We are still waiting for our homestudy to be approved by our agency so that it may be finalized a second time. They said it would take about 10 days, but no such luck. Ours is taking a bit longer than the time frame indicated. (I should have known; Nothing in adoption goes according to plan). I have been so leary about sending in our I600A again since our first one expired before our homestudy got there, and we are out of $700. That really hurt my heart! Isn't it unfortunate that they don't give you a credit or something. And to top that off, the lady I was in contact with at the CIS office was sooo nasty. Doesn't she know you catch more bees with honey?(I guess not).
Nonetheless, I will be putting the I600A in the mail this weekend so that we can get the ball rolling again. We will also need to update our physicals in September.
Otherwise, I've been taking a much needed break from the paperchase because it had been driving me looney!! Now I feel refreshed, and ready to get everything completed; as soon as we get approval on our homestudy. (I'll let you know when that happens)
As for summer pictures, I hope to get them up pretty soon. Toodles!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Summer
Summer has been sooo busy. I can hardly believe it's almost over, and school will be beginning in just 2 weeks. I love summer. It's my favorite time of year. Anything that can be done in the water; swimming, snorkeling, boating, I'm all for it. I guess that's why I love summer so. One of my goals is to learn to dive, but I still have a fear of going that deep, in the big blue sea.
I just checked into our blog, and realized I hadn't posted in about 1 month. Read below, and you will see an update on our adoption journey. We are aiming to make wait list by September or October.
As for our summer, we traveled quite a bit. We recently returned from a week stay in Orlando, followed by a 3 day Disney cruise which was fun, fun, fun. I'll post some pictures from our summer soon. I hope all of you had a very fun summer as well.
Update
Our homestudy is off to our agency for approval. Well that happened after our social worker sent 3 finalized copies to us. I had no clue that it had to be approved before it was finalized. They said it should take 10 days. Once that's complete, our homestudy will be finalized...again.
We have to refile our I600A because our completed homestudy was not received until after the July 25th expiation date. (Boo Hoo).
I'm hoping that this will be completed in the next 2 weeks or so. Our dossier is nearly complete as we worked on it as we were collecting other documents. Only a few more documents to go.
One of these days, we will be on the waitlist. I'm aiming for September.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Tasteless "New Yorker" Cover
Now honestly guys, even if you don't support Barack Obama, you must admit that this cover is tasteless!!! What type of satire is this? What editor thought this was acceptable? To imply that the Obama's are "terrorist" is absolutely ridiculous! This is not only untrue, but actually slanderous, and irresponsible. I find this down right insulting, and I'm not even on the cover!The implication that being Muslim is equivalent to being a terrorist or unpatriotic is absolutely unacceptable. By the way, Barack Obama is not a Muslim, but even if he were, what difference would it make. As a Christian, I am appalled by these images, and their implications. This is why there is war and strife in the world; lack of regard and respect for the differences.
If you feel the same, write in, and tell the New Yorker what you think.
Update
It has been awhile since I've written anything. I actually got a little overwhelmed by everyday task (work, adoption paperwork, house repairs, did I mention work). Anyhoo, on the adoption front, we finally have a draft of our homestudy. (Yipee!!) We have a 2 more pieces of paperwork to turn in, and hopefully our social worker can finalize it before our I600A application expires at the end of the month (talk about pressure). I mean I really don't want to pay another $700 to do that thing again. I'll let you know how it turns out.
We received our criminal clearances form the state and our gold seal letter for adoption from the FBI. (Something required in Maryland) Now oddly, this FBI clearance won't count for our dossier. We will have to be fingerprinted yet again (that makes 4) for the official FBI clearance letter. You think these folks could work together to get some national fingerprint database. Or at least make one for us PAP's (potential adoptive parents) so we don't drive ourselves crazy getting fingerprinted every couple weeks.
Once we receive our homestudy, I am hoping gladney approval will be right around the corner. I'm trying to complete all of our paperwork before July 25. (We will see how that goes).
