Please forgive my punctuation in this post; we borrowed a lightweight laptop to bring down with us and the comma key doesn't work. It is 19:30 local time here in Guatemala City. Guatemala runs on Central Time but they don't honor Daylight Savings Time. So Guatemala runs on the same time as most of Indiana.
After two rather long flights we arrived this morning at the GC airport. Customs and immigration were a breeze; they barely glanced at the forms. After passing through customs we encountered a large mob of Guatemalans congregating outside the exit all of whom either appeared to be waiting for someone or offering us a ride. We quickly found the gentleman we'd actually arranged a ride from. His name is Jacobo and he served as our tour guide for the next two hours. He showed us quite a bit of Guatemala City and not just the nice parts either. Most of the tour was driving but at one point he parked the car and gave us a look-see at the Catedral Metropolitana (we learned something new: a church cannot be called a cathedral unless it has a special chair for the bishop) and the National Palace. I've posted pictures I took during the tour on our Flickr page. Reb was falling asleep at this point so we had Jacobo drive us to our hotel where we checked in and took a nap.
After waking up I turned on the computer to see what kinds of wireless internet options were available. Turns out the wireless works just fine here although Google and Blogger noticed the change of locale and helpfully translated all its web pages into Spanish for me. I'm quickly coming to terms with the vast amount of Spanish that I don't know. Thank God for Rebekah.
At this point we were getting hungry; we'd just had a couple granola bars for lunch. We went to the concierge desk and changed about $200US into quetzales and asked for a restaurant recommendation. He pointed us to an authentic Guatemalan restaurant called Kacao. We walked over there and discovered that the place didn't open until 6 so we wandered around for half an hour until then. We discovered a book store and passed most of the time in there. All kinds of stuff in there including Nathanial Hawthorne's classic La Letra Roja and Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope sadly not translated into Spanish. We bought a couple board books for Gus.
Finally we went back to Kacao. It was excellent. I get the impression it's a bit of a tourist trap; all the wait staff were wearing traditional Mayan outfits and the restaurant had a domed thatched roof (think Disney World's Polynesian resort and you'll get the idea). The food was great. We had tamales as an appetizer and then we ordered two different Guatemalan dishes both of which arrived in the form of a soup. We stuffed ourselves. Of the five couples in the restaurant with us I think three were adoptive parents or about to become adoptive parents. However the waiters didn't use English with us at all. Reb did great. I was able to contribute a "una cerveza por favor" and several graciases but that was about it.
That wraps up our day. Bed time. Tomorrow we meet our son!
O'Donnell Olio
olio
\ˈō-lē-ˌō\
- Olla Podrida
- a miscellaneous mixture : hodgepodge
- a miscellaneous collection (as of literary or musical selections)
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
What about the others?
Of course we're completely pumped that Gus will be arriving home soon, but our excitement over his arrival doesn't remove the elephant in the room: what about the other children? Not long after we chose to build our family through adoption, we started to ask this question. We are thrilled to be the family for our children, even though it's not fair that they should need a second family. But what about the children who lose their first family and don't have a second family either? We can't adopt every child who needs a home.
We aren't the first people to ask this question, of course. Half the Sky, a non-profit foundation which provides love, education, and foster families for an increasing number of children who are without homes in China was founded by a family asking this question about the children who they had seen in their daughter's orphanage. Since its founding in 1998 and the opening of its first pilot program in 2000, Half the Sky has expanded to serve thousands of children in its 30 centers in China.
We are proud to support Half the Sky--but the question "What about the others?" is really two questions. The first is, "What happens to the children who have lost their first families?" This issue is what Half the Sky addresses. Although we value Half the Sky's work in loving and educating children in orphanages, its work does not answer the second question, "Why do so many children lose their first families to begin with?" In this case, there's very little that we as Americans can do about that problem, because it is rooted in governmental action and social norms.
However, we can do something about that problem in Guatemala. Most of the relinquishments in Guatemala are rooted in poverty and lack of education. We cannot change that Gus needs a second family right now, but if we could help the families before they have children whose care they cannot sustain, then we could help reduce the number of children in Gus's situation who need a second family. And by solving the second problem, we would also solve the first.
