Our kids – all ready for cake.

Happy New Year!

OK, o it speaks to my current state of business that I’m writing this two weels late. But accept my belated felicitations!

On our way to the New Year's celebration.

We had a really great new year – we got together with a bunch of other Ethiopian families.Sadly, the party was also to say goodbye to one really awesome family who are moving to Toronto soon. But each time we get together, there is always a new face or new family joining us. Our small community continues to grow.

I know I’ve said it before, but it is such a blessing to be included in our Ethiopian community. They call me an honorary Habesha – I know they are just being nice, but it feels good anyway.

The girls got to wear their fancy dresses and eat food and, best of all! learn some Ethiopian dancing from a few friends in the living room. (Video below – so cute!!!) Bless his heart, the young man who patiently showed Spice how to swing her skirt. I hung out with the ladies, and sometimes a bit with the men. There are a few of the men who are in the same profession as I am, so we talk shop a bit. It’s a pretty gender-divided gathering, though, usually. Not by any design, but rather that the women hardly leave the kitchen.

Some funny moments from New Year – the first was when we were walking/biking over there to our friend H & M’s house. Here the girls were in their uber-traditional dresses, flying down the street on their pink “pixie-dust” BMX bikes. Talk about a bit of a culture mash.

The manditory coffee ceremony. She borrowed my scarf

The other super funny moment was when the dance lessons were happening. My friend W was asking up a bunch of guys to dance – this one fellow starts boogying in a pretty uncoordinated fashion. They told him he danced like ferengi – I objected! and said most of us dance better than that.

The funny thing is that they were speaking Amharic, but I get enough to follow some conversations. It’s really thoughtful though – if someone says a prayer or gives a toast, they often switch back and forth to English and I know it’s for our benefit. They don’t have to – Jrock and I are happy just to blend and nod – but it’s appreciated non-the-less.

Anyway – happy new year! Hope you enjoy the pictures and the video below (which has dancing footage!)

Catching up – we're really good friends with H & M especially.

M presiding over the cake – and the rest of the feast!

My friend W – her husband founded Partners in the Horn of Africa.

H organized a big lotto pool from New Years – but despite all the good vibes, we didn't win.

So cute! And not one drop of icecream cake spilled!

Spice beaming from ear to ear, learning to dance!

  The dance footage: Notice the proud chin and big grin!!! lol

Well, our dossier is in Lesotho, but the matching meeting scheduled this week has been postponed. No word on when it’ll be rescheduled for.

SIGH.

Glad they told us though, because I was getting pretty excited!!!

I was supposed to be at a conference with Wangari Maathai in a couple of weeks. I was so saddened that she passed away today and I didn’t get a chance to meet her. But like ripples in a pond, one person’s ideas can spread and she will be remembered for her unflagging committment to the health and sustainability of Africa.

For all of us trying to make a difference in some small way, here’s a lovely video to remember her by, and to keep inspired:

Off it goes!

Our dossier leaves today across the oceanon its way to Lesotho. Very exciting!

The matching meeting is sometime at the end of this month. We will know if we are matched or not a few days after the meeting. But we won’t know who the little guy is, until a couple of months from now. The time is seriously flying by, though… this is so different from when I was waiting for every step with the girls’ adoption. Now I’m too busy with the kids to brood!!!

As a mother, I can barely imagine what it must be like to be a mama in the Horn of Africa right now.

The love I feel watching my children joke and play… the way I hold their warm bodies close to me while they sleep: these are universal joys of motherhood. What devastates me is the agonies these mothers must going through right now. No mother should ever have to watch your child cry from hunger and waste away in front of your eyes, misbehave and not focus because they are so startling unnourished, strain their young bodies beyond their capacity hauling water, lie sick and dispondant in a makeshift bed, or be shoved aside as they clammer for handouts at a refugee camp.

No mother should have to live through that. And niether should any child.

I’m sure there are many other moms out there who feel the way that I do. You simply cannot have a child from Ethiopia keep the drought at arm’s length. It’s too personal. We are too responsible.