(Sidebar) : If anyone is interested, I was recently informed by my social worker of an opportunity to adopt an African American infant to be born within the next 2 weeks. Baby will be born in Texas, and PAP's should have a completed homestudy. Email me if interested, and I can forward the information to my social worker.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Italian Vogue
FYI: To those who may not have already heard, the July Edition of Italian Vogue will feature all Black models. The issue became available in Europe on Thursday, and will be available in the US shortly thereafter. The image above is the multi-page fold out cover featuring from left Liya Kebede (of Ethiopian descent), Sessilee Lopez, Jourdan Dunn, and Naomi Campbell. Plus sized model Toccara Jones from America's Next Top Model fame also graces the pages of this edition.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Afro-Latinos
We were fingerprinted today for our FBI and state criminal clearances. We had to be fingerprinted a second time for our gold seal letter of adoption. That makes 3 fingerprinting sessions total. Talk about redundant. At any rate that puts us one step closer.
Since I have no new updates today, I thought I'd post an interesting article from "Newsweek". It's not about Ethiopia, but it gives some insight into the lives of other blacks within the African diaspora, specifically Afro-Latinos. Take a look if you're interested.
Rise Of The Latin Africans
A new black-power movement in Central and South America.
Joe Contreras
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 11:09 AM ET May 31, 2008
Hugo Chávez is known as a revolutionary in many contexts, especially his
defiance of the United States. In recent years, however, he's also broken
ground on a far less well-exposed subject: the question of race in Latin
America. The saga began two years ago, when, during a tour of Gambia, Chávez
surprised observers by declaring that "I've always said that if Spain is our
mother, Africa, mother Africa, is much more so." Since then, the Venezuelan
leader has often revisited the theme at home, even drawing attention to his
own African roots. It may not sound shocking. But such language would have
been inconceivable from a major Latin American leader just a short time ago.
That's now changing, due to a black-consciousness movement stirring in
Central and South America. Emboldened by the success of their indigenous
countrymen in pressing for resolution of long-ignored grievances,
Afro-descendientes (people of African descent), as they are known, are now
lobbying for recognition of their own communities' land rights and for
increased spending to improve living conditions in urban slums and rural
villages. Local activists have begun urging Latin blacks to take pride in
their culture, and with the help of the Internet, leaders are reaching
across borders to share tactics and compare notes with their brethren in the
Caribbean, the United States and Africa. This "black-power movement has gone
way beyond anything that has happened in the past," says Ann
Farnsworth-Alvear, director of Latin American and Latino Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania. "People are making critiques of racism in their
own societies, and there's been a real shift in black consciousness and
involvement. "
Black power isn't entirely new to the region; for some time now the
descendants of African slaves have wielded political clout in a few corners
of the hemisphere. That's especially the case in the English-speaking
Caribbean, where black heads of state are the rule. And in Brazil, where
nearly half the country's 192 million people have African ancestry, Joaquim
Barbosa, arguably the most influential member of the Supreme Court, is
black; so is recording artist Gilberto Gil, who served as Culture minister
under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for five years. Moreover, Lula's
predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, once announced that he himself had
"one foot in the kitchen"—a colorful way of admitting intermarriage among
his ancestors (albeit one that earned him criticism at the time).
In the rest of Latin America, blacks remain a small (they're thought to
number about 20 million, though activists claim the figure is much higher)
and marginalized minority. Demographics highlight their second-class status.
For example, Ecuador's blacks, who make up 5 percent of the population,
suffer a 14.5 percent unemployment rate, higher than that of the country's
nonblack majority and twice that of indigenous groups. In neighboring
Colombia, which is home to 10.5 million Afro-descendientes— giving it the
third largest black population in the hemisphere, after Brazil and the
United States—only one in five blacks has access to electricity and running
water (compared with 60 percent of the rest of the population), and the
black infant mortality rate is more than three times the white level.
Now, however, black communities are organizing and pressing for change. In
Honduras, for example, locals of African descent, who are known as
Garifunas, have staged protests in Tegucigalpa, the capital, against a
proposed constitutional amendment that would permit foreigners to purchase
property along the Atlantic coast, a region the Garifunas have called home
since 1797. And in Ecuador, more than a hundred black housewives and working
women joined forces in 2006 to seek more government assistance for housing
to combat racial discrimination in the rental market.
