Why are we here?

An anonymous Canadian asked me a question:

I have 2 ask..why r u in Egypt? I’ve read ur blog occassionally and for the most part, you don’t really enjoy or fit in with the culture or the predominant religion, Islam.

Why would you stay somewhere that you consider somewhat racist? You spend most of the time with expats. It doesn’t make much sense.

Seems like a fair question, though I’m intrigued by this notion that you should only live places you love, and immediately leave places you find you don’t love. Because how would we know how we’d really feel about living in Egypt until we moved here?

Now here’s the long-winded answer.

What brought us to Egypt was Africa, a real passion for learning more about this gigantic continent with the possibility of traveling to sub-Saharan Africa and especially Ethiopia and other parts of East Africa, which are not all that far away. And where both my kids were born. We brought them from Ethiopia to the US, and they inspired us to come back this way.

What brought us here was a desire for our kids to feel at home in the world, to think of the world not from an exclusively American perspective but one informed by life beyond the States.

What brought us here was a sense of adventure, of wanting to live and work outside of the US.

And what brought us here was an interesting career opportunity for me (the boring part).

All these things have worked out great. I’m fully immersed in the Middle East, of course, but also in Africa, and I have more opportunities to learn about and understand this continent than I ever would in the US. On a daily basis, I see and interact with Africans from all over the continent, not just Egypt but also Sudan, Ethiopia, and other countries.

And the boys, I think, have really benefited, young as they are. Their school is incredibly international, and they are learning a lot about the world. Their classmates are Egyptian, Italian, American, Moroccan, Japanese, Ghanaian, and… the list goes on.

And right now we are here because I have a two year contract. And, actually, I really enjoy my job, which I don’t write about because it’s not good blog fodder, and Mr. Four enjoys his lifestyle too. We can afford for him not to work (a luxury in the US for people in our income bracket), and we can afford household help (an even more amazing luxury). My work schedule here is about 35 hours/week, and I have generous holiday time in addition to six weeks of annual leave. I have so much more time with my kids here; it’ll be hard to go back to the US for this reason alone. Life is easy and good.

We have faced some challenges we didn’t expect. I was warned about racism in Egypt, but coming from the US (with its own problems with racism, you might have heard), it was hard to understand how that would play out for our family. It’s been a disappointment. I also didn’t realize how utterly confusing our family would be to many Egyptians (though I hasten to add there are plenty here who do get us).

Despite occasional angst, the problems, we’ve decided, don’t merit breaking my contract, which would likely cost us lots of money in moving expenses back to the US, as well as major professional issues for me. And the longer we’re here, the more we like.

Lots of people live in places they don’t love for very mundane reasons. And, there are many, many Cairenes who don’t love Cairo at all. In fact, many Egyptians here apologize for Cairo! As if some of the problems of living here are their fault individually. My concerns about Cairo are voiced by many others, Egyptians and expats. And there are plenty of expats who are only here for the money (and not just oil families). That’s not us by a long shot.

We do spend a lot of time with expats. As a friend observes, just like Egyptian immigrants to the US spend a lot of time with Egyptians and other Arabic-speakers. This is not an unusual phenomenon, to spend time with people who speak the same language and have the same culture. Our community here is American but also international, and the expat community is great. Despite all this, we have become friendly with some Egyptian families (including some who have invited us over for dinner this weekend), and I have some wonderful Egyptian colleagues at work. Mostly, though, we hang out as a family.

It’s a romantic and misguided notion to think that if you move to a new country, the locals will rush to befriend you. That doesn’t happen so much in places like Cairo, with something like 40,000 Americans and 100,000 expats.

It’s true that I don’t have a particular adoration for Egyptian or Arab culture (though I do find Arabic fascinating and I love Egyptian food). But I didn’t know any of this until I got here. I don’t have a particular interest in Islam, though it’s been great to learn about Islam from my Muslim friends and colleagues. I love, for example, hearing the call for prayer five times a day. I love seeing the Nile River on my afternoon commute, and, on rare clear days like today, the Great Pyramids in the distance.

