I am Published, and Hibiscus's Words

November is National Adoption Month, and our local adoption support group is hosting a conference this weekend.  They usually publish an op-ed in the newspaper to raise awareness about adoption in general and also the conference.  This year I was asked to write it, and I am honored to have my writing published with actual printing presses and things!  Today my writing was published in The Register Guard.

But before I share the link, I would like to broaden the discussion.  So much about adoption is written and talked about by one side of the adoption triad: the adoptive parents.  The voices of adoptees and birth parents are more difficult to hear.  When I think about adoption, and when I write, I try to imagine and share the perspectives of the less privileged parties in adoption.  My children are not yet able to think, write, or share with any broad perspective about what adoption means to them, but I can include a few words.

This morning, Daddy showed the paper with my article to the children and I.  They were excited to see Mama's name in print, and Hibiscus asked what the article was about.  She has sometimes been very upset to even hear the word "adoption," so I was a little cautious how to explain honestly without bringing up upsetting feelings.  "I wrote about going to Africa and bringing you into the family," I told her, "and how happy we were.  And about adoption, and that it is very happy, but it also has challenges."

She remained calm, and thought about that for a minute, and then gave me her perspective.  These are her thoughts about the challenges of adoption:
"It is challenging.  Because there are no mommies, and there are no daddies."

It took me a moment to follow her train of thought back to the orphanage.  "Oh, so that part is hard?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied, "and also there's no food.  That's really hard too."  And then she calmly finished up her breakfast and moved on with her day.




Now that I stop and contemplate her words, I am struck by how powerfully she summed up the experience in a few words.  Not adoption itself, which I had written about, but what leads to adoption.  The pain from which our families and our joy can be born.  As a mother, it is my job to think about how to heal her pain, and I do spend so much time and energy trying to do just that.  This conference will support my job to help support her grow through, beyond, and despite her pain.

But for this morning, here is the message from another side of the adoption triad.  It's not about the growing and the joy; it's the most salient words from a 7-year-old who sees and remembers both sides of life.  Many children are still living in the world she remembers:


It's really hard.

There are no mommies.

There are no daddies.

There is no food.


My perspective

Visa Appointment

The United States consul has declared that Buttercup and Hibiscus were deserted by their mother and abandoned by their father, and that therefore they have no parents and meet the official definition of orphans.  Thus, they will be able to immigrate to America with orphan relative visas.  We can pick up the visas and travel documents on Friday.


I should be jumping up and down for joy or wanting to go out and celebrate, but I'm just absolutely exhausted. I guess after all the thinking about it and worrying about it, and a very long afternoon with some very wild children and plenty of confusion, it's just over and I'm feeling leftover. I was debating whether to do something to celebrate for dinner, but I couldn't deal with the thought of taking the children anywhere else. But I didn't want to cook either. So I picked up roadside food: chapatis, roasted maize, and samosas, and we ate on the porch. And I keep thinking, now I can start planning on how I'm going to pack and what else we need to do before we leave.... I start to think and my brain just fuzzles out.  It's either too many details or too unreal.  After all these months and all these complications and all this waiting, I can't believe that it's over.  The paperwork, the time in Uganda, any of it.


Since the appointment wasn't until mid-afternoon, Buttercup and I had a calm morning at home, which was much appreciated.  The driver showed up around noon, and I tried to get dressed and make us all look pretty -- I even put on makeup and wore nice earrings!  I didn't know how formal we were supposed to be, but I always figure that it is better to err on the side of being a little bit too nice.  Besides, I figured that for once I was seeing another white person, and she would recognize white-person clean hair or white-person put-together face!