The epicenter of the new black activism, meanwhile, is Colombia. That's due
as much to circumstance as design: more than a third of the 3.2 million
Colombians uprooted by the country's long-running civil war are of African
ancestry, as are many of the ragged street vendors and beggars who approach
motorists at busy Bogotá intersections. Foreign and local NGOs are now
working hard to publicize their plight. Though a landmark 1993 law enshrined
the right of Afro-Colombians to obtain formal title to their ancestral
lands, including 5 million hectares along the Pacific coast—a unique
experiment in ethnic self-government— implementation has lagged, as
unscrupulous agribusinesses and paramilitary warlords have seized communal
property with near impunity. But recently, as part of its ongoing effort to
win U.S. approval for a free-trade agreement, the government of President
Alvaro Uribe has begun to expel these companies and restore 8,000 hectares
of stolen land to Afro-Colombian community councils.
Throughout the region, individual blacks have also begun blazing new trails.
Graciela Dixon became the first black woman to head Panama's Supreme Court
in 2005, and Luis Alberto Moore, a cop in Colombia, has reached the rank of
general—a first for an Afro-descendiente. "I hope I will serve as an example
for other black people in Colombia who will say, 'If General Moore did [it],
then so can I'," says the 48-year-old Bogotá native.
But many other Latin blacks remain reluctant to openly acknowledge their
background, which makes it hard for their communities to increase their
influence. In 2005, for example, when Colombians were asked for the first
time to identify their ethnic background in a census, less than half the
country's blacks described themselves as such. Doris de la Hoz, a senior
Afro-Colombian official in the Ministry of Culture, says that even this
percentage represented progress, since more than 4 million people did
acknowledge their heritage. But "there is still a strong separation of
people by groups," she says, "and many black families try to convince their
lighter-skinned children that they are white."
Yet such attitudes also seem to be shifting, albeit gradually. Evelyne
Laurent-Perrault, 48, is the daughter of Haitian immigrants and grew up in
middle-class Caracas, where she was usually the only black in her classroom
and, later on, her office. Over the years she's endured her fair share of
cruel jokes. Starting in her 20s, however, Laurent-Perrault, a biologist by
training, began to develop a passionate interest in her culture and its
links to Africa. She is now working on a Ph.D. at New York University
analyzing the topic in the context of Venezuela. "There is [now] more pride
in being black," she says. "People are mobilizing, and organizations have
arisen in almost all of Latin America to expose inequality and demand that
this must end."
Such organizations are drawing inspiration and financing from foreign,
largely U.S., sources. In February, African-American journalist Lori
Robinson launched a new Web site called vidaafrolatina. com that spotlights
news, cultural events and commentary by and about Afro-Latinos. Leading
members of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus, like Rep. Gregory Meeks,
have taken a special interest in Afro-Colombians and dispatched staff to
advise black Colombian legislators. USAID has funded a variety of social and
economic development projects in predominantly black areas of western
Colombia, and has provided money and technical assistance to an association
of black mayors and groups working on behalf of internal refugees. The
groundbreaking presidential bid of a certain young U.S. senator hasn't gone
unnoticed in the region, either. "A triumph of Barack Obama would be
extraordinary, " gushes Ernesto Estupiñan, mayor of the predominantly black
Ecuadoran city of Esmeraldas. "It would be a huge encouragement for all of
us in terms of minority participation in politics." Indeed, if Obama does
reach the White House, one of his familiar slogans could soon take root in
the hearts and minds of his fellow Africano-Americanos south of the border:
"¡Si se puede!"("Yes we can!")
URL: http://www.newsweek .com/id/139401
A new black-power movement in Central and South America.
Joe Contreras
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 11:09 AM ET May 31, 2008
Hugo Chávez is known as a revolutionary in many contexts, especially his
defiance of the United States. In recent years, however, he's also broken
ground on a far less well-exposed subject: the question of race in Latin
America. The saga began two years ago, when, during a tour of Gambia, Chávez
surprised observers by declaring that "I've always said that if Spain is our
mother, Africa, mother Africa, is much more so." Since then, the Venezuelan
leader has often revisited the theme at home, even drawing attention to his
own African roots. It may not sound shocking. But such language would have
been inconceivable from a major Latin American leader just a short time ago.