With this goal in mind, we recently evaluated a number of charitable organizations that work in Guatemala and around the world. There are many worthy organizations that work with children who are growing up in orphanages or on the streets of Guatemala, but we wanted to focus our efforts mainly on prevention. We found three organizations which we are now proud to support. We wanted to bring them to your attention so that you could learn what efforts are being put forth to help keep children in their first families in Guatemala, and to assist in those efforts if you choose. We feel that as adoptive parents we bear a special responsibility to the children who are missing their first families and who, for some reason, are not in Gus's place to come home to ours (or to other loving families). And we hope that with our help, Gus will be one of the last children in Guatemala to need a second home.
Safe Passage works with the families whose livelihoods depend on the Guatemala City dump. These families, who were profiled in the Oscar-nominated short documentary "Recycled Life," are mainly indigenous Mayans who were forced from their land during the civil war. The parents daily dig through the trash, but children were banned after a methane explosion in 2005. Safe Passage works with those children and their families to give them a way out of poverty, so that the next generation will not look forward to a "career" of digging through the dump. In Guatemala, school is free but the uniforms and materials required to attend it are not. Safe Passage provides uniforms, after-school tutoring, music and sports, nutrition, and medicine for the children. They also offer literacy tutoring for the parents.
Freedom from Hunger is a microloan organization (this concept has become much better known since Mohammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in microloans, but it's not a new idea. FFH was founded in 1946). It provides small loans and business advice to people (usually women) to start small businesses. Along with the business assistance they provide education on health and nutrition, which along with the extra income significantly improves the health and outlook of the family. Repayment of the loans allows new loans to be made and more families to better care for themselves.
Agros International is the most innovative charity we've seen yet. It focuses on an entire rural community, first helping them secure a loan as a group for land for their community. The land is key, because in Guatemala and other places, the indigenous people were forcibly removed from their land and communities. Their way of life was destroyed and they were given "career options" like digging through the Guatemala City garbage dump. Agros begins with a community looking to work together to start over. It finds land for that community, then helps them succeed with community education, infrastructure assistance, and microloans. As the community flourishes they are able to repay the loans, which are then used to secure a land loan for another community.
We feel that it is a great gift to be able to help Gus's people--it is a privilege, like the privilege of being his parents. Of course we would be delighted to discuss any of these organizations further in person, and we hope that as some of you are looking for gifts for Gus that you would also or instead consider a gift to his people in his honor.
We aren't the first people to ask this question, of course. Half the Sky, a non-profit foundation which provides love, education, and foster families for an increasing number of children who are without homes in China was founded by a family asking this question about the children who they had seen in their daughter's orphanage. Since its founding in 1998 and the opening of its first pilot program in 2000, Half the Sky has expanded to serve thousands of children in its 30 centers in China.
We are proud to support Half the Sky--but the question "What about the others?" is really two questions. The first is, "What happens to the children who have lost their first families?" This issue is what Half the Sky addresses. Although we value Half the Sky's work in loving and educating children in orphanages, its work does not answer the second question, "Why do so many children lose their first families to begin with?" In this case, there's very little that we as Americans can do about that problem, because it is rooted in governmental action and social norms.
However, we can do something about that problem in Guatemala. Most of the relinquishments in Guatemala are rooted in poverty and lack of education. We cannot change that Gus needs a second family right now, but if we could help the families before they have children whose care they cannot sustain, then we could help reduce the number of children in Gus's situation who need a second family. And by solving the second problem, we would also solve the first.
With this goal in mind, we recently evaluated a number of charitable organizations that work in Guatemala and around the world. There are many worthy organizations that work with children who are growing up in orphanages or on the streets of Guatemala, but we wanted to focus our efforts mainly on prevention. We found three organizations which we are now proud to support. We wanted to bring them to your attention so that you could learn what efforts are being put forth to help keep children in their first families in Guatemala, and to assist in those efforts if you choose. We feel that as adoptive parents we bear a special responsibility to the children who are missing their first families and who, for some reason, are not in Gus's place to come home to ours (or to other loving families). And we hope that with our help, Gus will be one of the last children in Guatemala to need a second home.
Safe Passage works with the families whose livelihoods depend on the Guatemala City dump. These families, who were profiled in the Oscar-nominated short documentary "Recycled Life," are mainly indigenous Mayans who were forced from their land during the civil war. The parents daily dig through the trash, but children were banned after a methane explosion in 2005. Safe Passage works with those children and their families to give them a way out of poverty, so that the next generation will not look forward to a "career" of digging through the dump. In Guatemala, school is free but the uniforms and materials required to attend it are not. Safe Passage provides uniforms, after-school tutoring, music and sports, nutrition, and medicine for the children. They also offer literacy tutoring for the parents.