Then we picked the children up from school, which of course had all sorts of drama.  Emerson didn't want to go change his clothes by himself.  He didn't want to go with a teacher, he wanted to go with me, but I needed to talk with someone.  They hadn't had lunch yet; Hibiscus wanted some before we left.  I told her to eat quickly, and she inhaled an entire plateful before Emerson even made it to the changing room.  Buttercup wanted out of the car, and I told her she could go if she didn't get dirty; I turned around and she was crawling around in the dust, and then she wouldn't get back in the car when it was time to go.  And in the middle she threw a fit because I wouldn't let her eat lunch at school, since we had just left the lunch table at home, and she had eaten until she was ready to pop.  Once we were in the car, I had brought a snack for the kids, and while I wasn't looking Hibiscus (who just ate an entire lunch) gobbled up most of it while Emerson (who had eaten nothing) was barely munching his first one.  This came to my attention because Hibiscus started whining that her stomach hurt.  Which is what happens when you eat an entire plate of rich food, four hot dogs, and a banana in about ten minutes flat, and I told her I had no sympathy whatsoever, especially since Emerson was still hungry but all the food was in Hibiscus's bloated belly.  And so on and so forth: all the little dramas of having three children, and taking them out of their routine to do way too many boring errands.  But they were required to be at this one, so I stuffed them in pretty clothes and dragged them along.

Their teacher, Derrick, also came along, because I had asked if he knew someone who could come with us to help with the kids.  He was a lifesaver!  The children continued to be wild and crazy the entire time.  Not only did they not want to sit still (which I admit is not very fascinating), they were directly disobedient and defiant, like repeatedly running out of the area where we were allowed to wait, with the armed guard telling them to stay in the gate.  At some point, they have had capacity to allow themselves to be entertained with something non-ideal but fairly interesting, because they know that it is important.  Like driving in the car to safari or during the court date.  I am starting to think that all their positive social skills have disappeared during this month of school break-cum-paperwork errands.  They have all been especially scattered and difficult lately.


It was a bad place to not care about rules, because the US Embassy has enough rules and regulations to sink a small ship, or probably even a medium-large tanker.  Just walking through the gate to go into the compound is somewhere between annoying and impossible, depending on what documents you have in hand.  I suppose it is just as well that they do a security check fourteen different times (what could I manage to hide in my coin purse, really?), but what drives me crazy is the list of things that you're not allowed to bring inside.  I don't mind that some things are disallowed, but it is the list itself that bothers me.  It is about a page and a half, single spaced, with all these little things like "phone, ipod, laptop computer, cables, powder, cosmetics, nail clippers" and so on and so forth, for two pages.  So the first time I went through I carefully checked all the items on my list with the guard, who put them in a little box and gave me the key.  And then I went through the next security checkpoint, and they took all these other things out of my bag and told me to give them back.  Because, you see, an e-reader is not on the list, but what the list is ACTUALLY trying to say is "all types of electronics," so a Nook is not allowed.  We could skip about a page of listing and a great deal of confusion if they wrote that.  They also returned my small sunscreen bottle as "cosmetics," which it isn't, but I suppose the category they want is "liquids and creams," like the airlines.  So I think the list should be improved to describe categories instead of trying to name all the specific things that might fit into the categories!

One category they do list is all food and drink, so we had to leave our water bottles at the gate.  Last time I was there they had one of those office-style water-tanks, but this time the water had run out and the person who was supposed to bring a new tank naturally hadn't brought one, because this is Uganda and Ugandans do not hurry to get their work done.  Between the heat, the waiting, nerves, and talking, I wanted a drink of water so badly!  It is often those little things that color a whole experience, and I think whenever I remember our visa appointment I will immediately be thirsty.

As I wrote last night, we had this vague "all the families show up and we will try and get through the appointments," which didn't make much sense.  We got through the security complications somewhere around two o'clock, when we were supposed to show up.  I saw four or five families waiting in the outside waiting area of the immigration visa area as we arrived, but then several of them left.  I don't know why.  I don't know if they didn't have their paperwork, or were told to come back at a specific time, or what on earth happened.  I recognized several of them from other points on this long journey, including one mother who has been waiting at the same time as us ever since the passport office.  I hope they all are okay.

We were advised to go inside, and I think only one other family went before us, but they were the only ones still waiting.  I sat around and tried to help the kids do activities for a while, but then I didn't understand why the birth parents weren't there.  I had texted Miss B on the way over, and she had replied that everything was fine and they were coming.  She is usually very prompt for important dates, so by 2:30 I was worried.  After some discussion with the man at the desk (receptionist? guard? greeter?), it turned out that they were stuck waiting on the benches outside the Embassy gates.  So I went down to "confirm their identity" and bring them back with me, which involved leaving my visitor's badge as I left the immigration area, and then going through the entire process of entering the compound all over again.  But much more slowly, with two sick adults instead of three lively children (and someone from the orphanage helping liase for them).  I tried to enjoy my very slow walk up the sidewalk, and appreciate that I wasn't stuck in a room being nervous and trying to control three uncontrollable children.  But it's hard for me to walk slowly when I'm tense.

