I've seen this title in many adoption agency and adoption blog book lists.
The author is Melissa Fay Greene. I've just started reading it after hearing many times that it is a great book.
I added a link to a site about the book to the book image above. There are lots of reviews out there if you search for them too.
Some of the things that I've read in the first part of the book are staggering. How should I feel when I read that 81% of Ethiopia's people live on less than 2 dollars a day while I sip my 4 dollar coffee on my bus ride into work?
Close to two thirds of school age children are not in school. 41% of adults can read. 11% of children in Ethiopia are orphans. The number of deaths from AIDS are too high to even make sense to me. The population is huge. Juliet's link on our blog here shows a stat that women have an average of 6 children.
Thinking about this first part of the book made me remember something one of the counselors said at an adoption class we attended. It was something along the lines of "You all are here first and foremost because you want to be parents and that's great. You might find that providing a better life for a child will mean something to you too." What she said was more elegant than this and I wish I could remember the exact words.
I don't think adopting from Ethiopia will solve any of the problems that Africa has. I'm not sure how I feel about the things I'm learning. I've got a lot of thoughts trying to sort themselves out in my brain.
It's a great book and one every family adopting from Ethiopia should read. I don't think any of us go into adoption to save a child (at least I hope not) but being in their first country and imagining the life they might have led definitely changes your outlook forever.
ReplyDeleteKerri, Medina, and Ruby