I was driving in the car with my husband and girls a couple of days ago. We adults were discussing the drought and my work with Vulnerable Children. My husband, who was trying to tell me to not take too much on and slow down a little, made a comment like: “you can’t help everyone you know.”

Well, from the carseats in the back, the girls were outraged by his benign comment. “Daddy! Mommy has to help the kids in Ethiopia. We have to help them too. There isn’t any water, so they can’t grow food. And with no food, the kids are hungry, and the animals are hungry. Even the cows will die so they can’t eat the cows. And they can’t eat the plants if the plants aren’t growing. We have to help them. We have lots of money and they don’t have any money to buy food. So we all have to help them. Or they will die. The kids will die.”

That’s pretty much verbatim what came from the back seat.

And that’s why I can’t help but ask one more time:
if you havn’t given to drought relief in the Horn of Africa, please do.

_________

These experienced Canadian and international partners are already on the ground in East Africa:

World Food Programme (WFP)

The World Food Programme and its partners are:

• helping to meet the immediate food needs of 11.5 million drought-affected people in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia, including drought-affected refugees in Ethiopia and Kenya
• through the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service, providing efficient, responsive and cost-effective air transport services for humanitarian agencies in the region

WFP has been preparing for this drought cycle and scaling up through the past six months. With CIDA‘s support to WFP‘s Immediate Response Account ($10 million in 2010-2011) and Forward Purchase Facility ($10 million in 2010-2011), the WFP was able to pre-position 400 metric tonnes of food in the Horn of Africa region in the spring.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

UNHCR and its partners are:

• providing emergency assistance to address the basic needs of up to 582,000 displaced Somalis throughout the region. This includes increasing access to safe drinking water, nutritious food and needed medical assistance, as well as improving safety and living conditions in the refugee camps.

UNICEF

UNICEF and its partners are:

• providing urgent life-saving treatments to approximately 510,000 families in Somalia and the region, including ready-to-use therapeutic food at the community level; access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene; and access to vaccines against measles, polio and other deadly diseases
• providing access to education through temporary learning spaces and school-in-a-box kits

CARE Canada

CARE Canada is:

• reducing malnutrition-related sickness and death in Ethiopia among approximately 41,000 severely and moderately malnourished children under five and pregnant and lactating women
• providing training support for approximately 210 health professionals, workers and volunteers and conducting an awareness campaign for target communities on child growth and good nutrition practices
• addressing immediate life-saving needs of approximately 90,000 people in Kenya by improving access to safe drinking water for both household and livestock consumption and by improving physical security for refugees and the host community around the Dadaab refugee camp
• meeting the basic health and nutrition needs of approximately 8,700 displaced persons in Somalia, particularly children under five, pregnant and lactating women and the elderly, through specific nutrition support, disease control activities, and hygiene and sanitation kits

Oxfam Canada

Oxfam is:

• alleviating suffering, preventing loss of life, and reducing the vulnerability of drought-affected livestock-based households (approximately 39,000 people or 6,500 households) in Wajir district, Kenya, through cash grants
• assisting approximately 30,000 drought- and conflict-affected displaced persons (86 percent women and children) in Somalia by providing cash transfers to particularly vulnerable households to purchase food and essential life-saving items
• reducing suffering in affected areas of Ethiopia for approximately 199,000 people (33,000 households) by ensuring basic needs and services such as access to safe drinking water, environmental hygiene and sanitation, emergency income through cash-for-work activities, and emergency livestock support (feeding and veterinary services)
• providing life-saving water and sanitation services to more than 400,000 internally displaced persons living in the Afgooye corridor outside of Mogadishu
• providing access to safe drinking water and sanitation for almost 14,000 drought-affected households in the Somali region of Ethiopia
• providing access to water and sanitation services to Kenyan host communities (10,000 households) affected by drought and the environmental effects of hosting a large Somali refugee population

Action against Hunger (ACF)

ACF is:

• providing access to health and nutrition support for approximately 283,000 people in refugee camps in Ethiopia, including children under five, babies, and pregnant and lactating women, and reducing illness and death due to acute malnutrition
• Treating malnutrition and improving the nutrition status of approximately 34,000 children under five and pregnant and lactating women in Kenya with interventions in water, nutrition and food security

World Vision Canada

World Vision Canada is:

• meeting the immediate needs of water-stressed communities in Somalia and easing the impact of drought for approximately 81,000 people by improving health, access to water and sanitation and livestock and resource management
• providing water, sanitation, and medical support to 145,000 internally displaced persons in Puntland who have fled insecurity in the south

Plan Canada

Plan Canada is:

• helping to save lives and maintain health by treating children under five for malnutrition and providing nutritional support to pregnant and lactating women, as well as increasing access to safe drinking water, hygiene education and water-borne disease prevention for close to 26,000 people in Kenya

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

OCHA is:

• coordinating the overall international humanitarian response in this complex situation in East Africa and providing essential humanitarian leadership and advocacy on behalf of the affected populations and humanitarian agencies, as well as engaging and coordinating with national authorities

Médecins sans frontières

Médecins sans frontières is:

• providing emergency medical support for 600,000 conflict- and drought-affected people living in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia

United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS)

UNDSS is:

• providing essential safety and security services in support of the overall international humanitarian response by coordinating safety and security for United Nations and non-governmental-organization personnel contributing to the humanitarian response enabling them to expand their operations

Families who have recieved drought relief from Vulnerable Children Society in Ethiopia.

As the Horn of Africa continues to be ravaged by drought and famine, Vulnerable Children Society moved quickly this week to feed at-risk families in Ethiopia. All of the families and children enrolled in the House 2 House community support program have received bags of tef flour for drought relief.

- written by Vulnerable Children Society board member Chris Ardern
copied from www.vulnerablechildren.ca

Even though the drought has directly affected the southern region, food prices across Ethiopia have skyrocketed. This rapid increase in prices has had a direct impact on the ability of many low income families, already sponsored through Vulnerable Children Society, to purchase basic food supplies. As a result, the society, with its Ethiopian partner Faya Orphanage, has taken immediate steps this week to assist them.

Fifty children and families living in Adama, Wonji, Ambo and Guder are currently being sponsored through Vulnerable Children Society’s House 2 House program. Most of the children in the community-based program are HIV+ or have family members who are sick or HIV+ as well. The House 2 House child and family sponsorships take care of their basic necessities, which can include food, access to healthcare, medicine and school supplies.

Although Vulnerable Children Society’s sponsorships make a huge difference in the quality of these low income families’ lives, the current food price emergency has threatened the well-being of even middle income families in Ethiopia. House 2 House families are far more vulnerable to food price inflation and at much greater risk during this time, even given existing monthly sponsorship.

In the face of rising food costs, Vulnerable Children Society’s first priority was to support these families.

Within days of the society’s decision to move forward with a drought relief campaign, its Ethiopian partner Faya Orphanage delivered food to House 2 House sponsored families in four different Ethiopian communities. Each family received a large bag of tef flour from the community’s weekly local market. Tef flour is the main ingredient in Ethiopia’s national food staple called injera, a sourdough pancake eaten three times a day.

Vulnerable Children Society would like to express our deepest thanks to all donors for their continued generosity. It is your ongoing financial assistance that has allowed us to act immediately in this situation.

The local office of Women’s Affairs vets and identifies families who are sponsored in the House 2 House program. Currently, the House 2 House program has a wait-list of 50 additional at-risk children and families in the community who urgently need individual sponsorship. The well-being of these already vulnerable families has been rocked by this food price emergency. Children and families affected by HIV/AIDS who are waiting for sponsorship through Vulnerable Children Society are currently hungry and need assistance desperately right now.

Please continue to stay tuned to Vulnerable Children Society’s blog and Facebook page this week to learn more about donating to assist these vulnerable families who have been wait-listed for support in Ethiopian communities.