By the time I got back to the correct area, it was about our turn to go in.  I was told to come in with the children.  I had expected some kind of room where we would all sit down and perhaps be asked questions, but this was like going to a bank teller, but private.  I went in the little door marked "3" and stood at a counter, and the consul official sat behind the counter which was a desk for her, and there was a glass wall between us, and a slot underneath to pass papers back and forth.  The children came in with me, but immediately went insane and couldn't stop climbing on things (there was absolutely nothing to climb on but the trash basket and straight up the walls, so up they went), and complaining loudly and repeatedly that they couldn't see, and mama MAma MAMAAAA did you know my toe hurts? and so on.  The official said that if they would be more comfortable outside they could sit in the waiting area, and then they refused to leave, and Hibiscus and Emerson started crying that they didn't want to be away from me, while Buttercup entertained herself by opening and closing the door, and sometimes putting herself on opposite sides of it.  I was about ready to take them by their ears and deposit them anywhere far enough away that I could hear her voice on the other side of the glass, but luckily something happened, and Derrick grabbed their attention, and finally they left and stayed gone.  Things went much more smoothly then.

The goal of this interview is to confirm that the children meet the international definition of "orphan," which is complicated.  There are eight different ways that a child can be classified as an orphan, and it is possible to adopt a child in-country, that the country qualifies as needing adoption but the US does not qualify as being an orphan, and then they don't issue a visa.  (However, hopefully an honest lawyer would point out the problems at the beginning!)  I had no idea what the appointment would be like, but it went along well.  The official went over the paperwork with me and asked some little questions.  During the intake appointment, the intake person had told me to change a couple of things that didn't make sense to me, and the consul official told me to change them back.  I had to sign that I would get the girls fully vaccinated within 30 days of arriving in the U.S.  Interestingly enough, the consul official seemed to really respect that I had been here so long and knew the girls and their situation so well.  I was prepared for her to be very picky and very detail-oriented, which she was, but she seemed to acknowledge and respect that I knew the details, instead of doubting me.  She asked a couple of general questions, such as having me describe the girls' family situation, and she asked what I honestly thought of the orphanage, and what my impressions of the birth family was and why I thought they had relinquished the children.  The only hitch was that she wanted to see the original relinquishment forms that the parents had signed when the children came to Abato.  There have been about four more, more official forms that the parents have since signed, so the lawyer hadn't included those.  She said that I might have to make another appointment so she could see them.

Then I was excused, and found everyone waiting in the outside waiting area, which allowed the children to be even more chaotic than before.  After a few minutes, each of the birth parents was called in, and probably each spent ten minutes being interviewed (with an interpreter).  Then there was another pause and I was invited back in again.

The consul official explained what I wrote in the first sentence, about the official status of the parents, and why the girls are considered official orphans.  She said the parents had had a better than average understanding of what adoption means, and that the father was very clear and articulate about when and how and why he relinquished the children to Abato, so she wasn't worried about seeing the documents.  She gave me back all my paperwork except for the girls' passports, because they will put the visas in them.  Our "travel packet" will be ready at noon on Friday.

And that was it.  So, unless our luck holds and they manage to have a fire in the records room between now and Friday, or something like that, we will be completely done in 38 hours.  This is the last piece of paper between our family, and our home in Oregon.


As I have said, I just don't believe it yet.  I want to just go back into our regular routine, and I think about the things that need to get done tomorrow and how I'm going to manage them.  I suppose I will also start making lists of things that we need to do in Uganda, and figure out how I'm going to plan our time.  It will probably take about another two weeks to get everything ready, and also wait for airline tickets at a reasonable price.  Perhaps it will be difficult, still being here when I know that we have the documents to go.  But I think, as sick of living in Uganda as I am right now, I still will need some time to decompress and transition away.  It has been a long time.  For every little thing that I think about and irritates me, there are probably twenty little things that I take for granted and take care of calmly.

