Tuesday Tangents

On Friday night our friends came over for a little bbq. Marty showed up at the front door and much to my delight he was sporting his Mocha Club t-shirt! I was so touched that they decided to support Mocha Club and it was just too cute of him to wear the shirt over to our house that night. I had to document it, of course.

I had to do some cropping so the pic looks a little weird but I think Marty looks pretty darn good. Our close knit group of friends here in Columbus has been so supportive of our decision to adopt!

Since we were on vacation, I am way behind on reading the usual news sources online that I like peruse but I did finally read Bono’s opinion piece in the NY times from a little over a week ago. My late Uncle David first introduced me to ONE, the group Bono co-founded, so I get email notifications of what ONE is up to and I follow their blog. Bono wrote the opinion piece on the eve of Obama’s speech in Ghana. I also have yet to watch Obama’s speech but hopefully I’ll get to that this week too. Bono’s article was quite interesting and of course he talked about the continuing need to support Africa but he also highlighted a lot of the progress that has been made in Ghana specifically. Their economy is growing despite the global economic down turn and recently they had a peaceful transfer of power. Bono speaks of the power that Obama has from his presidential pulpit and that “he’s got the chance to lead others in building — from the bottom up — on the successes of recent efforts within Africa and to learn from the failures. There’s been plenty of both.” I think Bono was trying to make the overall point that Mocha Club makes as well. Despite the tragedy and poverty that has consumed much of the continent, there are still good things happening; people are still dancing if you will. We should continue to help and support Africa but we shouldn’t patronize either.

Those of you who know me well know that it doesn’t take much to get some tears from me. They are usually tears because I am moved by something. Well, the end of Bono’s article admittedly made my eyes a little misty. He says, “Africa is not just Barack Obama’s homeland. It’s ours, too. The birthplace of humanity. Wherever our journeys have taken us, they all began there. The word Desmond Tutu uses is “ubuntu”: I am because we are. As he says, until we accept and appreciate this we cannot be fully whole. Could it be that all Americans are, in that sense, African-Americans?"

Wow. I really just had to sit there and think after I read that. Talk about thought provoking. And it just put to words how connected I already feel to our future child and who’s to say we won’t be “related.” As my mom said to me a few months ago, aren’t we all related?