That's now changing, due to a black-consciousness movement stirring in
Central and South America. Emboldened by the success of their indigenous
countrymen in pressing for resolution of long-ignored grievances,
Afro-descendientes (people of African descent), as they are known, are now
lobbying for recognition of their own communities' land rights and for
increased spending to improve living conditions in urban slums and rural
villages. Local activists have begun urging Latin blacks to take pride in
their culture, and with the help of the Internet, leaders are reaching
across borders to share tactics and compare notes with their brethren in the
Caribbean, the United States and Africa. This "black-power movement has gone
way beyond anything that has happened in the past," says Ann
Farnsworth-Alvear, director of Latin American and Latino Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania. "People are making critiques of racism in their
own societies, and there's been a real shift in black consciousness and
involvement. "
Black power isn't entirely new to the region; for some time now the
descendants of African slaves have wielded political clout in a few corners
of the hemisphere. That's especially the case in the English-speaking
Caribbean, where black heads of state are the rule. And in Brazil, where
nearly half the country's 192 million people have African ancestry, Joaquim
Barbosa, arguably the most influential member of the Supreme Court, is
black; so is recording artist Gilberto Gil, who served as Culture minister
under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for five years. Moreover, Lula's
predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, once announced that he himself had
"one foot in the kitchen"—a colorful way of admitting intermarriage among
his ancestors (albeit one that earned him criticism at the time).
In the rest of Latin America, blacks remain a small (they're thought to
number about 20 million, though activists claim the figure is much higher)
and marginalized minority. Demographics highlight their second-class status.
For example, Ecuador's blacks, who make up 5 percent of the population,
suffer a 14.5 percent unemployment rate, higher than that of the country's
nonblack majority and twice that of indigenous groups. In neighboring
Colombia, which is home to 10.5 million Afro-descendientes— giving it the
third largest black population in the hemisphere, after Brazil and the
United States—only one in five blacks has access to electricity and running
water (compared with 60 percent of the rest of the population), and the
black infant mortality rate is more than three times the white level.
Now, however, black communities are organizing and pressing for change. In
Honduras, for example, locals of African descent, who are known as
Garifunas, have staged protests in Tegucigalpa, the capital, against a
proposed constitutional amendment that would permit foreigners to purchase
property along the Atlantic coast, a region the Garifunas have called home
since 1797. And in Ecuador, more than a hundred black housewives and working
women joined forces in 2006 to seek more government assistance for housing
to combat racial discrimination in the rental market.
The epicenter of the new black activism, meanwhile, is Colombia. That's due
as much to circumstance as design: more than a third of the 3.2 million
Colombians uprooted by the country's long-running civil war are of African
ancestry, as are many of the ragged street vendors and beggars who approach
motorists at busy Bogotá intersections. Foreign and local NGOs are now
working hard to publicize their plight. Though a landmark 1993 law enshrined
the right of Afro-Colombians to obtain formal title to their ancestral
lands, including 5 million hectares along the Pacific coast—a unique
experiment in ethnic self-government— implementation has lagged, as
unscrupulous agribusinesses and paramilitary warlords have seized communal
property with near impunity. But recently, as part of its ongoing effort to
win U.S. approval for a free-trade agreement, the government of President
Alvaro Uribe has begun to expel these companies and restore 8,000 hectares
of stolen land to Afro-Colombian community councils.
Throughout the region, individual blacks have also begun blazing new trails.
Graciela Dixon became the first black woman to head Panama's Supreme Court
in 2005, and Luis Alberto Moore, a cop in Colombia, has reached the rank of
general—a first for an Afro-descendiente. "I hope I will serve as an example
for other black people in Colombia who will say, 'If General Moore did [it],
then so can I'," says the 48-year-old Bogotá native.
But many other Latin blacks remain reluctant to openly acknowledge their
background, which makes it hard for their communities to increase their
influence. In 2005, for example, when Colombians were asked for the first
time to identify their ethnic background in a census, less than half the
country's blacks described themselves as such. Doris de la Hoz, a senior
Afro-Colombian official in the Ministry of Culture, says that even this
percentage represented progress, since more than 4 million people did
acknowledge their heritage. But "there is still a strong separation of
people by groups," she says, "and many black families try to convince their
lighter-skinned children that they are white."