Freedom from Hunger is a microloan organization (this concept has become much better known since Mohammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in microloans, but it's not a new idea. FFH was founded in 1946). It provides small loans and business advice to people (usually women) to start small businesses. Along with the business assistance they provide education on health and nutrition, which along with the extra income significantly improves the health and outlook of the family. Repayment of the loans allows new loans to be made and more families to better care for themselves.
Agros International is the most innovative charity we've seen yet. It focuses on an entire rural community, first helping them secure a loan as a group for land for their community. The land is key, because in Guatemala and other places, the indigenous people were forcibly removed from their land and communities. Their way of life was destroyed and they were given "career options" like digging through the Guatemala City garbage dump. Agros begins with a community looking to work together to start over. It finds land for that community, then helps them succeed with community education, infrastructure assistance, and microloans. As the community flourishes they are able to repay the loans, which are then used to secure a land loan for another community.
We feel that it is a great gift to be able to help Gus's people--it is a privilege, like the privilege of being his parents. Of course we would be delighted to discuss any of these organizations further in person, and we hope that as some of you are looking for gifts for Gus that you would also or instead consider a gift to his people in his honor.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
This is how I roll
Two new acquisitions of note to report. Reb has recently learned to knit, and of course the first project she decided
to take on was a wool diaper cover for the young'un. He'll be stylin'. It turned out really well, I must say. Note the drawstring waistband.The other recent acquisition was a gift from some new friends who have two Guatemalan children themselves. I don't really know what it's called, but I fully expect him to have a blast bouncing around in it, waking the neighbors downstairs.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Recommended Reading
I read a fabulous book, the first I've read which is specifically tailored for the friends and family of an adopting family--that would be YOU! It gives dos and don'ts for grownups and tips on how to explain to your kids what has happened in the life of our kid. It's called "Cross-Cultural Adoption: How to Answer Questions" and is by Amy Coughlin and Caryn Abramowitz. Got it here via interlibrary loan, no problem--it's a quick and very helpful read. Please do!
Friday, April 6, 2007
Please Don't Meet the Robinsons
Some of our readers have seen my extensive collection of animated movies, which I hope to like enough that Gus's insistence on the 30th consecutive viewing of a particular film won't make me ill, but perhaps no movie can hold up to that standard. One that certainly doesn't is the newest Disney production, "Meet the Robinsons." This movie is adoption-themed and so caught my attention, but it's not good attention. Early reviews make me think that the movie is poorly researched and that the major theme is actually insulting to adoptees. I'll read more reviews and write more on this later (it's a busy day), but for now, I ask that you please exercise pro-adoption activism by not supporting such a fiasco with your hard-earned money.
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Sorry to make you wait the weekend for the rest of this discussion--Easter weekend is so busy, and yes it was WONDERFUL. Quick synopsis of the movie: hero was dropped off on an orphanage's steps as a baby. He is a child genius, and is rejected by 124 potential adoptive couples (he keeps a tally), finally deciding that he wants to search for his birthmother since she's the only person who may ever have really wanted him. Then a child from the future snatches him from a science fair to rescue the future. While doing so he sees his future, and it's a good one. He decides that to have that future he must "keep moving forward", and abandons the search for his birthmother (although in the time machine brought by future-kid he has the chance to see her and find out who she is, to be able to search for her in his own time) in order to have the new future with a science-geek adoptive family.
Here's why I dislike this movie, from least to most exasperating.
First, the portrayal of the hero's birthmother is incredibly limited. It is unbelievably rare in this country today for a child to be just "dropped off" anywhere. The birthmothers I have met through Bethany care deeply for their children and maintain open adoptive relationships. Although I understand using this situation as a narrative device and I was glad that the birthmother was portrayed in a relatively positive manner, it is still distressing to see a situation so far from normal presented to children as the adoption scenario.
Second, the interactions of potential adoptive parents in the early stages of the movie are overwhelmingly negative. The hero of the story is visited by 124 potential adoptive families, all of whom reject him in person for trivial reasons. The hero is adopted at the end; but as a potential adoptive parent, I found it demeaning that only 0.8% of adoptive parents mentioned in this movie were portrayed as reasonable human beings, especially when many adoptive parents seek to adopt children with known special physical needs.