But that's all tomorrow.  Tonight, I'm exhausted.  And I'm hoping it's real.

Potty Drama

So, besides Hibiscus in general and Uganda in general, do you know what else is driving me crazy?  "Potty training."  I put that in quotations not because I have the modern ideas that "training" is too harsh a word and want to call it something gentle like "potty learning."  No, it is because there is no training or learning to be done whatsoever.  Buttercup, like all my other children, is completely capable of putting her effluence in the toilet: she knows how to signal when she needs to go, she knows how to pull down her pants, she knows how to walk to the potty, she knows how to call me, and she EVEN knows how to hold it -- really well.  She is an excellent hold-it-er.  So there is not much education involved.  Within a month of being in our household, she was very dependable at going on the potty whenever she needed to.

Unless she decides not to.  All I can figure is that sometimes it doesn't seem worth her time or effort, and she cheerfully just pees all over herself and walks around in it.

At the orphanage, that's what the younger children did, and they were always sitting in pee.  The slightly older ones went on the lawn, and as they got really organized (yeah right!) they went in the dark little outdoor bathroom.  At that point, Buttercup just wet herself all the time, and for all I know, she may have done that in her previous life, although I kind of suspect not, given how quickly she started using the potty appropriately and proudly.  So maybe this is a leftover from the who-cares orphanage life.

But I'm sick of it!  Maybe if she were my only child, I would have the time and energy to empathize with the difficulties in her life that have led her to pee all over herself and not care.  Maybe if she were my oldest child, I would be so proud of watching her progress towards dryness that I would be happy to hold her hand down that rocky road.  Who knows; maybe I am just not a very potty-patient mother.  But with all the other chaos in my current life, I am out of patience with children who are perfectly capable of waiting and peeing in the potty, and yet choose not to.

This afternoon we had the following conversation.  I was washing dishes, and she was playing with a towel in the kitchen near me.  She was singing, but out of the blue said, "I don' need go sou-sou" (which is the local word that we have ended up using).  She doesn't speak very clearly, so I asked "do you need to go sou-sou?" -- no -- "do you need to go potty?"  She looked up at me and widened her eyes and went "NOOO-OH" in that "du-uh" voice that is particularly annoying to parents.  So I put down my dish and dried my hands and flipped up her dress and felt her undies -- no surprise here, they were wet.  I said we were going to the potty, and she did the duh/no again and tried to run away from me.  I grabbed her and started to carry her to the bathroom, and she kicked and fought me, and then I slipped in the giant puddle of pee and we both fell on the floor.

I was mad.

Maybe I'm a bad mom.  We're not supposed to get mad at our kids for having potty accidents.  That's what punitive parents do, and then it makes kids afraid of going potty, or shameful about themselves, or have some whole Freudian complex or something.  But it's maddening.  Even when you can understand why, it's maddening.  It's frustrating enough when the little one is playing with the bigger ones, and you know that they didn't want to leave the game and missing out on something is such a huge disaster at that age; you can kind of understand, as you try and teach a new logic.  But when the child is half-bored and standing by herself on your just-mopped floor, and still doesn't bother to walk the dozen steps to the bathroom or speak to the mother a few feet away, and just pees all over, it's REALLY maddening.

Which happened not twenty minutes later.  20 minutes after a giant screaming fit because she said she didn't need to go potty, and I said she needed to sit on it anyways, and she peed in the potty, and after the screaming was done we talked about not peeing in our undies any more.  Actually, I hadn't even changed her into new undies yet, she was just standing there, and I noticed there was liquid running down her legs.  I hadn't changed her into new undies because she is going through all three children's undies like wildfire, after the difficulties with getting the laundry clean in the first place.  We are living the simple life here; I just do not have the logistics to deal with six clothing changes a day!  (A couple of those are for meals and mud, too!)


