Friday 18 January 2008
Tuesday 15 January 2008
Thanks!
This time, we want to thank all the people who wrote or are writing the reference letters for the adoption, and to all who offered here in the US and in Argentina to do so.Thanks to all the people who donated their time, will and money; you are not only helping us but also a child in need.
Thank you!
AliciA
PS: This photo is from canadian photographer Finbarr O'Reilly winner of the World Press Photo of the Year Award. It's a picture of a child's hand pressed against his mother's at an emergency feeding centre in Niger.
Sunday 13 January 2008
Why to adopt?
Many people ask me why are we going to adopt a child, some of them not in a very subtle and nice way, specially when they know that it’s a child from Ethiopia, or I must say, a black child.
We’re tired of so much stupidity, ignorance, selfishness, and also envy:
You can’t have children of your own? Why you don’t adopt from Argentina? A black kid?
And I don’t want to know the things they think but don’t tell…
Even though I don’t have to explain why to anybody because our reasons are only ours, I want to name some of the reasons that motivate a person to adopt.
Some people still think that the only reason to adopt is infertility, and they even see that like a flaw, an arrow pointing to the adoptive parents as if they were a failure, broken in some way and exposed to gossip or contempt.
Well, if you haven’t noticed yet, all of you who think that (especially in the reactionary Argentina), we are in the year 2008 and there are more important reasons than infertility to adopt a child.
To begin with, if we talk from an ecological point of view, it’s the best way to help to curve overpopulation that it is eroding this planet for EVERYBODY, married and single, with or without children, hetero or homosexuals. Differences aside, we could say that it’s a way of recycling. Sons and daughters without parents recycle themselves as sons and daughters of couples that at the same time recycle themselves as parents without the need to procreate more and increase the world population. A situation that helps the children, the parents and the planet.
Another reason, in the case of children that live in extreme poverty, exposed to hunger and sickness and probably to a premature death, the possibility to grow in a family that not only will give them food, education, medicine and a house, but more importantly love, what we humans need most and without which we can’t survive.
There are still more reasons and I suppose that everybody have their own but those two are very important to me.
I don’t need to pass my genes to anyone, I don’t care if he has mommy’s eyes or daddy’s nose or grandpa’s temperament, neither that his skin color is not like mine.
Just the opposite, for me it’s enriching, to embrace a different human being but at the same time just like me. To learn a new culture, another language, to see life through the eyes of a person that was born in another point of the planet. I not only want to show him and teach him what I know, but I want him to teach me, to renew me, to open the doors to another universe.
This is not a “fashion”, we are not Angelina and Brad (by the way, I don’t think they adopted for selfish reasons, anyway). This a huge commitment, for life. All our world is going to change from now on and it will never be the same, we are opening to the unknown; just in the same way as when you have a biological child we can’t predict what is going to happen and we accept what comes our way because we wanted it, we chose it and wished for it.
Our child or children are already waiting for us in Ethiopia in the same way that we are here waiting for them, they are already part of my family and part of my blood in the same way than Dylan, my biological son, is.
I don’t care where they come from, a child in need of a home is equal to another and what better place to adopt than Ethiopia, where there is so much need.
Also for those who don’t know, you can’t adopt from Argentina if you live abroad, even living there it can take many years. There are not so many generous countries like Ethiopia, which prefers to lose their children to other cultures instead of seeing them as starving orphans, something that very well Argentina could learn.
Sorry for the rant.
AliciA
We’re tired of so much stupidity, ignorance, selfishness, and also envy:
You can’t have children of your own? Why you don’t adopt from Argentina? A black kid?
And I don’t want to know the things they think but don’t tell…
Even though I don’t have to explain why to anybody because our reasons are only ours, I want to name some of the reasons that motivate a person to adopt.
Some people still think that the only reason to adopt is infertility, and they even see that like a flaw, an arrow pointing to the adoptive parents as if they were a failure, broken in some way and exposed to gossip or contempt.
Well, if you haven’t noticed yet, all of you who think that (especially in the reactionary Argentina), we are in the year 2008 and there are more important reasons than infertility to adopt a child.
To begin with, if we talk from an ecological point of view, it’s the best way to help to curve overpopulation that it is eroding this planet for EVERYBODY, married and single, with or without children, hetero or homosexuals. Differences aside, we could say that it’s a way of recycling. Sons and daughters without parents recycle themselves as sons and daughters of couples that at the same time recycle themselves as parents without the need to procreate more and increase the world population. A situation that helps the children, the parents and the planet.
Another reason, in the case of children that live in extreme poverty, exposed to hunger and sickness and probably to a premature death, the possibility to grow in a family that not only will give them food, education, medicine and a house, but more importantly love, what we humans need most and without which we can’t survive.
There are still more reasons and I suppose that everybody have their own but those two are very important to me.
