Our first try cooking Ethiopian food.

Since we are all (for the most part) on vacation this week we thought it would be a good time to try making some Ethiopian dishes for dinner. Last night Tom and I made Doro Wat (chicken stew), Ye'abesha Gomen- a dish with green peppers and collard greens, Ethiopian Ginger Vegetables with potatoes and green beans, and Injera (the bread that you use to pick everything up with). The kids tried everything and seemed to like it (except A didn't eat the chicken since he's a vegetarian). Our injera came out more like pancakes than traditional injera so we'll work on that for next time. We also didn't have the Berbere spice that they use in Ethiopia so we're going to order some online, couldn't find it even in Whole Foods. Though they do have Teff flour in whole foods which is what they use to make injera in Ethiopia so we will use that next time. Overall we were happy with the dinner.

It's official!

We're now waiting to be matched with 2 little siblings. Either twins under 18 mos. or more likely one child under 5 years old and the other an infant. We are told the wait is about one year from official wait date of July 6, 2007. In other adoption news we are getting to know others in the area who are waiting to be matched with their children and who have already brought their little ones home. The Central Mass Ethiopian families group is expanding and we will have the next parent meeting at our house. We will discuss parenting/adoption issues and hopefully watch an adoption or Ethiopian related movie and try to make some Ethiopian food. It's a great group of families and we are excited to get to know everyone. Until next time...
Laura

More on siblings...

Last Friday we met with our social worker to discuss changing our request to a sibling pair. The meeting went well. We have fulfilled all the other requirements and are waiting our final approval for the switch but don't anticipate a problem with our request. What is our request? Right now we are thinking a sibling pair with one child being under 5 years old and one child being 0-12 months. We are also requesting to be put on the list for twins up to 18 months old. There is still a long wait for these requests. I believe the wait is about one year and as you can see from our ticker at the top of this blog we have been officially waiting just over 5 months so we probably have about 7 months left to be matched and then we would travel to Ethiopia 1-3 months after that. There are no concrete estimates for wait time though as it is impossible to predict what the ages of the children that will come into care at any given time. The current wait time for infants is about 16 months. We'll keep you posted!

An Ethiopian Film in the area.

Hi everyone, We recently found out that the award winning film "Black Gold" will be shown at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church located at 40 Church Street Northboro, MA at 7pm on Friday December 7th. "Black Gold" is a film about one
man's struggle to improve the life of the Ethiopian coffee farmers by educating the public and encouraging the purchase of Fair Trade products. Entrance is free. Fair trade Coffee and Chocolate will be available for purchase during intermission. In case anyone is interested...you know where we'll be on the 7th!
Otherwise nothing new, still working on changing our request to a sibling pair. We'll let you know when it's official and what kind of timeframe we are looking at for a referral when we have more info.
Take care for now,
Laura

Siblings?

Ok, I know it has been a long time since the last post. We do have some news on the adoption front. We are considering requesting a sibling group of two. I know it sounds crazy but here's what we're thinking. One child older than an infant would help bridge the age gap between our youngest who is 10 years old and an infant. Also, our 10 year old would love to have a little one closer to his age that he can be a big brother to. Also the two siblings from Ethiopia would have each other in terms of not being the only black child in the family and coming from another culture/country of birth. Also an older child who has memories of Ethiopia and his/her family would be able to tell us some things about their background that we can record forever which is a wonderful gift to both children. In addition there seems to be a great need for families who are open to adopting sibling groups. So that is what we are thinking. Our social worker has given us a list of things we need to do in order to change our request from an infant to a sibling group. We have to take an online class- done. Read a packed of articles on adopting older children- done. Contact families who have adopted older kids- working on this. Put together a list of service providers - working on this. And lastly arrange for another meeting with her. TBD. We would also remain on the infant waiting list as well to see which referral would come first. We assume a sibling group would but if our request for ages or gender is too specific it would take longer. So that's what is going on in our adoption world.
We also officially withrew from the China program at our China Only agency.
Our hearts and minds are in Ethiopia now. Until next time, we'll keep you posted.

Addis Red Sea

Last night all five of us went out to an Ethiopian restaurant in Boston called Addis Red Sea. This was our first time at an Ethiopian restaurant. I was very excited to give it a try. We planned the night a couple of weeks ago and put it on the calendar to make sure everyone was available. Our two teens often have their own plans so getting it on the calendar was key. I had checked out their website beforehand so I knew a little bit of what to expect. The atmosphere was amazing, very cozy and colorful with lots of Ethiopian art and items througout. We were sitting at a low woven straw type table. The food is placed on the injera bread and you use the bread to eat the various dishes rather than utensils. I'm not an expert by any stretch on Ethiopian food but I understand it to be somewhat authentic. They give you towels to wash your hands at the beginning of the meal and wet ones to wash up afterward. We ordered appetizers that were similar to indian samosas, as well as the chicken stew, a beef dish and a vegetarian dish. The food was delicious, I would say it was similar to Indian food in some respects. I have found some recipes for Ethiopian chicken stew as well as the injera bread on an adoption website so I am going to give it a try at home. I have since found out about 2 other Ethiopian restaurants in the area one in Somerville and the other in Cambridge and we will give them a try soon.

The wait

It actually seems as though we have been waiting much longer than the timeline at the top of this page. We started our initial homestudy in December 2006. We received our approval from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) back on February 23, 2007. However, our official program application date at Wide Horizons is July 6, 2007. Currently the wait time for a referral of an infant of 0-12 months is approximately 13 months, with travel to Ethiopia 1-3 months after that. While we wait we are trying to learn as much as possible about Ethiopia, transracial adoption and raising adopted children in general.
We are excited about our Ethiopian adoption journey to find the newest little member of our family and we invite you to follow along.

Our first Post

Welcome to our blog! We decided to start this website to document our journey to adopt our little one from Ethiopia.