This is a discussion without a point, or maybe just without an ending.  I don't have a practical solution, and I have tried a bunch of them:  Alternating with peeing on the floor multiple times in an afternoon, she will go for long periods holding it appropriate amounts of time, so I doubt it's something physical.  She usually has good capacity, so putting her on the potty every 30 minutes doesn't help; she just cries "sou-sous no come!" and they don't, and it's even more crying on the potty.  I praise her like mad whenever she goes successfully.  We talk about what it feels like to hold it and what it feels like to pee.  We put on special clothes that she doesn't want to wet.  The big kids scold her -- that's not mother-enforced, but it's natural peer pressure.  I have calmly had her clean it up and change herself.  None of it seems to matter; she still just randomly pees all over things half the time, and then switches over to being totally dependable.  Some parents' philosophy would say that she's just not ready yet and to put her back into diapers, and she encourages this idea.  However, she is THREE YEARS OLD (in a culture where children are diaper-free as young toddlers) AND she has successfully and consistently gone in the potty for MONTHS.  I feel like going back to diapers is just allowing this state of mind... whether it is laziness for pottying properly, or a disrespect of self to sit around stinky and disgusting.  I understand that it probably came from the orphanage, and it doesn't mean she's a bad girl or lazy, but the attitude needs to be left behind at the orphanage.  My personal instinct is that putting her in diapers full-time would be subconsciously agreeing that she's too lazy or incompetent or dirty to use the potty like a regular little girl.


Or maybe I just need to wait out her behavior, and change my own reaction to it.  Maybe I just need to stop allowing myself to be frustrated when she pees on things, and just pretend I'm parenting a baby again.  Or just turn my brain off and hum a song while I plop her little bum on the toilet and change her clothes.  Easier said than done!


So I don't have the answers right now.  I write this, so maybe in a few months I can look back and remember that this was a challenge that we overcame.  Or maybe I won't be able to believe that I got so upset by something so minor and not even about me.  Or maybe so other parents can read this and feel like they're not the only one getting mad about potty accidents.  Or maybe to comment on the little details, the not-even-worth-mentioning problems with being an abandoned child and living a life like Buttercup's.

Visits with the children

Visits with the Children

We have been visiting the orphanage almost every day, and sometimes in the morning and afternoon.  I think we are getting to know most of the children and they are getting to know us, and our visits there are feeling a little less chaotic.  A little!  If I had ever thought it would be a good idea to have 15 children of my own, let alone with about a five year span between them, spending time with these children will have disabused me of that notion.  I am so aware of my own inadequacy to give everyone the basic acknowledgement and affection that they require.

There are about 14 or 15 children who are usually clustered around me.  In the mornings, Hibiscus and Hosta are at school, and sometimes some of the younger children are distracted or inside with the nannies.  There are also about five more older babies or very young toddlers, who sometimes are out with us or nearby, but aren't so active and insistent.  When I come in the gate, if the children are out several of them come running up and grab me and cry "mommy!"  They are eager first of all for hugs and greetings, and then they are curious what I have brought with me.  Usually I bring a few books and one activity.  I try to balance bringing the novel and the familiar, and not so much that it gets overwhelming or I lose track of it.  I wish I could leave some toys and books with them, but things get ruined.  They love looking at the books so much, once I left a few sturdy little board books when we were coming back in the afternoon -- and already one was ripped to pieces and destroyed.

They are starting to understand my patterns.  For instance, if I'm playing some game with each child in turn, their tendency is to all crowd around and push each other out of the way and demand their own turn, and as soon as they finish they are pushing and yelling for another chance.  They are starting to understand that I give each child a turn before starting over, and I've started to put my hand on the head of the next several children to indicate how the "line" stands, so they know they've been heard.  The older children, especially, are understanding this system, and after I acknowledge them they are more content to stand quietly to the side, knowing that they will get their turn.  Some of them are also very "helpful" insofar that they will grab away the children who have already had their turn and so are not in line any more, or slap at them if they try and get close.  Slapping and yelling and the occasional kick seems to be the way that the older children keep the younger ones in check, and it is constant.  

Anything that I bring to play with or look at totally engages the whole group of children, in their various and lively ways.  They are so eager to see anything new and figure out any challenge -- which is how things get ruined, when their own experiments turn towards the ripping and chewing side.  