Our reasons for moving here, and then staying, are complex. What is simple is this: moving here was a great decision, and I’m so glad we’re here.

Reading my way through Africa

This year I’ve been focusing my reading on African authors, particularly sub-Saharan African. So I was delighted today to learn, courtesy of Andrew at Meskel Square, about the Africa Reading Challenge, sponsored by … some guy with a blog.

The idea is to read, in 2008, six books “that either were written by African writers, take place in Africa, or deal significantly with Africans and African issues” and then write a blog post with a review of each.

So here’s my list of eight books, of which I’ll read at least six or seven (I haven’t read any of these yet):

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
• Held at a Distance: A Rediscovery of Ethiopia by Rebecca G. Haile (Ethiopia)
• The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)
• Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela (South Africa)
• Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller (Rhodesia/Zimbabwe)
• Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera (Zimbabwe)
• Measuring Time or Waiting for an Angel by Helon Habila (Nigeria)

I read Adichie’s Half a Yellow Sun a few weeks ago, and it was incredible, so I look forward to her other book. Of course I’m especially interested in Ethiopia, so Haile’s book should be great. Mahfouz’s book is a choice because I really should read some more Egyptian writers. Mandela’s autobiography is supposed to be great. And the last couple were semi-random picks.

Join me, if you are so inclined.

Misr and other wots

One of the best parts of being in Egypt is the Ethiopian food. You wouldn’t expect that, would you? In fact, I don’t know of any Ethiopian restaurants in Cairo. (If someone reading this does, please let me know.)

Photo by eekim.

Our Ethiopian housekeeper/nanny/maid (some Cairenes use the term “servant” which just sounds all sorta wrong to me) cooks for us most week nights, and often she makes Ethiopian food. Dinner usually includes misr wot (red lentils), misr alicha (less spicy lentils), and a vegetable dish or two like gomen (greens), cabbage, potatoes, or green beans. Every other week or so we have doro wot, basically chicken stew, which is a bit more complicated because the recipe includes something like a dozen onions.

I love it all, and I love that it’s vegetarian and cheap and keeps the boys connected to their home country.

We don’t know of any teff available locally, so we substitute regular whole wheat bread or pita-like local bread for injera, the pancake-like flat bread served under the main dishes.

By the way, the word “misr” in Arabic means Egypt. So to an Egyptian, it might sound like we’re eating Spicy Egypt. Yum, what a dish.

Anyway, this month the foodie magazine Saveur is featuring Ethiopian food. I was excited for new recipes when I realized all but one of their recipes are a regular part of our diet.

Mixed messages on first family contact

My adoption agency has not given us any more information formally about post-adoption contact with birth families (or first families, the term we use with Bug and Giggle). However, a friend (the kind you only know online but really like anyway) talked to them and was told that post-adoption contact was suspended indefinitely. It wasn’t going to be a short-term thing.

Another woman with our agency reported getting caught in the middle of a visa nightmare. She has adopted her child through the Ethiopian court system (from abroad), but the US Embassy won’t issue an immigration visa because the child doesn’t qualify for orphan status (he or she has two living parents who apparently relinquished him or her). So the child and the adoptive mother, who have a legal relationship according to the Ethiopian courts, have never met… and it seems the US might not recognize this relationship ever. And it’s not clear what’s going to happen to this poor little kid caught in the middle of a big government mess.

So that seems like just the sort of horrifying situation we all imagined but hoped was only hypothetical. It is up to the agency to make sure that children whom they refer to families are eligible for US immigration, and so it’s no wonder the agency is reacting so seriously.

Yet, in the middle of all this, another adoptive family in Addis reported meeting their child’s first mother, a visit arranged by the agency in Ethiopia, who said that since none of the other agencies had stopped first family meetings, they wouldn’t either.

Are you confused? Me too. I’ll post any updates as I hear them.

(I should also add that I won’t be discussing any details of my kids’ first families out of respect for my kids’ privacy.)