Third, I was absolutely horrified to see the theme of the film, “Keep moving forward”, applied to adoption. Adoptees have been told for generations to “keep moving forward,” to forget their past, and to “move on” with their new families, as the hero does at the end of the story. Such advice has brought great grief and trauma to many adoptees, who have found en masse that the loss of their birth families is a hole that their adoptive families simply cannot fill. Children are better adjusted in adoptive families that empathize with the grief of their children about the loss of their birth families. Past experience and current research has led to the welcome practice of open adoption, in which adoptees maintain contact with both their birth and adoptive families. Applying the theme of “keep moving forward” to adoption insults the real-life experiences of adoptees, which tells us that their emotional health requires addressing the past: precisely the opposite.
I'm pretty upset about this mischaracterization of adoption and adoptees especially; I'll be sending a letter to our agency and to Disney. If you can think of any other way for me to advocate for real education about adoption regarding this movie, please let me know.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry to make you wait the weekend for the rest of this discussion--Easter weekend is so busy, and yes it was WONDERFUL. Quick synopsis of the movie: hero was dropped off on an orphanage's steps as a baby. He is a child genius, and is rejected by 124 potential adoptive couples (he keeps a tally), finally deciding that he wants to search for his birthmother since she's the only person who may ever have really wanted him. Then a child from the future snatches him from a science fair to rescue the future. While doing so he sees his future, and it's a good one. He decides that to have that future he must "keep moving forward", and abandons the search for his birthmother (although in the time machine brought by future-kid he has the chance to see her and find out who she is, to be able to search for her in his own time) in order to have the new future with a science-geek adoptive family.
Here's why I dislike this movie, from least to most exasperating.
First, the portrayal of the hero's birthmother is incredibly limited. It is unbelievably rare in this country today for a child to be just "dropped off" anywhere. The birthmothers I have met through Bethany care deeply for their children and maintain open adoptive relationships. Although I understand using this situation as a narrative device and I was glad that the birthmother was portrayed in a relatively positive manner, it is still distressing to see a situation so far from normal presented to children as the adoption scenario.
Second, the interactions of potential adoptive parents in the early stages of the movie are overwhelmingly negative. The hero of the story is visited by 124 potential adoptive families, all of whom reject him in person for trivial reasons. The hero is adopted at the end; but as a potential adoptive parent, I found it demeaning that only 0.8% of adoptive parents mentioned in this movie were portrayed as reasonable human beings, especially when many adoptive parents seek to adopt children with known special physical needs.
Third, I was absolutely horrified to see the theme of the film, “Keep moving forward”, applied to adoption. Adoptees have been told for generations to “keep moving forward,” to forget their past, and to “move on” with their new families, as the hero does at the end of the story. Such advice has brought great grief and trauma to many adoptees, who have found en masse that the loss of their birth families is a hole that their adoptive families simply cannot fill. Children are better adjusted in adoptive families that empathize with the grief of their children about the loss of their birth families. Past experience and current research has led to the welcome practice of open adoption, in which adoptees maintain contact with both their birth and adoptive families. Applying the theme of “keep moving forward” to adoption insults the real-life experiences of adoptees, which tells us that their emotional health requires addressing the past: precisely the opposite.
I'm pretty upset about this mischaracterization of adoption and adoptees especially; I'll be sending a letter to our agency and to Disney. If you can think of any other way for me to advocate for real education about adoption regarding this movie, please let me know.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
A Fightin' Owls Car Seat
We inherited a car seat from one of Reb's co-workers whose daughter just outgrew it. Unfortunately, the denim seat cover was in pretty sorry shape, which was understandable given the harsh treatment they undergo. It was grimy and faded with two years worth of sun exposure and crushed Cheerios. However, the seat itself is perfectly sound and only took a bit of cleaning to restore to mint condition.What to do? As in so many cases, eBay came to the rescue; specifically, the eBay store run by a seamstress called wantful things. She did a simply amazing job sewing a custom car seat cover for us for a ridiculously low price. She works like this: we buy the sewing job using eBay; then we purchase two yards of the fabric of our choice, or one yard each of two fabrics of our choice, and send it to her. As you can see from the picture, we decided to go with our college colors. Then she makes a padded seat cover out of it. It fit over our car seat perfectly, and we were so impressed that we felt that she deserved a plug beyond the usual eBay feedback system. If you're in the market for a seat cover, look no further.
