More Ethiopian Food and More on Ethiopian Culture

Ok, ok, it has officially been a week and a half since the baptism and I broke down and made some more Ethiopian food. I have been thinking about it for the last week and even though it was hotter than hubby's arm pits after a 12 mile run in our house last night (ok, that was gross, how about hotter than Dire Dawa at 7:00 in the morning?), I so missed it and kept thinking how lonely the injera in the freezer must be. I made some lentels and ground beef w'et. It wasn't quite as good as the doro w'et I made for the party, but its better than no Ethiopian food around the house.

That leads me into my next segment about Ethiopian adoption and fine line we all must walk. We are hearing recently, that the Hilton is becoming known as a baby house in Ethiopia. Because of the negative perception this is generating our agency is asking families not to stay there and to limit outings around town with children that are being adopted. I have heard of international adoption being termed a form of cultural destruction for the countries and cultures that process a large number of adoptions each year. Ideally, in a perfect world, children that could not be raised by their parents would find a home in their community. Unfortunately, this is not reality. As an adoptive parent, it is really a proactive effort and everyday thought process to not only learn a culture (or 2 in our case) that I am not familiar with, but to also teach that culture to our children. I have read about so many things in both the Mayan culture and Ethiopian culture that our children will not have an opportunity to experience because they no long live in their birth countries. In speaking with one of our Guatemalan friend, she said something that will stick with me, "We don't actively seek Guatemalan activities, because we are Guatemalan". And there in lies the conundrum, They ARE, we AREN'T. Is it a constant struggle to achieve the un-achievable?