Read more:

• A Special Thank You to Families Who Have Visited Faya Orphanage
• Drought in Ethiopia Takes its Toll on Families

Copied from the Vulnerable Children blog:

Vulnerable Children Society would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all Canadian families who have donated to and/or visited Faya Orphanage. Your generosity means that, to date, the children living at Faya Orphanage have not experienced negative fallout from the drought affecting Ethiopia.

According to Faya Orphanage director Meseret Demissie, the donations brought to the orphanage have offset other costs, and enabled the orphanage to afford food for the children in her care.

As a result of the drought, prices in central Ethiopia where Faya operates have skyrocketed, meaning that essential food supplies and medicines have become almost out of reach for many families.

Over the last few years, several dozen Canadian families have visited Faya Orphanage with donations, while families in Canada also continue to sponsor children living there. It is this generous support that has helped safeguard the well-being of children who call Faya Orphanage home.

During this food crisis, it has never been clearer that donations from Canadians make a real and lasting difference in the lives of HIV+ and HIV- children living at Faya Orphanage.

If you are planning to visit Ethiopia or have donations you would like to send to Faya Orphanage, please contact VCS board member Nicole Bellefleur at info@vulnerablechildren.ca for more information.

While the children at Faya are safe, unfortunately many of the community families enrolled in Faya Orphanage’s House 2 House program in Adama, Wonji, Ambo and Guder are feeling the effects of runaway inflation on food prices.

Please stay tuned to Vulnerable Children Society’s blog and Facebook page this week to learn more about the actions we are taking right now to assist vulnerable families living in Ethiopian communities.

Read more: Drought in Ethiopia Takes its Toll on Families

Written by Vulnerable Children board member Chris Ardern

I’ll add that there will be a big announcement about our drought relief efforts tomorrow!!!!

It’s amazing that it’s been now two years ince we’ve had the girls and been a family. Where has the time gone? How much bigger can these kids grow???

I was looking back to the first few days back in Canada after our extended stay in Ethiopia, and I couldn’t get over how little the girls were. I mean, they were just toddlers, really. And now they are off to school in the fall. How time does fly by…

We celebrate the day that Jrock came to Ethiopia and we were all together for the first time as our family day. That’s today!

So… Happy 2nd Family Day, girls!

After 16 months of waiting, 7 months of living in Ghana, 8 information requests from the HC in Accra, and countless tears, requests and frustrations, the Sorokas are FINALLY bringing their kids home.

Read about their frustrating, crazy adoption journey here.

Their visas were issued today. Thank goodness.

We are so very very happy for them!!!!

Yeah!!!!

This lovely film shows babies and caregivers at “Beautiful Gate” – the main orphanage that the children come from in Lesotho.  It’s doubtful that our future son is in this film, but it does give you a sense of what the little guys look like (cute!!!)

There are a couple other orphanages in Lesotho. From what I understand from people who have traveled and what I’ve read on-line, Beautiful Gate is very well-run and well-funded by American and Canadian supporters. There are two other urban orphanages that are much less well-stocked and well-run. They are apparently quite overun and dilapitated. The last orphanage is extremely rural – set in round huts in the mountains. I kind of have this hope that our boy will come from there. It seems right, somehow, that we would have a mountain child. But you never know! Let’s just hope he’s being well taken care of, wherever he is….

Written by Ben Colcough for the Huffinton Post
original article here

Thanks Ben! Great article about one of the most beautiful countries in the world!

It isn’t exactly as accessible as Hilton Head Island, or even the Masai Mara for that matter, but Ethiopia deserves travelers’ attention.

One caveat: If you rarely venture beyond the Marriot, then this may not be too appealing to you. That being said, those who privilege comfort over experience will be missing out..

