Sojourn in Durame

"I have scars on my hands from touching certain people...Certain heads, certain colours and textures... leave permanent marks on me."

J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

It had been a fitful night of sleep as my body still desperately attempted to come to terms with an eight hour time difference and my mind raced with thoughts of the unknown day ahead. Besides meeting my daughter for the first time, the day now approaching was guaranteed to be one of those unforgettable moments of my life, pregnant with a significance so profound that I perhaps will never fully grasp it. Our travel group was scheduled to leave Addis at 6:30 AM, crowding into two vans like members of a church youth group journeying to a weekend retreat, for a six hour trip to southern Ethiopia, the region in which all of our children had been born. Not only would we visit the Care Center in Durame, where our sons and daughters had lived prior to their home in Addis, but most importantly, we would be meeting with members of their birth family. Soundly my husband and son appeared to rest while I struggled to coax myself back into unconsciousness. Surrounded by the heavy, forsaken darkness of a day not yet occupied with light, I began to hear the prayers being offered by Orthodox clergy broadcasted by a loudspeaker on a nearby church and reasoned that it was around 4:00 AM. Feeling alone, I was comforted by the haunting chants of words I did not understand knowing that Christ was in the midst of my solitude.

We were welcomed into a room not much larger than your average office space and took our places in chairs lined up in rows and around the walls. Each family was handed a list which divided us up into three groups and indicated the order of the birth family meetings. Jared and I were listed last. Robotically our lips formed words casual and light, void of any true meaning. Nervously we laughed and pretended to be occupied with drinking the coffee and eating the popcorn we were graciously served. All the while, we were really seeking to lessen the weightiness of our imminent experience by engaging in pedestrian activities. Collectively our lives were on pause while in a building adjacent to ours another group of individuals with lists in their hands likewise anxiously awaited to be summoned.  

Durame. Just typing the name elicits within me contrasting images of beauty and ugliness, as well as  feelings of hope and despair. Perhaps we all were wounded during that twenty-four hour period in ways we could not have imagined. Wounded as we viewed the Ethiopian countryside lush and beautiful with its seeming simplicity, but often harsh with poverty; wounded as we encountered multitudes of children whose lack of basic necessities like proper fitting shoes and clothing or clean water, made us want to hide our American faces in shame; wounded because what we gained—our precious children—came at a grievous, irrevocable price for those men and women with whom we shared twenty minutes of our lives; wounded as we silently yielded to their abrupt departure, watching them being shuffled back into vans and returned to places that will probably remain forever unknown to us.

Day Three: The Drive to Durame

There were frequent stops along the way for animals in the road. In this particular instance you can see three donkeys, a goat, and a dog.

We also has to stop for these baboons.

I think these are peacocks, but I may be wrong.

These huts were the regular form of habitation found in the rural areas between Addis Ababa and Durame.

Show this to your child the next time he doesn't want to carry his dishes to the sink.

As we drove the six hours, we witnessed countless people collecting and carrying water from less than pristine sources. We never tire of plugging one of our favorite charities—Charty: Water—who is working to solve this issue.

Thomas made some new friends at the Durame Care Center.

This lovely quartet sat perched over our hotel. In the middle of the night, as I sprayed myself with Off and thanked God for malaria meds, I swear I heard strains of a barber shop quartet singing the song from Disney's Jungle Book, "We're your friends. We're your friends. We're your friends to the bitter end."