Believe in Ethiopia

I’ve been meaning to write for a few days now but I just couldn’t force myself to sit down and write. I was finally pressed to sit down and type when I went to change my calendar to February. My calendar is made up of African women’s photographs; I had purchased it because it featured a lot of Ethiopian women. I went to flip my calendar and came across my “Believe” ornament which hangs from the tack holding the calendar. It was given to me by Michele, a colleague and friend of mine who has allowed me to vent about my adoption process…poor Michele, I’m eternally grateful. As I flipped the page I soon realized that it was a Toposa Ethiopian woman who adorned the February page. This small sign, as minute as it may seem was just what I needed.

Believe in Ethiopia.

This week marks the one year anniversary since meeting Beamluk. I met her January 27, 2007. It’s difficult to think that one year ago I was just starting on this journey toward my adoption. Though it would be months before I made the decision to move forward, it was day one when I knew she would play a special role in my life, even if I couldn’t be her mother. I was just starting out my career. I began my first “real-life” job just 3 weeks earlier and it was a LARGE one to say the least. I was a one man team assembled to create orphan welfare programs not only in Ethiopia, but in Africa. I would be traveling to different nations, assessing their needs, and creating sustainable programs. I was to write the first ever situational analysis on Ethiopian orphaned and abandoned children and their alternative care options. At 50 it would be a great task, but I was a mere 23 year old idealist with goals as high as the sky.

Beamluk was my driving force. My life began to revolve around her. I tried to stop myself from spending so much time at Kechene, but one way or another I almost always found myself on a mini-bus, making the 45 minute to one hour commute to Sidist Kilo and then walking the rest of the way to Kechene after work. Saturdays were the best… it was my one full day to spend at Kechene and I forced myself to rest on Sundays – though that didn’t always work either J I’d be lying if I said it was only for Beamluk that I visited Kechene, I absolutely adored the children. There was nothing that was going to keep me from visiting these amazing children that day in and day out were the brightest stars in my sky; nothing except the fear of losing them.

Sometimes I had to force myself away. I was getting too close and I knew that at some point I may lose them. At any point, I felt I would lose Beamluk, that someone from somewhere would take her away from me and I from her. After the death of Yabsira, I was afraid I would lose more children. I feared that someone may not be there the next time I went to visit. It was a battle and I began bringing infants (particularly) to the clinic afraid that if another day passed, they too would be placed in an unmarked grave.

Additionally, I knew that the children at Kechene had experienced a life I couldn’t ever imagine now matter how much time I spent there. They had been orphaned, abandoned and left with no family but those bonds made at Kechene. I didn’t want to become just another figure of their imagination and leave without a trace. Just another visitor never to be seen again. I didn’t want Beamluk to become too attached, because what if the courts wouldn’t approve my adoption?

Now that I am in a far away place and unable to control anything that occurs in Kechene, my vulnerability is at an all-time high. My worst fears have become realized and Beamluk and the other children now wonder where I have gone.

I suppose I may sound a bit hopeless and melodramatic and quite frankly that’s not who I am. But it may be difficult to understand why sometimes I just can’t talk about Beamluk, Kechene, Ethiopia with a never-ending smile on my face. My eternal optimism has been overridden with a fear of losing her. Not just what that means for me, certainly not, but what it would mean for her. What it would mean to lose another mother at 6 years old. What it would mean to her educational possibilities. To finding a permanent, loving home. To her psychologically.

I look back on January 27, 2007 with an endearing smile and laughter in fact. And in the end I know I will find a way to bring Beamluk home. But the road to that place is frightening, disheartening, and sometimes tragic to think about. I just have to keep reminding myself to Believe in Ethiopia. Things do happen for a reason.

Believe in Ethiopia