The thing is, Ethiopia is unlike anywhere else on earth. Get past the headlines about Brad and Angelina adopting Ethiopian orphans and you have a country of endless mountains, an insane number of UNESCO World Heritage sites, and a fascinating offshoot of the Christian church. Layer on that some of the world’s best coffee and a people who love nothing more than talking religion and politics and you have a brew for an incredible journey:

#1 Lalibela: Let’s start with the big hitters. Within the small town of Lalibela lies 13 churches cut by hand from the mountain, said to be an attempt to replicate Jerusalem by 13th Century King Lalibella. To avoid overdosing on adjectives, I’ll leave it to the voice of Portuguese priest Francisco Alvares in the 1520s “I weary of writing more about these buildings, because it seems to me that I shall not be believed if I write more … I swear by God, in Whose power I am, that all I have written is the truth”.

#2 Axum: The Ethiopian Orthodox Church (that being the main one in Ethiopia) claims to have the Ark of the Covenant locked away safely in a church in Axum. No-one outside a select few is allowed anywhere near it, so that leaves the casual visitor with the incredible array of huge stelae, ruined palaces and underground tombs to explore. The place is a veritable theme park for wannabe Indiana Jones’s

#3 The Simien Mountains: If I were to tell you that you could do a four or five day hike along a highland ridge with some of the most incredible views in the world while rare Gelada Baboons, graceful Walia Ibex and vast vultures clamour for your attention would you be interested? I thought so.

#4 The Lower Omo Valley: For anthropologists and tourists alike the Omo Valley is a rich kaleidoscope of tribal culture, a cross-road of early humanoid migrations. Nowhere else on Earth is there such variety of cultures within such a small area. Getting here isn’t easy, expect to spend a lot of time in the back of a 4wd on notoriously bad roads, but the markets and the cultures are fascinating.

#5 The Denakil Depression: This is for the seriously adventurous only. A long, jarring and hot journey from Addis takes you into the land of the Afar. The lowest point in Africa plays host to temperatures regularly exceeding 120 degrees Fahrenheit and an incredible illuminated volcanic landscape. The Afar have a notorious reputation for hostility to visitors (or trespassers depending on your view point). If you have a complaint about customer service, then this is not the place for a Lower Manhattan prima donna scene. Play it by the book though and you are rewarded with a fascinating people and a wild unforgiving inhuman wilderness. Camping on the rim of the live volcano is out of this world.

#6 The Harar High: The Lonely Planet talks of the unique ambience and says you’ll feel like you are “floating through another time and space” and there is truth in those words, but not in the way they mean it. Harar is undoubtedly a gem, an ancient Muslim walled City in the East of the country. The nightly Hyena feeding sessions feel touristy, but here lies a serious tradition. Back to the “time and space” point though. The thing the LP isn’t telling you is that Harare is notorious as a centre of chat culture. Chat is a mildly intoxicating relaxing and addictive narcotic. The streets of Harar are full of men chewing their way through a big bag of leaves floating through “another time and space” and it grants this City a rather unique ambience.

#7 The Guns: This is arguably a little unfair, but there is something unnervingly jarring about sitting on a bus and seeing locals clamber on with automatic rifles slung over their shoulder. Many Ethiopians, particularly in rural areas carry guns around with them all day every day, it is a cultural thing apparently and I never felt threatened, but still, peculiar, very peculiar.

#8 Lucy: There is a wonderful museum in the capital Addis Ababa that (sometimes) holds the bones of what once stood as the oldest ever discovered hominid, the 3.2 million year old Lucy. The museum is a fascinating anthropological diversion, but unfortunately for Ethiopians, she is currently on a 6 year tour of the States.

#9 Injera: Ethiopians eat Injera for breakfast, lunch and dinner and many would happily exist solely on this rather unusual dish. Imagine an ever so slightly bitter pancake the size of a man-hole cover piled. This is Injera. Spicy vegetarian and meat stews are heaped atop and diners proceed to tear at it, using it as plate, spoon and staple food all in one. The piece de resistance for many injera aficionados is injera firfir, which roughly translated is soggy injera stew served on a big piece of injera, a double helping at which I firmly draw the line.

#10 Religion: Religion is central to Ethiopian culture. Every single person I meet in Ethiopia asks me what my religion is. But it never stops there. An often unnerving belief in literal interpretations of Christianity combined with an unending questioning nature makes for fascinating conversations that are quite frankly out of my depth. For anybody bought up with a Western view of Christianity it is entirely refreshing seeing Jesus portrayed in ancient frescos in the likeness of an Ethiopian.

