Davis Kane's Story
By Robert M & Sonja S
We are incredibly lucky to be parents of a very personable, easy-going, sweet boy - formerly Adem Ali, now Davis Kane. It's obviously early, but he seems to be pretty docile - our close friends and family probably (!!!) would classify us as "Type A (type AAA?)" personalities, so this will be a fabulous counterbalance.
Everything in Ethiopia went very well - it was the adventure and experience of a lifetime. We both underestimated how physically - AND emotionally - draining the trip would be - from the schedule, to the in-country travel, to digesting the sadness, to meeting Adem's mother and family - it all combined to challenge your strength.
That said, we are excited about returning once every 2-3 yrs, not only because we want Davis to remain connected to his home, but also because we quickly realized how/why people fall in love with Africa - the countryside is captivating, the people are incredibly friendly, the food is out of this world, the archaeological and architectural history as "ground-zero" of human development is fascinating, and the natural attractions of rugged mountains, river valleys, and safaris are obvious. In fact, once you leave the admittedly "hard" city environment, the countryside made me think of what it must have been like to travel through our own United States 150 or 200 years ago - subsistence farm after subsistence farm, where handmade dwellings are surrounded by fencing and small corrals made of bamboo and wood, holding a few cattle and goats, while the small field of very rich, black dirt was being worked by 1-2 men behind teams of 2 oxen, using 100% wood yokes and pulling a 100% wooden, blade plow.
We arrived on Saturday June 30, and spent the first few days with Davis at the orphanage, for a few hours at a time, building comfort, rapport, etc. On Wednesday July 4, we drove 5 hours south to his hometown of Awassa (which is dominated by one of Ethiopia's jewel lakes, in the beautiful Rift Valley), and met his family at their home with the local social worker (translator) - his mother lives with her parents, her five-year-old son, and two of her brothers in a single room. Suffice to say, it was both incredibly rewarding and incredibly sad. Both Sonja and I were bound and determined that it not be just a cry-fest, as we wanted to speak with Beletu (Adem's mother) about what her hopes and dreams are for Adem, and hear more about their family history. It was a great visit - we sat with them for almost 2 hours (apparently unheard of - I guess most last 20-30 minutes). Ethiopia is a very religious country, whether Christian or Muslim, and Adem's family is Christian - they gave repeated prayers of thanks to God, and welcomed us into their family. We had written a letter to Beletu of our commitment to Adem, and to her, and our plans for raising him (we had it translated into Amharic) - she read that while we were there, and she also seemed to really enjoy the photo album that Sonja took hours to create, packing it with pictures of Adem, pictures of Beletu with Adem (given to us a few months ago), pictures of his room at our house, pictures of us, our extended family, dogs, etc.
Two things I will never forget - both Beletu and her father said to us that they wanted Adem to be "raised as a strong American, and to become strong for his new country and his home country" - this made me realize that we are not only doing this "for ourselves", but for his entire family, as well. In short, it really appealed to my sense of being on a mission, and having a goal to accomplish.
The other memory I will always hold onto is just as I looked around the room as we met and talked, and focused on the faces of the boys and men in the room, I could not help but mentally place Adem Davis' incredibly innocent, happy face onto those weary, battered bodies, and shudder at the idea that he could easily be down those same sad roads in 15-20 years, were we not fortunately matched with him. (The life expectancy in Ethiopia is less than 47 years.)