No news, but a rumor

Jayme at the blog Ethical Adoptions wrote last week about some sightings in Addis:

…a large fleet of land cruisers carrying numerous adoption and Ethiopian Government officials was dispatched to the offices of a major adoption agency with the purpose of carefully combing through all information pertaining to the relinquishment of children for adoption.

A comment on the blog clarifies that the “fleet” visited a variety of agencies. Jayme speculates that this means that the issue at hand is really relinquishments and how they are handled. I don’t disagree.

Adoptive parents, meanwhile, continue speculating and dissecting the Consul’s letter. There’s not been any new information from the Consul or agency, so far as I know.

Update from US Consul in Addis

After a day and a half of wild speculation and rumor-mongering on the part of adoptive parents (guilty!), CHSFS, our adoption agency, sent an update to families about the reasons behind cutting off contact between first families and adoptive families.

The issue seems to revolve around the definition of orphan, according to US Immigration laws, and how a legal orphan can have two living birth parents, which is possible, if the child has been abandoned, also defined by US law. The issues becomes particularly complicated if the birth parents who “abandoned” the child meet with the adoptive family, which demonstrates “ongoing parental interest in the child” (I’m quoting the Consul here).

Anyway, I’ll let the Consul speak for itself. Here’s the letter from the US Consul in Addis, as shared with us by CHSFS:

US Consulate Notice

TO: Adoption Agencies in Ethiopia

FROM: Consular Section Chief Paul Cantrell

RE: Ensuring that adoptive children qualify as orphans

The staff of our Consular Section appreciates your effort and cooperation in making inter-country adoptions possible for American citizen parents. I am writing to bring to your attention an issue that is of the greatest importance to successfully concluding inter-country adoptions for American parents. I want to make sure that you and your staff members are fully aware of the requirements that adoptive children truly qualify as orphans.

American citizens coming to Ethiopia to adopt children will in most cases come to the Embassy to apply for an IR-3 or IR-4 immigrant visa for the child. In order for a child to qualify for either an IR-3 or IR-4 immigrant visa, the child must qualify as an “orphan” as defined by section 101(b)(1)(F) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

As part of the inter-country adoption process, it is the responsibility of the consular officer to review the circumstances by which the child became available for adoption and to confirm that the child qualifies as an “orphan” as defined by section 101(b)(1)(F). This step in the process is accomplished when the consular officer approves the I-600 Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative and is confirmed through the officer’s completion of Form I-604, Request for and Report on Overseas Orphan Investigation.

If the child does not qualify as an “orphan” as defined in the INA, the officer cannot approve the I-600 petition and an immigrant visa for the child cannot be approved.

For this reason it is absolutely essential that all adoption agencies that are coordinating adoptions for American citizen parents be fully aware of the definition of “orphan” as stipulated in the INA. Agencies must be absolutely certain that a child qualifies as an “orphan” according to the INA before matching that child with American adoptive parents. If agencies are unsure whether a child qualifies as an “orphan” as defined by the INA, they should not assign that child to American adoptive parents until it can be confirmed that the child does qualify. A consular officer does not have the authority to approve an IR-3 or IR-4 immigrant visa for an adopted child unless the child qualifies as an “orphan,” as defined by the INA. If agencies have questions about this concept or about an individual case, they are welcome to contact the Consular Section for assistance.

Agencies are urged to review the following information, which is provided as clarification of how a child may qualify as an “orphan” according to the INA.

According to U.S. immigration law, a child may qualify as an orphan because either:

(a) The child has no parents because of the death or disappearance, abandonment, or desertion by, or separation from or loss of both parents (9 FAM 42.21 N13.2-4 and 9 FAM 42.21 N13.2-5); or

(b) The child’s sole or surviving parent is incapable of providing proper care and has, in writing, irrevocably released the child for emigration and adoption (9 FAM 42.21 N13.2-4 and 9 FAM 42.21 N13.2-6).

Of particular interest here is (a): “the child has no parents.” U.S. immigration law recognizes six ways in which a child might lose his/her parents and qualify as an “orphan.” An orphan may have no parents due to any combination of the following six reasons: death, disappearance, abandonment, desertion, separation or loss.

