Or at least, may Sue Hayhow, former Executive Director of Imagine Adoption, be brought to justice.

Babies were malnourished, children (including ours) got one meal a day for some time, Ethiopian staff families did without income and went hungry for months – all because of her incredibly selfish, ruthless, and maniacal decisions. What kind of twisted person? I ask you.

And the irony is, we think she is in Ethiopia living off those thousands of dollars stolen from the mouths of babes (literally) as the investigation continues.

AT LEAST scurvy.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE HERE.

Payments to a transition home in Ethiopia — where the Christian agency kept orphaned children in the last stages of the lengthy adoption process — had climbed to $70,000 a month by May 2009.

A year earlier, according to meeting minutes of Imagine’s board of directors, the annual cost at the same transition home was $25,000 — or just over $2,000 a month. [my note: they weren't getting this at the transition home, I can assure you.]

The accountant was concerned about $30,000 to $40,000 a month in agency credit card expenses. He asked for statements, but never received them.

Questionable items charged to the cards included trips to Disney World, New York City and Deerhurst Resort in Muskoka. Others were for jewelry and a horse… The couple earned a combined income of $320,000 a year — $180,000 for Susan and $140,000 for Rick.

Staff worried the waiting list for adoptions was too long and urged Susan Hayhow to stop taking on new clients.

…credit card statements suggested they were routinely used for personal expenses, including shopping at high-end clothing stores, restaurants, and spas, and extensive cosmetic dental work.

“I’m sure Paris Hilton’s credit card statement looks like that,” he said. “The expenses we saw, there’s no way you could justify them.”

Susan Hayhow told her in an email this month that she is travelling, doesn’t have a home address and can’t be easily reached. All future contact was directed to her lawyer.

Olaf Heinzel, a spokesperson for regional police, said investigators have heard she might be in Ethiopia, but haven’t been able to confirm it.

PS: If you are wondering, what the heck is this all about? Short summary: Sue Hayhow “allegedly” racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars and ripped off Imagine Adoption. After months of the Ethiopian side of the agency (which was trying to take care of the kids) not receiving any money, the agency went bankrupt in Canada. That same day – July 13, 2009 - we flew to Ethiopia to pick up our kids. I have never talked about this before on our blog, and one day, when I am not so angry, I will tell you what REALLY happened in Ethiopian during those crazy weeks. It was worse than we expected. I’ll just leave it at that.

PS2: If you want to vomit in your mouth (Jrock’s words, Gramma, not mine – ) watch this episode of 100 Huntley Street interviewing Sue.

At LEAST scurvy.

I am so behind in my posting, it’s not even funny.  Here are some pics from today – we had two play dates (one with T from Swaziland and her mommy), as well as meetings, errands, an emergency icecream trip (I was having a melt-down,) a hair cut, etc.  This month coming up will be even hairier, so we’ll se how the posting goes!

We had a great time last weekend at our annual winter get-together up in Lavington, with all our friends from Okanagan Families With Children From Africa.  Above is a picture of SOME of our collective kids - there were quite a few more.

Here’s a little video to show you a bit what it is like when 10 families are all talking and playing together.  More pictures should come soon on the OKFCA website. If you are new to the adoption world, there are groups like this across Canada – you can start on our Okanangan chapter website to find one, or just start asking around at your agency or other families you know.  You’d be amazed at the nice, interesting people you will meet!

Any analysis, Auntie Ena?

Spice

Sugar

It’s funny how identical (as far as we know) twins can have such different face shapes.  Added to the usual difference, Sugar just shot up another centimetre (yes, that’s added tot he two inches in Dec/Jan!) and Spice is currently sporting a pre–shooting-up rounder face.

Anyway, Sugar always looks fresh and best with her hair back from her face – usually up in a pony or high “two puffs” is pretty; Spice can have twists hanging, or stuff down by her ears and it’s super cute. Interesting how the genes play out, eh?

Anyway, we’re off to an Okanagan Families With Children From Africa getotgether tonight and I still haven’t got my slide show togaether – so I’d better hussle!!!

This kid makes me feel so woefully inadequate!  And when I started feeling better that “well, at least he doesn’t know all the lyrics!” – crum. His first language isn’t English.  Durn it. He learned to play the uke in three months!  Amazing…. What is he, like, four years old?

