More Than Four Sides

Category: Africa

  • Skin

    No, this isn’t a reflection on skin color, but on skin smoothness. When we first brought the boys home, and put them in the bathtub for the first time, I was struck by all the scars they had all over their bodies.  It hadn’t been so noticeable before, when they had clothes on, but on…

  • How old are you?

    In the developed world, we place such emphasis on our date of birth – we read horoscopes, and throw huge parties to celebrate each passing year. So, it comes as a bit of a shock to realize that for many people in places like rural east Africa, children are born, and no one records the…

  • Language acquisition

    It is always fascinating to watch a child learn language, and many academic disciplines have extensively studied the systematic way that children learn to communicate. I wish I had documented the process with our boys better – it has been a fascinating process to watch. It’s been a two-fold experience, given that S had already…

  • Counting our blessings…

    The international adoption world has been rocked by the story of the Russian boy who was sent back to Russia on a plane, by himself, by his adoptive mom who apparently was overwhelmed by his violent attachment disorder…I listened to the Diane Rehm Show today on my way in to work, and listened to stories…

  • The flight home

    Our flight left at 10pm, which gave us all day on saturday to prepare and pack. Ron was tied up assisting our new friends at the hospital with the challenge of the measles outbreak that touched the orphanage so tragically (fortunately, our co-adoptive parents were able to bring their baby home, eventually). Silly Sal stayed…

  • Day 7 – Packing for Departure

    We awoke on Saturday morning, knowing we would be leaving that night.  I had planned on joining Dr. Rick Hodes on his hospital rounds, and was looking forward to seeing the patients that he was following, but it was not to be…we discovered that morning that one of the children of our cohort of kids…

  • Day 6 – Shopping Day & Coffee Ceremony

    Friday morning was shopping day. Ron was very organized about this, and had a list of folks at home to buy gifts for. I was glad that he was so disciplined about it. I was distracted the whole time with concerns about clothes for the boys – I had underestimated S’s shoe size, and needed…

  • Day 5 – Embassy day!

    Today was the day that we would go to the US embassy to get the visas for the boys that would allow us to take then home. We had been given a prep talk on the evening of the second night that we were there to fill out the forms correctly, and know a bit…

  • Day 3-4

    Today was our day to travel down south and visit with the birth family of our boys – we are going to keep our impressions of this visit offline, so that we can discuss the experience with the boys when they’re ready. Our visit was joined with that of another family whose birth family was…

  • Day 2

    This morning, Janaki started out with Jelly-Belly, and Ron walked over to the big kids compound with another adoptive dad in our group of 7 families, to bring Silly Sal back to play with us and his brother at the guest house. We’d been told that Silly Sal and his brother were very close and…