Of these six reasons, the one that appears to cause the most confusion among adoptions in Ethiopia is “abandonment.” According to U.S. immigration law, “abandonment” means that the parents have willfully forsaken all parental rights, obligations, and claims to the child, as well as all control over and possession of the child, without intending to transfer, or without transferring, these rights to any specific person(s).

Abandonment must include not only the intention to surrender all parental rights, obligations, and claims to the child, and control over and possession of the child, but also the actual act of surrendering such rights, obligations, claims, control, and possession. A child who is placed temporarily in an orphanage should not be considered to be abandoned if the parents express an intention to retrieve the child, are contributing or attempting to contribute to the support of the child, or otherwise exhibit ongoing parental interest in the child.

Further, U.S. immigration law clarifies that a relinquishment or release by the parent(s) to the prospective adoptive parents or for a specific adoption does not constitute “abandonment.” Similarly, the relinquishment or release of the child by the parent to a third party for custodial care in anticipation of, or preparation for, adoption does not constitute “abandonment” unless the third party (such as a governmental agency, a court of competent jurisdiction, an adoption agency, or an orphanage) is authorized under the child welfare laws of the foreign-sending country to act in such a capacity. A child released to a government-authorized third party, however, could be considered to have been abandoned even if the parent(s) knew at the time that the child would probably be adopted by a specific person or persons, so long as the relinquishment was not contingent upon adoption by a specific person or persons.

I have emphasized the items above in italics to remind agencies that the Embassy cannot approve IR-3 and IR-4 immigrant visas for children adopted from intact families who have given up their children because of, or contingent upon, some expectation that:

the adoptive parents will provide some financial support to the natural parents
the adoptive parents will be willing to provide information about the child to the natural parents
the child will be of some benefits to the natural parents at some point in the future
Recently, some agencies have indicated that they routinely attempt to arrange meetings between adoptive parents and a child’s natural parents. While such meetings might provide certain advantages, agencies should be aware that meetings with the natural parents may in some cases be interpreted as evidence of the natural parents’ “ongoing parental interest in the child,” and as such may invite additional scrutiny by consular officers when reviewing the I-600 petition on behalf of such a child.

To avoid confusion and ensure that agencies are fully aware of all requirements of U.S. immigration law, consular officers will be arranging to meet individually with adoption agencies in the coming weeks. We are most interested in learning how agencies acquire the children who are matched with American adoptive parents and in helping agencies avoid matching any children who would not qualify as “orphans” according to the INA.

I appreciate your cooperation in the endeavor and invite your questions, comments, and suggestions about how we can work together to improve the integrity of the inter-country adoptions process.

Regards,

Paul Cantrell

Consular Section Chief

U.S. Embassy, Addis Ababa

———————————————-

Scott Driskel

Vice Consul

U.S. Embassy Addis Ababa

(For the record, my kids were both legal orphans.)

So the issue at hand seems not to be contact between families, but specifically contact between families if the first family has two living parents.

When we first started looking into adoption, less than three years ago, I was in la-la land. Ethiopia had a huge orphan crisis, with millions of kids without parents, and we wanted to raise a child. It seemed perfectly simple and simply perfect.

Of course, the reality of adoption is not pretty or simple or easy, for anyone.

Major upheaval in Ethiopian adoption programs

The possibility of having on-going contact with children’s first families is a huge appeal of Ethiopian adoption programs, not just for us, but for many people. Sometimes this contact has led to problems, as when adoptive families have learned things from first families that conflict with the official paperwork (indeed, that happened with us). I have no idea if that’s what led to this recent change, but one of the big agencies, Children’s Home Society and Family Services, just released a statement with a major policy change:

Effective immediately, CHSFS is suspending any birth family meetings and all ongoing contact between adoptive and birth families (including Post Adoption Intermediary Services). This is in direct response to statements made recently by the US Embassy in Addis Ababa citing the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1989; regarding orphan status, irrevocable relinquishment and termination of birth family rights.