Eat your hearts out, prairie folk – we have tulips 4 inches high in our yard. (And the Vancouver people say “so what?” lol!)

But with the Olympics on the tube every night, we felt inspired to spend our day off up on the skihill.  Despite Spice’s pleas to ski, we decided they should start off tubing (read: cheaper) and had a blast going up and down the slopes together.  Then off to a Tapas bar for dinner – yum yum! What a nice day.  And a real pleasure to get it away from it all. It’s so nice Big White is 45 minutes away – we really should go more often.

We are so very lucky – at the girls’ pre-school there are five families from Africa, including one Ethiopian family.

We got invited to their son’s birthday party today, and it was so great. There were 5 or 6 Ethiopian/Eritrean families there, as well as a Kenyan family (the only one we had met before.  The girls were a little overwhelmed at first but they did really great and had a marvelous time.  As for Jrock and I, well, what a treat.  Great Ethiopian food, real coffee (which I helped roast on the stove!) and we got to meet some really neat people.  A couple of the ladies I think I will meet for coffee again, including the B-boy’s mom.  SUCH a small world – we live a few blocks away from each other and she’s like a sister to one of the ladies I got to know really well in Ethiopia.  Amazing. 

I didn’t have permission to post adults’ faces, but here are a couple of semi-anon pics.

If you recognize the lady’s name, Hanna Pool wrote “My Father’s Daughter” – a great true read about an Eritrean woman, adopted to a UK couple, who went back to examine her roots. (In my bookstore.)

One thing that parents have to be aware of when we adopt transracially is that our family becomes conspicuous.  Anonymity does not exist for us anymore, unless we go out without our kids, of course. Then we just – blend.

I think every family in this situation has some variation along the theme, but we do get 5000+ comments every time we leave the house.  Ok, so seriously, if we walk tot he pharmacy and the grocery store, for example, I may have 4-10 people randomly talk to us or make a comment about the girls.  It’s better when we go to our neighborhood stores, because people recognize us (remember the conspicuous thing) and we’re not pestered as much.  Of course, sometimes people think if they have seen you a few times they can ask deep personal questions, but that’s not often.

This is my philosophy about the whole questions thing. this just came up on a discussion board and I Thought I would carry it over to the blog.

WE ANSWER FOR OUR KIDS’ EARS. Even if they aren’t there (because we need to practice anyway.) For every question, there is an answer/message that you want your kids to hear, to reaffirm their identity, security and self-esteem.

So when people say “aren’t they beautiful?” which is like 40000 times a day, we say “yes they are” (cause they are!) or “they’re smart too!” (cause we don’t want it to be all about looks.)

Where are they from? “We live in Kelowna.” or “We’re from Kelowna. The girls are originally from Ethiopia.”

“They’re twins, right?” -> “yes, double the fun!” (although we often feel like saying double the trouble but that isn’t the message we want to give our kids 3000x a day.)

We don’t get much more than that on a daily basis, because of the twins thing, but some other questions like “they’re adopted, right?” you can say stuff like “We became a family seven months ago.”

Or the other one is “my cousin’s neighbor’s sister adopted a kid from – eh, maybe China, I think…” We say “Adoption is a wonderful way to build a family.”

So to the parents / parent-to-be and other family members who feel ill-prepared to deal with the questions, remember, you may see this person again or not, but your kids are always listening. And like it or not, we all ARE adoption role models as conspicuous families, so the sharp retort to a well-meaning busybody isn’t appropriate.  (Unless they are rude or racist and then you can tell them so and turn your back.) We want our kids to be proud of us and our families… And although being asked questions at every store and coffee shop can be annoying, modelling grace for our kids is for sure the best bet.

Before we had the girls, we got much more brutal questions, though.  I can’t tell you how many people asked bluntly or not so bluntly if we are infertile. (Answer – never tried! so you never do know.) Some people would immediately launched into “some couple somewhere adopted these terrible kids and it all went downhill from there” stories. Loved that. Lots and lots would say “Oh, they (soon to be identified kids) are so lucky!” which is genuine but of course not the whole story.  A good few asked us in an accusing way why we weren’t adopting from Canada. 

ANYWAY – we practiced answering for our kids. “Lots of people cme to adoption that way, but it’s not our story.” “Children are always a surprise, no matter how they come to you, aren’t they?”  “We feel very lucky and blessed too.” and “Children everywhere are of equal value.  This was the right program for our family.”

