Ethiopian Friends

When I was offered my position to teach overseas I inquired if there were any other Ethiopian children at the school. I was told, no but that there were South African and Caribbean and Namibian and adopted children and single moms but no, no Ethiopians. He reassured me that although there are no Ethiopians there are so many people from so many different places that no one feels like an outsider. I'm sure that's true but we will both really, really miss the Ethiopian community here in DC and our Ethiopian friends.

Almi spent one more night with her teacher. I got these photos of them going to church. Ms. E said she was very well behaved in church and loved wearing the green dress. She also told me she started speaking to her in Amharic and that Almi was starting to understand. "In one year she would've be fluent," Ms. E shared with me. Yeah, I cried on the drive home thinking about that one.


Another sad thing is Almi won't get to grow up with all the Ethiopian children adopted by friends of mine. It would have been such a great thing for Almi to be included in this group, not to mention so many of these kids are also children of single moms. Dinknesh, Asfaw, Isley, Maddie, Rebekah, baby Dawson, Daniel, Jewel, Amara and others would have become very special friends. We did at least luck out and get to meet A in the knick of time. D just brought A home from Ethiopia a few weeks ago and we got in one playdate at the local park.

Our new home doesn't even have any Ethiopian restaurants but I did pack some berbere powder and I will be teaching the cook how to make doro wat, tikil gomen and other Ethiopian dishes. If I can find the right ingredients and pan, I will even ask her to try her hand at injera (or "ah-JEW-ah" as Almi calls it). Almi loves herself some ahjewah. I also downloaded some Ethiopian music onto my computer and packed some Ethiopian clothing, jewelry and art to decorate our new home that I picked up in Addis. And who knows? Maybe after this contract I will be offered a job to teach in Ethiopia? But for now we will make do with what we have and I will do my part to keep our connection to and love of Ethiopia alive in our home and in our hearts. We may even have enough money to visit one day soon. In the interim, we are off to become citizens of the world. We leave in three days for our Asian adventure.