I don’t need to pass my genes to anyone, I don’t care if he has mommy’s eyes or daddy’s nose or grandpa’s temperament, neither that his skin color is not like mine.
Just the opposite, for me it’s enriching, to embrace a different human being but at the same time just like me. To learn a new culture, another language, to see life through the eyes of a person that was born in another point of the planet. I not only want to show him and teach him what I know, but I want him to teach me, to renew me, to open the doors to another universe.
This is not a “fashion”, we are not Angelina and Brad (by the way, I don’t think they adopted for selfish reasons, anyway). This a huge commitment, for life. All our world is going to change from now on and it will never be the same, we are opening to the unknown; just in the same way as when you have a biological child we can’t predict what is going to happen and we accept what comes our way because we wanted it, we chose it and wished for it.
Our child or children are already waiting for us in Ethiopia in the same way that we are here waiting for them, they are already part of my family and part of my blood in the same way than Dylan, my biological son, is.
I don’t care where they come from, a child in need of a home is equal to another and what better place to adopt than Ethiopia, where there is so much need.
Also for those who don’t know, you can’t adopt from Argentina if you live abroad, even living there it can take many years. There are not so many generous countries like Ethiopia, which prefers to lose their children to other cultures instead of seeing them as starving orphans, something that very well Argentina could learn.
Sorry for the rant.
AliciA
Tuesday 8 January 2008
Fingerprints
We got up early today to get our fingerprints taken so then we can send them to the State Police to do our background checks. With a little luck we can send them this afternoon so in no more than 10 business days it’s going to be ready. 
We don’t have much more to do, at least from our part; later when we gather all the papers we have to notarize some of them and do the apostille thing to all of the documents of the Dossier.
Miguel left all the forms to his doctor and I have to go the 23rd of January to see mine to do the same, who just by coincidence is the only international adoption doctor for Oregon. Must be destiny…I’m also going to ask her if I need any vaccine to travel to Ethiopia; I read somewhere that at least you need the yellow fever vaccine. Ouch!
We don’t have much more to do, at least from our part; later when we gather all the papers we have to notarize some of them and do the apostille thing to all of the documents of the Dossier.
Miguel left all the forms to his doctor and I have to go the 23rd of January to see mine to do the same, who just by coincidence is the only international adoption doctor for Oregon. Must be destiny…I’m also going to ask her if I need any vaccine to travel to Ethiopia; I read somewhere that at least you need the yellow fever vaccine. Ouch!
Wednesday 2 January 2008
Back home
We’re back from vacation and from so much snow.
We got the deed of the cabin in Tacoma and this week we have to go to Hillsboro to get the deed of our house in Portland. The most important thing now is to hurry up
the reference letters because without them we can’t start the Home Study and we need to add the medical reports.We still don’t have the FBI documents that it’s something we also need for the HS.
And then we have more papers to collect…
I went to the library today and pick two books and a music cd.
The titles of the books are: "Held at a distance – my rediscovery of Ethiopia" by Rebecca Haile and "Surrender or starve" by Robert D. Kaplan.
The music cd title is "Ethiopian urban and tribal music -volume 2 - gold from wax".
Unfortunately there is no much information about Ethiopia.I would let you know what I think about them.
AliciA
Sunday 30 December 2007
“There are no blacks in Argentina”
Those who live in Argentina probably heard that sentence a hundred times. It is true?
Well… It’s not!
According to the census, 5% of the population is black. That is between 1.5 to 1.8 million people!
One of the reasons why you don’t see so many blacks, is because they live in suburban areas of the Capital and in other parts of the country because the suffer from discrimination in the “white” neighborhoods and in the job, especially those better paid and more visible.
If you are interested in reading articles about this (in Spanish), here are the links:
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/2001/suple/No/01-07/01-07-05/NOTA1.HTM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/misc/newsid_2285000/2285932.stm
AliciA
Well… It’s not!
According to the census, 5% of the population is black. That is between 1.5 to 1.8 million people!
One of the reasons why you don’t see so many blacks, is because they live in suburban areas of the Capital and in other parts of the country because the suffer from discrimination in the “white” neighborhoods and in the job, especially those better paid and more visible.
If you are interested in reading articles about this (in Spanish), here are the links:
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/2001/suple/No/01-07/01-07-05/NOTA1.HTM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/misc/newsid_2285000/2285932.stm
AliciA
Wednesday 26 December 2007
Book
Since I have plenty of time in this winter vacation, I’m reading a book written by an American journalist about her experience in Ethiopia, in the orphanage/house of a woman who protects orphan children victims of poverty and Aids. It’s very moving, especially because it’s a real story. It also has notes about the culture and history of the country.
The name of the book is “There is no me without you” by Melissa Fay Greene.
AliciA
The name of the book is “There is no me without you” by Melissa Fay Greene.
AliciA
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