Did you participate in the summer reading program as a kid? Well, my mom is a librarian so if we hadn’t done it I think my mom would have been shunned from library world. I have really fond memories of having my little booklet and going to the library and getting stickers and then at the end of the summer getting a medal of some sort for completing it. What a sense of accomplishment! I seriously would probably read more if I got a medal after completing a certain number of a books. There is nothing like a little positive reinforcement to motivate me. So even though I am not a teacher or a student anymore and don’t get the traditional summer break I always tend to think of the start of a summer as a time to do some serious reading. Obviously my choice in books these days is influenced by our adoption. I just finished a book by Melissa Fay Green called There Is No Me Without You. I learned a remarkable amount of information about Ethiopian culture, the AIDS crisis, adoption from Ethiopia and most importantly the power of one person to make a difference. That’s a lot to digest, right? But the author tells it all from the perspective of this amazing woman, Haregewoin Teffara. The author finds a way to mix all the facts and statistics with the stories of Mrs. Teffera, who opens her home to orphans. So it reads more like a novel. Even if you aren’t knee deep in the process of adopting from Ethiopia, I think you would enjoy this book. I found a brief review from Booklist that I really think summarizes the book well.
“The horrific numbers behind the AIDS pandemic in Africa, "the most terrible epidemic in human history," have little resonance for most people in the West: "the ridiculous numbers wash over most of us." But this searing account humanizes the statistics through heartbreaking, intimate stories of what it is like for young orphans left alone in Ethiopia. Greene's story focuses on one rescuer, Haregewoin Teferra, who has opened her home and compound in a rickety hillside neighborhood of Addis Ababa and taken in hundreds of the untouchables thrown in the streets and left at her door. She cannot turn them away. Greene tells the stories in unforgettable vignettes of loss, secrecy, panic, stigma, and, sometimes, hope, even as she documents the big picture of "the human landslide," the history and science of epidemiology and transmission, and expresses her fury at the "crimes against humanity" of the multinational drug companies whose expensive patents have denied millions access to the life-saving medicines. Just as moving are the personal stories of international adoptions in the U. S., including two Ethiopian children taken into Greene's own Atlanta family. The detail of one lost child at a time, who finds love, laughter, comfort, and connection, opens up the universal meaning of family.” Hazel Rochman
I think I will make a little booklet and give myself a sticker for my first summer reading book checked off the list. Gold Medal here I come!
In personal adoption news, we had our final home study appointment on Friday and it went well. Our social worker is now typing our report that will eventually get sent to Citizen and Immigration Services as part of the approval process. In order for the home study to be finalized, D and I will have to watch 10 hours of training videos and take quizzes about them. We hope to have that finished by next week. We also have to read some articles and write short reports about them. The last bit of training we will have to do will be our infant CPR class on June 20th. The goal is that D and I will be done with our part by then and it will just be a matter of waiting for things like FBI fingerprinting and CIS approval. There is going to be a lot of waiting in this whole process so I might as well get used to it.
Let me know if you have read any good books that I should add to my summer reading list!
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