Girl From Ethiopia

Celebrating the Culture

The May day was breezy and cold outside, but inside the room was filled with warmth. Ethiopian music pumped from the speakers, smells of wat wafted through the air and children of all ages darted around in traditional clothing as elders sat eying them with pride. On stage, teenage girls danced the eskesta, that dazzling shoulder dance, their bone-straight hair flying in unison around their heads. It felt both familiar and distinctive. A bit like a black family reunion, but different.

The biggest difference for me, of course, was my daughter's presence. She gave us our reason for being at this Cultural Day Celebration -- and entree into a world I've fast fallen in love with. Thanks to her, I  launched into a rich discussion with the woman beside me. She'd been eying how adeptly my daughter ate her injera, and I told her, "She's only been with us for one month."
     "Ah! Okay!" she said. "There was something so familiar in how she ate it, I was thinking to myself that they have taught her very well." We chatted. She gave me the number of the woman in Harlem who makes injera and sells it from her home. She then gave me her own number. "Call me if there is anything I can do for you," she said.

Thanks to my daughter, I met a man who once lived in the very region where she was born. I marveled at  the ease with which he played with her, and it reminded me of the men at her orphanage in Addis Ababa -- the driver, the security guards, the doctor. All of them so loving and affectionate with the children.

My son became fast friends with an adopted Ethiopian boy, and we parents promised to get them together soon. My husband got into an intense conversation with a woman who is in the process of adopting, offering her insights and guidance.

I, who love community, who seek it out in myriad ways, felt our family embraced.

"This is a wonderful thing you have done," said the Ethiopian woman sitting next to me.

Truth is, my daughter is the one who has done a wonderful thing for me. That's what I kept thinking as I sat there, watching her happily eat her injera.

THE QUESTION

 
Several of my African American friends asked it. Some were polite: I was just wondering.... Others were rude: Why are you doing THAT? Most simply said: So why Ethiopia?

No matter the tone, the implication of the question was always the same: Why are you adopting an African child when there are so many needy black children without stable homes right here in the U.S.?

Of course, many people think this way about all Americans who adopt overseas, but special judgment is meted out to African Americans who choose to do such a thing. It's as though we're turning our backs on our own.  

Never mind that this is a deeply personal decision. No one ever asks, "Oh, you're pregnant? Did you conceive naturally or did you have to use in vitro?"

Adoption doesn't garner respect for privacy the way childbirth does. I know. I've now done both. One prompts congratulations. The other prompts questions.

Some of it is curiosity, sure. Some of it, though, is latent judgment prompted by myth. People don't know the facts: that you can foster-parent a child for years in this country and still not be allowed to adopt her. Or that infants of all races are in such demand in the U.S. that it's often costly and time-consuming and emotionally exhausting to adopt one; or that, while few do, birth mothers have the right to change their minds. Or that, if you only want to adopt an older child, but don't want to be a foster parent first, you're out of luck in this country.

People just know that it's unusual for an African American to adopt an African child.

So why did I decide to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia? Because that was what my heart led me to do.

But that's not good enough for most black folks. And so, I used to give a fuller answer. I'd say, "I've always felt a connection to the African continent. People have told me I look Ethiopian. And 
I wanted to do my small part to offset the devastating impact of AIDS and other diseases on Africa's children."

That's what I used to say.

Now that my daughter is home with us, I look at her and say, "How could I not?"

AT THE ROOT OF IT

It all began with hair.

We were hosting dinner for our neighbors. The wife said, Oh by the way, our friends just adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. And she's willful! The girl won't let her mother comb her hair. Won't let her touch it.

My heart flipped.

I understand what it's like to be a little black girl who doesn't want anyone to touch her hair, to hurt her with an unsympathetic comb. I instinctively wanted to help that little girl. Yes, I admit it, I thought that maybe I could understand her hair trauma in ways her white mother could not.

But after our friends left, and my heart had yet to correct itself, I realized I didn't want to help that little girl. I wanted to help my own.

I wanted to adopt. It had to be a girl. And it had to be Ethiopia. Because, first and foremost, as an Ethiopian child, she would have hair like mine -- long and unruly and self-defining.

That was a year and a half ago. We began the process. We went to meetings and talked to other adoptive parents and filled out forms and repeatedly met with our social worker. We got fingerprinted and sat through workshops and submitted a slew of documents. We waited. We got a referral. We were sent her picture. She was beautiful!

And bald.

So began my process of reconciling fantasy and reality in the combustible world of adopting. So began the deeper understanding of myself, who I am in relation to what my features say about me.

Today marks the first-month anniversary of life with my new daughter.

I want to chronicle the experience -- not so much the first English words or funny comments or cute moments or milestones reached (ok, there'll be some of that).  I want to explore what it means to adopt an African child as an African American; I want to connect with trans-racial adoptive parents who seek candid dialogue with someone like me -- without reservations or worries; I want to create a space where other adoptive parents of Ethiopian children can come, be part of a community.

Mostly, I want to chronicle how much I'll surely grow in the coming days and weeks and months -- right alongside my daughter's hair.