You may have heard about the droughts in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. It’s important to hear what is going on, and how the NGOs and governments are responding.

You may ask what you can do to help people so far away, with such a huge crisis. First, you can donate to a food aid organization, such as Oxfam, Save the Children, the Red Cross/Crescent or UNICEF. Or, you could help one family in dire need through Vulnerable Children Society. You know, all these organization do invaluable work. I know from reports from our friends in Ethiopia that life is getting harder for everyday working folks, and extremely dire for those living on the edge of poverty.

The other consideration is to think about where all these droughts are coming from. I know this is an indirect connnection, but there is a lot validity behind climate change exaserbating the droughts, and making them happen more often. All scientists aside, I remember clearly speaking with farmers and elders in Ethiopia two years ago, and having them describe climate change to me and how remarked the difference in water cycles have been because of it. I tell you, it sort of blew my mind and humbled me. You think that sustainance farmers who haven’t studied past elementary school wouldn’t be aware. To the contrary; they taught me some hard lessons about the effects of a drying climate pattern on their livelihoods and forests.

Whatever the reasons, there is no doubt that there are a whole bunch of people hurting on the other side of the world. Hopefully all my blogging buddies will also tell their friends about the Horn of Africa food crisis, and encourage their friends and family to donate to one of the excellent organizaions above.

Our day (and a half) in Vancouver was a real blast!  We crammed as much as possible into that day, though!

After a hotel breakfast (we arrived late night before) we set off for the indoor playground where the Lesotho picnick was being held.

We were over an hour early, but it gave us time to relax and decompress before all the action started. At 11am, all the families started to trickle in. We knew a few of them, and some of them knew us! So a special shout out to T and M, blog watchers and fellow parents It was super to meet you.

The stars of the show were the officials from Lesotho. I actually got to talk to one of the ladies for quite a bit (the one cutting the cake,) and she was super nice. Kind of one of those people that you know if you met them under different circumstance you would probably become friends.

And of course, there was a lot of Basotho boy watching! lol  I remember when we didn’t have our girls’ referral yet, and I would stare at Ethiopian children, trying to fathom what our kids would look like.

Well, I found myself doing the same thing on Sunday. They are cute kids! and have a really distinctive look. chances are our boy will be on the shorter side, with a solid stocky build. Many of the children have quite almond shaped eyes, which is a feature than was passed down from San (tribe) ancestors, I’ve read. Sorry most of them are blanked out, but I only post pics of kids I have permission (from their parents) for.

Anyway, it was very exciting. My cake went over well… I was looking for it during buffet time, and realized they had grabbed it for a cake cutting ceremony. I was surprised and delighted, of course. But it was just mainly getting ready and excited. T and J, our very good friends from Kelowna, are also probably going to be matched at the September meeting (yes, that’s right! exciting!) so it’s just a thrill to be going through the process and maybe even traveling together.

We sat with J and T out on the lawn after the picnic for an hour and a half just talking and sharing while the kids played. So fun.

Then off we went to Lynn Canyon for hiking for two hours. The weather was actually lovely and I couldn’t believe the crowd there! Guess that’s what everybody in North Van does on a Saturday.

And then we enjoyed a cozy supper at an Ethiopian restaurant with two families that we know from digital land but hadn’t met in person. The food at the Addis Cafe was good and the company was great. The African kids seems well-versed in Ethiopian food, but the the two born-in-Canada kids were more cautious. Props to the boys, though… after seeing Sugar and Spice inhale the Ethiopian food and give injera demos, they both enjoyed it and had a blast. After some late-night gelato, off we went home…

Now, the crazy thing is we’re going back again tomorrow! For our appointment wit the Basotho officials. We’re looking forward to it! These are some of the folks who will be matching us, so the chance for them to get to know us more than on paper is pretty awesome and unique. Now – time to feed the kidlets and pack some snacks for our 10 drive tomorrow!