Hope these examples help some of you waiting out there! Anybody else want to share?

Seriously, these girls can manage a 4 out of 5 pepper on the pepper scale – I’m like a 1. Or a 2.

You can watch them chomp and talk about spicy food in the video below.  Turn it up to hear their thoughts on curry and buffalo wings.

PS: Sugar is back to her regular self today !

It was our first time having a sick baby the last two days… Poor Sugar didn’t eat a lunch, supper, breakfast and lunch again. Yesterday she was lack-lustre, but this morning she was just pitifully tired and bedridden.  Poor dear.  Obviously she had the stomach flu (although being first time parents we still called my BF who is a family physician, just to make sure she didn’t have appendicitis or something.)

Of course, we had a date planned (and a babysitter) tonight – we finally decided after Sugar ate some plain rice that we would go out for supper, but not for a movie etc as planned.  Well, when we got back she was acting quite spry again, and I was secretly wishing we had gone to the movie! But we were just worried about her. Guess we can check that off the new parent box, now -
Sick kid – check!

I’m just so glad it was Jrock’s day off, since I had meetings for a bunch of time today.  You can see she fell asleep on him a couple times today. I want to know, what the heck do we do if she is scheduled for daycare and then gets sick?  I guess that’s a box further down the list.

Just for a laugh, Spice has been relishing the attention with her sleeping sister out of the way – here she is checking (we’re not sure what! on) a horse in her room.  We do know it was surgery of some kind. lol

This just gave me mushy eyes when I saw it.  Call me a sentimental ole BC Girl.

I was at my grandpa’s funeral and a nice lady came up to me and said how much she enjoyed my blog.  We’re used to this happening in adoption circles, but not in that circle! Anyway, she said she especially liked all the posts on Ethiopia and how much she had learned.  So since I haven’t posted any for a while and I still have a few to do, here we go!  (Lady who sings with my Auntie T in the choir – this one’s for you!)

After three visits to Adama, the girls finally trusted me to ride the brightly-festooned horse. And they LOVED it.

Adama is a couple hours south of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.  It’s a confusing place, mostly just because noone is sure what to call it.  As far as I can figure, Adama was the city’s original name in Oromo.  Haile Selassie renamed it Nazreth, but in the last decade it was changed back to its original name.  Probably something to do with the cultural revolution (the relatively new autonomous education and political systems relating to tribal groups.)

Anyway, whatever you call it, it’s a nice little city.  Don’t expect anything fancy! since it is nothing like the metropolis of Addis.  There are less crippled and painfully poor people on the streets, which is a welcome sight, but overall it’s a step back in time.  Horse taxis are common, and donkeys – oh, donkeys! – are everywhere. There are a few nook and cranny shopping areas that reminded me a little more of the souks in Morocco.  The earth is red and dusty, but the tropical plants in many of the streets, especially in the newer parts of town, make it feel more alive.

The only reasons we went to Adama, (we ended up going there three times,) are because
   1. Faya Orphanage is there and we wanted to visit / deliver donations
   2. Our girls lived in an orphanage there for a few months and
   3. it’s a well-timed stop for anyone heading south.

So if you are doing any of those things, it’s worth a stop.  Otherwise, not exactly a tourism lure. Plus, there is malaria at certain times of the year, so don’t forget your bug spray. Enjoy the pictures! I’ll post more of our visits to Faya Orphanage later.

<click: to make the pics bigger, and again for biggest!>

Our life has got a little weird scheduling-wise lately.  I’m still finishing my previous contract and took a new one on for the next month (couldn’t say no – unique opportunity…) so we are squeezing everything.  The kid go to preschool for three hours three mornings a week (read mad crazy intense working) but then Jrock has Wednesdays and Thursday off (but not Sat/Sun. His weekend is midweek.)

Anyway, on Thursday I ran off to a meeting in the morning in my suit, then came back to the house and changed into my scrubby jeans.  We fixed the girls’ carseats (they grew 2 INCHES since early December!!) and drove off to go geocaching at the airport dogpark.  The girls had a blast and the digs got their runs out too.  Then back to the house for me to put my dress and heels back on, and the kids/daddy to take a nap (Sugar is still quite sick and Spice is fighting it off, so they all needed it.)  After my meeting I came home and woke them all up, an started making supper.  Whew. But a good day.