in their church building. It was a beautiful area with beautiful people. Staying with the villagers was an amazing experience... we had a simply magical evening of singing and dancing under the stars, followed by sleeping in the chiefs' hut which was quite an honor. Some of our roommates included the family's cattle.

BEMM partnered with Doma to help fund a clinic for women and children that will be located in Bora. There are about 7,000 people in the Bora area who have no easy access to medical care. The closest clinic, in Chencha, is a six mile hike down the mountain. The town elders estimate that about 1 in 4 women in their village dies from childbirth related causes... so the clinic will be a tremendous benefit to the people.

We also participated in a clinic in the nearby town of Chencha. We saw women and children come in with all kinds of illnesses, from the mundane to the serious. Two notable cases included a severely malnourished one year old baby who was the size of a three month old and an old woman with malaria. Many women complained of back pain, which is not surprising when you see the loads they carry on their backs.

We were also able to relax with a tour of the lake at Arba Minch, where we saw crocodiles, hippos, pelicans and baboons. This was followed by a visit to the cultural village of Dorze, where we enjoyed some traditional dancing and a delicious meal that included many of the local favorite dishes. Some of our group members tried their hand at fire-jumping, but I was not one of them. :)

I feel like I really got to see and know Ethiopia on this trip. It is so much more beautiful than pictures can show. I feel profoundly grateful to have had this opportunity.

Ethiopia

My trip to Ethiopia was amazing! I'm going to write some detailed posts after I get my pictures more organized, but here are a couple for now. These are some of the children of Bora, a mountain village that is 10 kilometers north of Chencha in the Gamo Gofa region. This is where Doma is building the clinic that BEMM raised $15,000 for... rock those Tacky For Africa headbands!

Halloween fun

Last year the twins were a little baffled by the whole concept of Halloween. The closest they could get to understanding it was the Disney Channel movie "Halloweentown". Which isn't very close at all. So a lot of the festivities were confusing and not up to par with the magic of Halloweentown.

This year, they not only remembered what we did last year, they looked forward to it! We had a great time at the local pumpkin patch a few weeks ago. Here they are happily posing with Anna and a "scary" witch:

They were enthusiastic pumpkin carvers, and had fun imitating their pumpkin's facial expression:

And trick or treating was met with anticipation and realistic expectations, which did not include a visit to Halloweentown:

A little fairy and a little mermaid had so much fun!

"Notice of Favorable Determination"

Translation from the government speak: we have received approval from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to bring our foreign-born adopted child into the country. This document, the I-171H, is the last piece of paperwork we needed for our adoption to proceed. The time from our submission to USCIS to final approval was just six weeks! Our fingerprint appointment was just ten days ago...that is amazingly fast! Here's a big "huzzah!" to the feds for doing something in a timely and efficient manner!

Our dossier has been in Ethiopia for a couple of weeks. Now we are just waiting for a court date. One step closer to meeting our son and bringing him home. :)

Smiles "worth sharing"...

... at least that's what Lifetouch School Portraits says.
I am inclined to agree.

Here is my middle, Anna, in her junior class photo.

And here are the littles in their kindergarten photos:

Sarah

Candace

Self portraits

Candace Selam


Sarah Fikir

Bring Sveta home

This little girl needs to come home.
Please click here to find out how you can help.

I'm going to Ethiopia

BEMM is going to Ethiopia with Doma International! Click here or on the picture to read all about it. I'm very excited to be going on this trip with my friend Steffany. I have sent the check to Doma, sent in the visa application to the Ethiopian embassy... I'm really going!

"Everlasting Spring" provides hope for children

50 sponsors in 5o days... will you be one?

Yezelalem Minch is a grass roots organization in Ethiopia devoted to helping children stay in their families when faced with the prospect of becoming an orphan on the street due to the death of one or both parents. Yezelalem Minch helps provide children with food, clothing and education. YM helps to keep families together by providing support to caregivers. For the children who sadly have no one, they provide a home in addition.

You can give all this to a child for just $30 a month. $1 a day.

For me, that's less than my daily "good morning Diet Coke" at the drive-through.

Click here to see my friend Kara's Smilebox slideshow of YM. You can get the contact information at the end of the slideshow (slide 40). You can also ask Kara how you can receive a wonderful free DVD about Yezelalem Minch... how it came into being and stories about some of the children it is assisting. It is profoundly moving and I highly recommend it. Just in time for Orphan Sunday on November 7!