Sometimes when we arrive before the nap time is over, one of the nannies will go and bring out out Hibiscus and Buttercup for us (other times no one is around whatsoever, and we just have to leave).  The other day I had started a game of Memory with Hibiscus and Emerson.  They both understood the game and got the pairs quickly, so I got out a larger group of cards, but at that time the wind was picking up and blowing away all the cards, so we moved our game inside.  The other children were just getting up, and two or three more joined our game.  The rest of them were soon crowded all around, watching attentively.  They actually did a very good job of watching the players and not interfering (of course, because some of the older children enforced the peace!).  The funny thing was that a couple of the new players had no idea what the game was.  They love taking turns -- or rather, they love getting their turn -- so they were very eager to play, but turned over cards at random, until someone slapped them for turning over too many cards.  Tulip is an older boy with a gentle temperment, and he kept turning over two random cards, putting them back, and giving me an angelic smile.  After that game finished, all the children wanted to play.  I hoped that I could set up two games, and leave the original bunch of children -- including Emerson and Hibiscus, who understood what was going on -- in the first circle and start a new game with several more children, but this was overly optimistic of me.  First of all, Hibiscus mostly wanted to be close to me and prevent anyone else from being close to me, so she prowled around between games and demanded things go her way.  Emerson, on the other hand, decided to play the game in a different way, which he explained in his cheerful monologue, of course totally confusing the children who could have imitated what they had seen but had no idea what he was talking about.  He was left with his one special friend, Daffodil, and pretty soon they ran off outside anyways.  

Meanwhile, I was trying to make something joyful for a group of children who included rule-enforcing early elementary schoolers, as well as preschoolers who just wanted a turn to touch the lovely cards.  Most of the older ones quickly picked up the idea that you were trying to turn over two cards and make a pair.  What was a great deal more confusing was the idea that you went in a circle and everyone got a turn.  As soon as someone saw a pair, they wanted to go immediately and pick it up.  Luckily for these greedy pair-getters, half the time the interim children were the ones who had no idea about the pairs and happily turned the one or two cards closest to them over, and then back again, so the first child got the pair anyways.  The most complicated rule was whether, when you get a pair, then your turn continues until you miss a pair, or whether everyone gets one chance to turn over cards, period.  I had been playing with the former rule with the small group, but with the confusion over basic turns the game had turned into everyone getting one turn, period.  Except for one child who had clearly observed that he ought to get as many turns as he could keep getting pairs, and firmly insisted on it.  Then there was Hibiscus, who know how to play perfectly well, but had gotten grumpy about the chaos (and less attention from me) so she kept grabbing cards out of turn, trying to prevent other people from turning over cards, and wandering away when it was her turn.  For a while she took an entire row of cards for her own, and brooded over them intently before putting them back.  Despite all this, the game went on, and the children were having fun more often than they weren't.

Several times I have brought a set of small colored stacking cups.    This morning the group of children sat around me playing with them for well over an hour.  They are a very simple toy but there is quite a bit that one can do with them: I started today by handing them out when a child asked for a color, and then letting them play with their group, but demonstrating myself several different things to do.  For the younger ones, it is quite a challenge just to stack the little cups into towers, and they were mostly content to stack a few until they fell over, and then re-do it.  Some of the little ones held them in their hands and experimented with how they slid together and apart in their fingers.  Some of the older ones started sorting them by color or lining them up other ways.  Mostly, they understood that the blocks that they had were their own to play with, and were defensive about anyone else getting them but willing to hand spilled ones back to the correct child.  Except for Dandelion.  Most of the older children ended up with  lot of blocks and the younger ones had a few, which suited the games they were trying to play very well, but Dandelion had amassed a huge pile.  I'm not even sure he had figured out what to do with them, but he had the strong idea that it was better to GET them.  I kept hearing squalls when he grabbed a handful from the nearest little child, or then yells from Dandelion when one of the other children tried to actually play with his blocks.  On the other hand, Tulip showed the first generosity that I have seen among the children.  Like the other older children, he had a large stache, and I repeatedly saw him giving a few blocks to little ones whose blocks had mysteriously vanished.  

And now, it is 5 o'clock.  The children will be up from their afternoon rest and we should head back up there to see what kind of joyful chaos awaits us!

