A day in the life....

breakfast

mami and luke

barefeet and sock

mami and tiny Luke

First week in Uganda

I don't really care how long things take now, the clock stopped with meeting him. He is just what we hoped for and yet we don't know him at all. Each day he reveals a little more and our relationship is one day longer.

Time is in a very suspended state: each day tackling a few new tasks in a city that's utterly wild, feels like a rural New York City or formal camping (every year Eric and I and his friends head into the woods and dress up in our finest) - the madams here often walk down the red earth road in satin gowns or elaborate African attire.

We arrived in Kampala a few days ago. jet lagged and slowed by the heat, we slept for the first day. Breakfast was in their open air cafe: instant kaawa, buttered potatoes, white bread with jam, boiled egg, pineapple, guava, watermelon and mysterious and delicious fruit juice. I felt like William S. Burroughs in Mexico.

The orphanage or children's home is only a block away and up the hillside. I sort of like the word orphanage as it conjures up a lot of appropriate imagery though it's not completely fair. I get the impression the women or madams never put our son on the ground. He insists on being carried. When we first saw him he was sitting in the middle of the floor with another baby. The TV was on and the room was dark. The caretakers were all sitting on the couch. We sort of popped in on them when they weren't expecting it...and it was after hours. Luke (Luk-a), this is your mami. This is your dati.

We see him for a couple of hours everyday, but he can't join us until after the court date on Wednesday, Dec. 4. He is calm with us and doesn't cry, but he is visibly sad and often reaches out for a madam. This is the best thing Eric and I have ever done with our lives, but it is one of the saddest days for him. He will be discrupted from everything he knows as his life. Imagine if you were taken from your home right now, as you read this, placed in a foreign country, with a different language, with different looking people, and you wont see your family as you know them again. Oh but there are horses and food and attention and...yet it doesn't replace what you had grown to know and love. It was familiar and safe.

I don't want to end my first entry on a downbeat. But the alternative for him is dire, perhaps deadly. There are way too many impoverished children here WITH parents. He has no family that can afford to care for him, educate him, provide him access and options. We can. I hope he understands that one day and can mend this great tear. See it as choosing survival. Choosing life. Choosing family.

Breakthrough!

We got the email! We're heading to Uganda in Thanksgiving! Court date, early December. YES YES YES! We are absolutely out of our minds with this boy we get to meet.

Forum on our young black males: notes

What is the capacity of our young black males? It is limitless. 

What are the barriers? There are identity problems, access problems, ‘we are there for you” institutions often get in the way. 

How do we get them to see their capacity is limitless? It is a matter of will power. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you do not believe you can, you won’t. 

If black children aren’t supported, aren’t solid at home, they won’t succeed academically.

It takes more money to house someone in jail than to send them to college. One in three black men will go to jail.

What is my greatest fear about my son? He will end up in prison. Not by his choice. By someone else’s mistakes. By profiling him. By the day he doesn’t have the right documentation on hand, or didn’t dress right.

Hip Hop. Post-modern, cultural, post-industrial aesthetic form. Kanye West, old stuff. You Can’t Tell Me Nothing. I had a dream that I bought my way to heaven. It’s all about materialism. But when I woke I spent that on a necklace. Existential spiritual angst.

Hip hop is about identity. Children want to be rappers, actors, basketball players: These are the only forms in mainstream society where one can be successful AND BE BLACK. It’s the only roles they see as available to them.

Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, old stuff…

You are noble. Don’t buy into the lie. My son is noble. How do you survive a police interaction when you have a black son? I am going to survive this interaction. He knows who he is. He is calm. He says, my wallet is in my bag. I am reaching into my bag to get my wallet. I am now doing this.

Call on the Elders.

Maya Angelou: Still I rise. Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

Langston Hughes. Mother to Son.

Gloria Burgess.

Parents, come into the school. Support your kids.There is no such thing as an AT RISK KID. The system named you that. No value in putting black kids in a black only college. It’s cultural isolation. It’s very temporary. And yet for once, it is good to think about being a writer, not a black writer.

How do I make sure my black son doesn’t just identify with the black mom in the family and not the white dad? The first thing that binds us is humanness. Teach him about valuing,  honoring his culture. Value your African heritage. Value your Celtic heritage. It makes us who we are.

What's his religion?

Two more referral letters needed and a notarized commitment to raise our son in the religion of his first family. hmmm...(psst. We don't even know what religion it is!) When they send me a current weight or a 3rd picture (after 10 months) then I'll ask about their faith. I'm sure we'll work it out.

If he's muslim we'll have a lot of catching up to do. If he's Christian (majority of the country) we're probably ready to go without realizing it.

Need I add? This WAIT is making me act like a teenager. Writing caustic quips in my journal.

Visit back to his village for more paperwork

Now I'm antsy. Before it seemed like the baby would be here before we were ready. Now,
WHAT'S TAKING SO DAMN LONG!

I learned today that yet another visit was needed by the orphanage director to the probation officer of the village to acquire his written recommendation for our adoption. I'm glad they're being thorough, but I figured we were done with those type of interviews by now.  And then do we get a court date?

So I bought our bambino some socks. Do babies need socks? Don't they just kick them off? I figured he  should try and wear in them in court at least....(good thing we just signed up for a baby care class:  )

By forming a family through adoption, especially a transracial family, we knew there would be A LOT to learn. A large part of why I wanted to adopt. Opening my mind, bending it, thinking about culture and identity, international affairs, topics I used to bathe in during my undergraduate liberal arts education and were largely dropped from  the curriculum in vet school.

I am thrilled that our adoption agency pushes education. Actually REQUIRES it. We have been asked to read and report on at least 6 books on adoption, parenting, parenting in a transracial family, along with more than another dozen topics on how we plan to raise our child -- from locating community groups to interviewing people who have adopted or are adoptees. (I keep thinking how great it would be if every parent were required to do this.) We also have to learn some basics of the Luganda language and study up on the history, culture of Uganda.

Due: end of November

Affadvits

Affadvits have arrived from Uganda! We will notarize them today and FedEx them out. NOW the laywer can file our case with the courts.

We are starting to pull together a packing list for Uganda. There are many blogs out there with great advice from folks who have come before us, heading to Uganda to complete their families.

Baby registry!

I'm starting to believe we might actually become parents soon. In that case, we're really behind on getting all the things we'll need for a baby!

With encouragement from friends and family, we've actually registered online. We couldn't settle on one store so we're using "Babylist" which pulls from many stores and organizes it on one site.

Thanks for all your help!

http://babyli.st/jeni-and-eric

members of a feral cat colony we are trying to get under control

Holy yellow fever vaccine! Keeled over in pain and diarrhea for 16 hours, didn't eat solid food for days. Apparently I should be thankful I didn't get the real thing!

The money we wired to Africa made it safely. The lawyer is currently working on gathering DNA from the parents and making sure everyone knows what is meant by "international adoption." Yes, the child leaves the orphanage and goes to the U.S. Apparently there have been misunderstandings in the past. ??

Today we received our Polio, Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Hep A and B vax and scripts for Malaria meds.

This almost feels like an impending trip now...I imagine we should start gathering baby supplies. Somehow I'm scared to make those type of purchases. I'm not willing to face a room full of baby stuff and no baby.