stereotyped.

I think initially, when it was clear to us that Ethiopia was where our daughter would be from, I had a difficult time shifting gears.

I had originally been so focused on West Africa, and then Rwanda, I had often told friends that the only place I wouldn't adopt from was Ethiopia.

Over the months I have really tried to explore what made me say that, and why I had such an averse reaction.

It is all based on stereotypes.
Ethiopia gets press.
They get aid.
Their government is more secure.
Tons of children are adopted from there, it must be "easy".

First of all,
as I have come to discover,
no road to and through adoption is easy.
Not one.

Second, when I did a little bit of research on Ethiopia,
I found out that a lot of what I had believed, wasn't true at all.

Here are a couple of things I read recently that really struck a chord with me:



"If aid is distributed to families, for example, one would consider the number of people in each household. Likewise, it would be unfair to treat a country of say 100 million in the same manner as a country of 5 million. By this metric, contrary to what many believe, countries such as Ethiopia with very large populations are not getting as much aid as they should. The data indicates that western economic aid is skewed in favor of smaller countries when aid per capita of recipient country is evaluated.
Ethiopia ranks 32/34, indicating that the country is severely under-aided, given its size. The average Ethiopian got just one tenth of what someone in Sam Tome & Principe received, or roughly 20% of what someone in Zambia or Namibia received."

and this:

"There are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago, than there are in Ethiopia."

The bottom line for us,
for our family,
is that we wanted to go where our daughter was waiting.
And that led us to Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is now in my blood,
my roots are there,
and much like the United States, I feel a fierce loyalty to Her.