Fostering and laughter (to be continued)

At our lawyer's recommendation, our current goal is to get a foster care order for Hibiscus and Buttercup, and then they can live with us in our little apartment until the rest of the paperwork is complete.  According to the lawyer, a foster care order is legally equivalent to a care order recommending them to an orphanage, except it is easier to obtain and will present a stronger case when we apply for guardianship.  According to the children, this would be a million times better.  They are not doing very well in the orphanage -- I don't think anyone would be.  We had our first round of meetings last week, and will hopefully have another set of documents ready to bring back for another meeting this week.  When the probation officer is satisfied that there are "extraordinary circumstances" meaning that the children really cannot live with their parents or relatives, she can write out a document saying that they will be better off living with us.

We had a nice visit with The Children yesterday afternoon.  When we got there, most of the children were still napping, except for Hosta, who was out on the lawn getting her hair done.  It seems like a lot of the love shown towards the children involves getting their hair done, which is a long (and fairly painful) process.  This time, it involved many braids getting woven into Hosta's inch or so of hair.  Emerson was intrigued and spent a while watching, and apparenly the nannies offered to do his haiI r too, but he told me he didn't want them too!

Emerson in Africa

Emerson in Africa

Right now, Emerson is out on the green lawn in front of our apartment, doing soccer exercises with the Kenyans.  There is a family here while the father is working for the UN, with two boys who are 10 and 12.  Through mutual gregariousness, and the magnetic attraction that boys have towards other boys, they befriended each other the very first day.  The older boys have a genial tolerance and friendliness towards the much littler one, and happily play at kicking the ball around or hide and seek.  This morning while eating breakfast, we saw the big boys out with their dad on the lawn, all wearing their soccer outfits, the dad coaching them through various exercises and preparations, obviously very serious about their football.   Emerson couldn't wait to get his clothes on and run out and join them.  I hoped he wouldn't get in their way, but figured when you live in an apartment you can't stop other children from playing on the lawn too; but the father smoothly switched to English and coaches all three boys.  Now they are all earnestly stretching and sideways-running and high-leg jumping across the lawn: the two big Kenyan boys in their sports uniforms, the tall and athletic father, and one little bitty dandelion-headed boy in a button-up shirt.

So, Emerson has decided that he is going to get dark brown skin and look just like the Ugandans.  Perhaps this is my fault; after just reading a book about children's racial development, and that in the preschool stages they notice skin color but not race, and don't yet realize that people can't switch colors at will and at random, I shouldn't have made a joke like that.  I saw Emerson's hand "helping" hold something next to a black man's hand, and couldn't beleive how dark my boy had gotten in just a couple of days here, so later I commented he was going to get so tan he was going to be as dark as the Ugandans.  This is now his goal, and my observation about his hair being silky instead of wooly and his eyes being blue and so forth has made no impact; he is sure he is going to look just like a Ugandan any day now.  He observes that his elbows are almost there.

I am not positive why the desire to look Ugandan: if it is simply that he wants to be part of the majority, or he doesn't want to be singled out as looking different any more.  I think that actually he thinks if he looks like the Ugandans he will be able to understand their language. It really bothers him that he can't understand what the other children are saying.

Emerson is very popular amongst all the random Ugandans, on the street or in the minibus or at the market or among the children.  Women love to call out "Hello Bay-bee, how you doing?" and they long for him to answer, but they laugh when he does.  Children on the street call out "hello mzungo" (which means "white person") as we pass -- actually, many of them are more enthusiastic about the "bye mzungo" part as we are just past them.  A few of them have asked for names and remember his and call "hello Eh-son" instead.  It's very hard for Emerson to recognize the pronounciation, and he struggles with understanding even the English words.   Some of the older girls want to walk with us and hold his hand.  To me, this attention seems different from what I remember as a girl in Asia, when many women just wanted to see what my hair and skin felt like and maybe thought I was like a little walking doll: this seems like natural gregariousness and friendliness, and pretty much how the children would treat each other.  Emerson is obviously noticeable and special because he and I look so different, but I think it's more like the children want to be friends with the special boy than to just have the chance to touch or gawk at him.  However, the whole thing makes Emerson feel awkward, and he usually doesn't want to answer or hold hands.  I remember being a singled-out white child and how terribly awkward it feels, so I can empathize deeply, but at the same time, my understanding of the situation is that if would just smile or say something back or otherwise act naturally, the situation would actually become fairly natural.  The children want to make friends and he wants friends too.