Foolproof

Finally, the foolproof method people have been asking for to tell the twins apart:

Candace was visited by the tooth fairy last night. So until Sarah becomes inspired to wiggle her tooth loose and pull it out (as Candace did), the gap-toothed one is Candace and the one with all of her teeth is Sarah.

About their shirts: Sarah Fikir's Ethiopian name means love in Amharic; and Candace Selam's means peace. Hence the heart and peace sign on their shirts. Yeah, I'm pretty clever like that.

Back to the drawing board

Within the last week, both of the twins have been back to visit with Cathy, our attachment and trauma therapist. Have I mentioned how much I love her? I don't know why I didn't take them sooner. It's so easy to get caught up in everyday life and not notice all the little things that could use some work until they are great big things slapping you in the face. Starting school and the stress that brought with it was a wake-up call that our attachment and trauma issues are a work in progress. It's amazing to Tom and me how immediate the improvement is after an hour with Cathy. Not totally "fixed", but improvement you can definitely see. Also, we can definitely use a refresher on our attachment and trauma parenting from time to time. So here's to paying attention and going back to the drawing board.

Biometrics appointment scheduled!

We got a ton of dossier paperwork completed today! Everything Tom and I have to complete is finished and notarized. I sent the powers of attorney and the home study off to the Nebraska Secretary of State to be certified. We got our required two passport photos taken; I don't know what they use them for, but you need them for the dossier. We got a letter we needed from our finanacial advisor in the mail today and... we got a notice of the date and time for our biometrics appointment for USCIS today! It is in one month, which seems really far off, but at least we have an appointment. One more letter from the Saunders county sheriff and we are done with the dossier, except for the immigration approval.

A glass of milk

I should know better than to post about the tempestuous nature of Candace's emotions taking a turn for the better. Yesterday, at dinner time, we had another set-back, all caused by this:

More specifically, caused by the unfortunate inability of the above pictured glass of milk to morph into this:

No, there was no strawberry milk in the house... not even any strawberry flavored syrup. A major meltdown was had, which managed to linger in a lesser form all the way through bedtime.

Actually, I was anticipating this meltdown. It had been brewing since bedtime on Saturday, when I read the girls a bedtime story that I thought they would enjoy: a lovely book called Yafi's Family, which is about an Ethiopian boy adopted by an American family. I thought the twins would enjoy hearing a story about a child like them. Alas, it hit too close to home, I think. Sad and angry feeling were dredged up, and we all got to experience the brunt of them.

I feel so stupid. And sad.

Moving foward

Sometimes I think that Candace and I have come a long way in our relationship. I know now that she does love me. She knows that I love her. I believe she trusts me to keep her safe and to stay with her always.

Then something might happen, like school starts. Things are "new". Different. Maybe a little scary. And all of our great progress seems to go right out the window. Back to the volatile behavior; "I love you, Mommy" one minute directly segues into a toddler-like wailing tantrum the next. It is so draining. And I frequently find myself responding in a less than positive way.

Time to remember that my sweet little girl is a work in progress. I tell people that my littles have been broken, and we need to help them mend. But it's so easy to forget in the heat of the moment and just be angry at what appears to be juvenile and manipulative behavior. Behavior that is really a cry for reassurance and structure.

The steps backward are discouraging, but I think overall we have gone mostly forward. I'm going to try to stay mindful... mindful of the needs of a little person who has had an awful lot of very hard things happen in her short life. To let her know it's okay to move forward, that I will be right behind her, every step of the way.

Fretful

I am a fretful person by nature. Here are some of the things I am fretting about right now:

1. One of the twins seems to be having trouble making friends at school.
2. Our home study still isn't officially approved by the placement agency.
3. I can't mail the I-600A in without the home study
4. I have a sad lack of social interaction with adults since we moved out to the country.
5. I'm second guessing my new hair cut.
6. One of my dogs is getting old and decrepit.
7. There is entirely too much yelling going on at this house.

This is just a sampling. There are several other things that I just don't want to list on my blog. I am not sleeping well (nothing new) and have been having a lot of headaches. I am wishing that a lack of appetite would kick in because I could stand to lose a few pounds.