Yet such attitudes also seem to be shifting, albeit gradually. Evelyne
Laurent-Perrault, 48, is the daughter of Haitian immigrants and grew up in
middle-class Caracas, where she was usually the only black in her classroom
and, later on, her office. Over the years she's endured her fair share of
cruel jokes. Starting in her 20s, however, Laurent-Perrault, a biologist by
training, began to develop a passionate interest in her culture and its
links to Africa. She is now working on a Ph.D. at New York University
analyzing the topic in the context of Venezuela. "There is [now] more pride
in being black," she says. "People are mobilizing, and organizations have
arisen in almost all of Latin America to expose inequality and demand that
this must end."
Such organizations are drawing inspiration and financing from foreign,
largely U.S., sources. In February, African-American journalist Lori
Robinson launched a new Web site called vidaafrolatina. com that spotlights
news, cultural events and commentary by and about Afro-Latinos. Leading
members of the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus, like Rep. Gregory Meeks,
have taken a special interest in Afro-Colombians and dispatched staff to
advise black Colombian legislators. USAID has funded a variety of social and
economic development projects in predominantly black areas of western
Colombia, and has provided money and technical assistance to an association
of black mayors and groups working on behalf of internal refugees. The
groundbreaking presidential bid of a certain young U.S. senator hasn't gone
unnoticed in the region, either. "A triumph of Barack Obama would be
extraordinary, " gushes Ernesto Estupiñan, mayor of the predominantly black
Ecuadoran city of Esmeraldas. "It would be a huge encouragement for all of
us in terms of minority participation in politics." Indeed, if Obama does
reach the White House, one of his familiar slogans could soon take root in
the hearts and minds of his fellow Africano-Americanos south of the border:
"¡Si se puede!"("Yes we can!")
URL: http://www.newsweek .com/id/139401
Friday, June 27, 2008
Interesting TV
FYI: On July 23, and July 24 , CNN will premiere a series entitiled, "Black in America with Soledad O'Brien". I encourage each of you to watch this series with your family. It may give some insight to challenges adoptive children of color may face in America. The first episode in the series focuses on Women and Familes ,and the next episode will be dedicated entirely to the plight of the Black Man in America.
For more information: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/black.in.america/
Adoption Update
Well, we accomplished alot today on the adoption front. I mailed 3 packages, 1 to Gladney (our adoption agency); this packet contained the rest of the documents we will need for Gladney approval. We are still waiting on 2 recommendation letters and our final homestudy report, but at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I sent a package to Kate Sproat (the wonderful woman who is compiling our foreign dossier). For fam and friends who know nothing about this process, a dossier is a thick packet of documents that will be given to the Ethiopian government to facilitate our adoption. In an effort to prevent redundancy, I decided to compile our dossier as I collected the rest of our documents. It was a great idea, until I realized I'd have to update things that expire! The first thing that will expire are our medical reports in September. Gotta make appointments to update these in about 1 month. (Geesh). Well I guess it's better than starting from scratch.
Our 3rd package went to Paul, our social worker, so he can complete our homestudy. Tomorrow, we are off to Baltimore to have our fingerprints done for the FBI and criminal clearances needed for our homestudy. Hopefully we will have our homestudy completed before the deadline for expiration of our I600A application. It would not be fun to pay another fee to resubmit the I600A. I guess we will see how it works out. Fortunately, we finished our fingerprints for the I600A back in November, and they should be good for 15 months.
Stay Tuned
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Cancun
I know I love to view pictures when I visit blogs, so here are a few we took
on our last vacation to Cancun about 2 weeks ago. I can't figure out how to layout multiple pictures, but I'll get it soon enough. Hopefully my next layout will look better. If anyone knows how to do this, please shoot me an email.
These photos were taken at Chichen Itza, a must-see Mayan Ruin in the Yucatan. It is one of the "new wonders of the world". It truly is spectacular. If you love history, you will love Chichen Itza. I would have loved it even more if it hadn't rained like cats and dogs while we were there. There were also flying ants everywhere, so don't mind if we look a little rough. Can you believe they let folks climb this thing about 5 years ago? It was quite nerve racking, but I'm always down for a good adventure. I felt like I was going to fall going up, and we had to sit down to descend the pyramid. It was very steep. Unfortunately, visitors aren't allowed to climb anymore.
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