None of the adults have touched him (or me) randomly or inappropriately at all (meaning feeling our hair or skin or otherwise touching us for no real reason), but the culture here is a lot more affectionate and physical with children than it is back home.  For instance, whenever we get into or out of a minibus the "conducter" will lift Emerson up and hand him to me, or lift him down; when we went on the boat the driver cradled him in his arms to get him to and from his seat; if he falls down near someone else they will lift him up and brush him off.  When we had a driver or a guide from the orphanage, they told him not to touch things or to wait.  They were very appropriate comments, but in our culture we have very stiff walls around other people's children and that it is not allowed to help them or tell them what to do.  I actually like this way much better: it seems natural to pick up a little child who falls at my feet, or keep them from grabbing something dangerous, when I am right there.  And frankly, I think a child listens better when he hears the same message from different adults; and safer if he knows it's not only mom who is going to watch out for him.

Emerson tells me that he has made "a friend" at the orphanage.  I think all of the children would consider him their friend, but perhaps they seem, collectively, a little too overwhelming, not to mention similar.    I know our eyes tend to be attuned to the type of people we are used to seeing, so it is a little harder for us to distinguish amongst all these children, who are of the same tribal ethnicity, which we are not used to seeing at home.  But it gets more confusing than that: they all have the same haircut (a little bit of fuzz), and they all wear the same clothes.  Clearly there is a big box and anyone puts on anything, so one day a little boy is wearing a dress that drags on the ground, and the next day a big girl has on the same dress as a tunic over leggings.  It is amazing how confusing this is!  Anyway, Emerson has "his friend," who is a girl of about 5 or 6 who apparently is good at running around doing something complicated with a plastic card or a stick.  Whether or not Emerson and Daffodil agree that that they are playing the same game is unknown, but Emerson at least has a complicated narration to go along with it, which Daffodil doesn't seem to argue with.

All the orphanage children have been learning from Emerson, though.  The main method of teaching here is call and response, and obviously imitation is the main way in which little kids all over learn, so Emerson has had a great opportunity to teach the children to say "stop copying me."  However, what they have taken most to heart is "not funny."  We can now overhear the children, in random other parts of the grounds, scuffling with each other and yelling "not funny!", which apparently they have observed means something generally to do with frustration -- and nothing whatsoever to do with funniness.

Our daughter (hopefully)

Here is a little bit of information about the little girl who will hopefully become our daughter! (God willing)  The Ugandan government is very strict about what is put on the internet about their children, so I am being purposefully vague here, and I cannot post any pictures.  Once the guardianship is approved, I will be happy to tell you so much more about her!

Her name is Rehema, and she is almost 2 years old; she will turn two on the date two days before Emerson turns four!  Her name is pronounced Re-HAY-ma.  Her village is not far outside of Kampala, which is the capital city, in which she now lives.

Her birth mother, besides being impoverished, was also disabled, which is why she was unable to care for her daughter.  Rehema entered the orphanage when she was 15 months old.  Her father is known and lives in the same village, but has not provided any support for the child.  This is very important to us, that both parents knew about and agreed to place the child for adoption.

So far, she appears to have a very quiet and watchful personality.  She was very small when she entered the orphanage, but she has gained weight appropriately, and she has no other health problems.  She speaks a few words, walks and climbs, and is kind and helpful with the smaller children.

The orphanage is run directly (albeit at a very long distance!) by the agency here in Oregon, so they work very hard to use the best practices known for the children.  There are about 20 children and 5 caregivers.  The children are given good food to eat, have grass and play equipment outside, have their health monitored by a doctor, and receive any medications that could be necessary.   We are glad to know that she is being taken care of as well as possible during this long wait, which will soon be half of her young life!

(This is not actually a picture of our daughter at all; we are not allowed to post pictures.  But this shows how excited our son is to be a big brother!)