The statement goes on to say that, “this is seen as an issue between the Consular Section of the Department of State and any inter-country adoption program” and that CHSFS is sending people to Addis to deal with this immediately. I haven’t heard if other agencies are enacting similar policies.

This is particularly distressing because the change seems to be coming from the US Embassy in Ethiopia, who should be looking out for the best interests of Americans, including kids born in Ethiopia and adopted by Americans.

It’s hard for me to understand how this could possibly be in the best interest of our kids.

I’ll share more as I learn more.

Finally finalized

Yesterday we learned the great news that Giggle’s re-adoption in the US, in our state of residence, was finalized in November. We legally adopted him through the Ethiopian courts last summer, but the re-adoption means that every US state is now obligated to recognize him as our son.

It also means his name has been legally changed. He’s on his third name. Ethiopian naming convention dictates that kids’ second names are their fathers’ first names; their third names are their grandfathers’ first names (this is the tradition in Egypt as well, though it’s not always followed). So Giggle’s birth name was Giggle EthiopianDad. Then, after we adopted him, the Ethiopian courts re-named him Giggle Mr. Four. Now, he’s Giggle MyMiddleName Four.

I have a quirky middle name that goes back four generations, to my great grandfather. Giggle is now the fifth down my family line to carry this name. I hope that’s meaningful to him as he gets older as I really wanted him to have a name that connected him to me since he has his dad’s last name (Bug carries my dad’s first name as his middle name).

So Giggle has a name that is Ethiopian (his first name), French (our shared middle name), and German (he and Mr. Four’s last name). Which strikes me as being, in sum, very American.

By the way, I posted last fall that he was resisting his new last name, but that passed and he now identifies with it strongly.

Giggle has a first name that’s tough for some Americans and not necessarily familiar to all Ethiopians. In fact, he’ll probably be stuck spelling all of these names for his whole life. There are worse fates, I suppose. And, he can always change it as an adult.

Regardless of his name, it’s wonderful to have the American paperwork that says he’s our son. Now if only the Egyptians would believe it too.

Mr. Four sings

My singing is rarely on-key. The worst part is that I can hear when I’m off. I just can’t always fix it. But I still love to sing. Loudly and with emphasis.

Now, Mr. Four has a lovely singing voice. He sang in his church’s choir as a kid, and, in high school, he was in the barbershop quartet in The Music Man. (”Goodnight ladies, goodnight ladies, goodnight ladies…” and so on).

But, no matter how much I used to plead, he’d rarely sing around the house. Whistle, sure, but not sing. And he surely resisted my calls for a duet.

That is, until we got to Ethiopia in 2005. Within about a day or two of meeting Bug, Mr. Four, the reluctant singer, became Mr. Four, the crooner of lullabies, the melody maker, the serenader of songs. Bug has always loved it. He tends to sing to himself when he’s playing alone.

Giggle has joined in the fun. The boys sing together a lot.

I was thinking about this tonight as I watched Mr. Four tear down the hallway with the boys chasing after him. Mr. Four says he can’t run because of an old knee injury. But apparently when you’re in the dark bedroom and yelling “Boo!” with the kids, running down the hallway is all part of the fun. Just like singing to your kids.

Happy Enkutatash

It’s not just any ‘ole New Year in Ethiopia: it’s the millennium! We celebrated by eating Ethiopian food for dinner (courtesy of our fabulous housekeeper/nanny), and tomorrow the boys will wear their traditional outfits to school (with enthusiasm–there is no forcing involved). Plus our housekeeper has the day off tomorrow, which isn’t so much a celebration for us, but nice for her. We know she plans to spend at least part of the day at church, an interesting contrast to a typical New Year’s Day in the US.

The BBC has some great articles about the Enkutatash celebration. I’ve also been following the Ferenge Addis Blog, written by a former North Carolinian who now lives in Addis. It’s a great way to see a bit more of Addis as translated by a fellow American.

Happy Enkutatash to you and yours.