Domestic Adoption Reform
We interrupt your waiting for news about Guatemalan adoption reform to draw your attention to domestic adoption reform here in the U.S. The blogosphere has been buzzing this week, and an adoptee rights bill is in the Massachusetts State Senate.
Some of you asked us why we didn't choose to adopt domestically. There were many reasons behind that decision, but in this context I want to discuss a couple of them. We felt uncomfortable that the domestic adoption process in this country 1) allows first mothers to finalize the relinquishment way too early (some states require only a 24 hour waiting period, by which time the drugs haven't worn off, the hormones are nowhere near evening out, and she hasn't really had a chance to try to parent this child; in Guatemala the first mother is required to sign off 3 times over a period of months), and 2) first mothers choose the adoptive parents BEFORE the birth of the child. This second point sounds very cute and fuzzy and sweet, but although I support the first mother's decision to choose the adoptive family I do not think they should be choosing before birth. I have heard the stories of multiple first mothers for whom their love and respect for the adoptive parents pushed them to place rather than to parent. When they wavered, they couldn't bear to disappoint the wonderful people who were hoping so much for their baby--and the child left a home that could have raised it, and the adoptive family was filled with a child that didn't need their home.
What would a better system look like? A good example is Australia's, in which the emphasis is upon parenting before placing, and a lot fewer babies end up needing new homes. Here's an excellent post by paragraphein about how the specifics of a revamped U.S. domestic adoption system could work. I'm all for it.
Since the entrance of Gus into all of our lives, I've become much more activist about the rights of all people involved in adoption, especially the adoptees. Adoptees are so very vulnerable; they aren't consulted about the family they want to be part of, and they often lack advocates until they have been adopted. I'd like to encourage you to help advocate for the well-being of these children and the adults they grow into: another great post by paragraphein gives some suggestions for becoming an advocate with varying degrees of time to give and further details on the problems with the current system, an excellent blog by seriously details her experience fighting for a truly ethical domestic adoption (including a blessedly failed placement), and this site discusses legislation which may be pending in your area.
The adoption process in our own country scared us. How sad. Let's help make our process an example to the world in how it prioritizes the best interests of the children, protects the birth parents, and supports the adoptive parents.
Some of you asked us why we didn't choose to adopt domestically. There were many reasons behind that decision, but in this context I want to discuss a couple of them. We felt uncomfortable that the domestic adoption process in this country 1) allows first mothers to finalize the relinquishment way too early (some states require only a 24 hour waiting period, by which time the drugs haven't worn off, the hormones are nowhere near evening out, and she hasn't really had a chance to try to parent this child; in Guatemala the first mother is required to sign off 3 times over a period of months), and 2) first mothers choose the adoptive parents BEFORE the birth of the child. This second point sounds very cute and fuzzy and sweet, but although I support the first mother's decision to choose the adoptive family I do not think they should be choosing before birth. I have heard the stories of multiple first mothers for whom their love and respect for the adoptive parents pushed them to place rather than to parent. When they wavered, they couldn't bear to disappoint the wonderful people who were hoping so much for their baby--and the child left a home that could have raised it, and the adoptive family was filled with a child that didn't need their home.
What would a better system look like? A good example is Australia's, in which the emphasis is upon parenting before placing, and a lot fewer babies end up needing new homes. Here's an excellent post by paragraphein about how the specifics of a revamped U.S. domestic adoption system could work. I'm all for it.
Since the entrance of Gus into all of our lives, I've become much more activist about the rights of all people involved in adoption, especially the adoptees. Adoptees are so very vulnerable; they aren't consulted about the family they want to be part of, and they often lack advocates until they have been adopted. I'd like to encourage you to help advocate for the well-being of these children and the adults they grow into: another great post by paragraphein gives some suggestions for becoming an advocate with varying degrees of time to give and further details on the problems with the current system, an excellent blog by seriously details her experience fighting for a truly ethical domestic adoption (including a blessedly failed placement), and this site discusses legislation which may be pending in your area.
The adoption process in our own country scared us. How sad. Let's help make our process an example to the world in how it prioritizes the best interests of the children, protects the birth parents, and supports the adoptive parents.
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