Canadian couple open arms, hearts to adopt little ones from Ethiopa

After ten years of happy marriage, while celebrating their anniversary on an Alaskan cruise, David and Michelle Quinn took the decision to start a family. But unlike most other married couples, the Quinns did not wish to have their own biological children, for, as Michelle puts it, “Why not adopt when so many children in the world are orphaned and in need?”

Without much ado, in September of 1996, the Canadian couple began their search for their children-to-be. At the time China was a popular place for adoption. It was where the Quinns planted their first seeds of hope. However, after a rigorous and drawn-out process of extensive paperwork and interviews, China announced that it was slowing down on adoptions, leaving the Quinns broken-hearted.

But the couple quickly bounced back on their feet and they were prepared to search every corner of the globe for their awaiting children.

“Right away, we got on internet and found out that Ethiopia had a number of adoption programmes, and best of all, that it was a place where one could adopt siblings,” an upbeat Michelle says. “We thought it would be amazing to become parents to siblings!”

And so the Quinns joined the queue for adoption in Ethiopia. “Now, we had to learn about Ethiopia instead China.” Michelle recalls.

According to statistics available today, 4.6 million Ethiopian children are missing one or both parents. Moreover, hunger is besieging 12.4 million east Africans. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as it was reported on September 4, 2011, that without further assistance, an estimated “750,000 people are at risk of death” in that part of the world.

Long wait

For two years, Michelle and David were in line. “It was awful to wait; it seemed interminable. We just wanted our lives to get started,” says Michelle. However, she goes on to add that in retrospect, the wait was the easiest part of the adoption process.

Then one day, Michelle received a telephone call at the school where she worked informing her that she and her husband were matched with three-and-a-half-year-old twins and that they would receive photos of their “children” on that day.

Soon after, the elated mother-to-be proudly hung photos of the children on the door of her classroom with the words “Our twins Eskedar and Bereket!” written underneath.

Court and immigration procedures had to be initiated and finally plane reservations to Ethiopia were in order to bring the children back home to Canada.

But things did not go as smoothly as they had hoped. There was a distressing news from Ethiopia. “We learnt that the Canadian agency managing the transition home where our children were placed had gone bankrupt and that all the children in the home were eating only one meal a day,” Michelle says.

During that time, Canadian lawyer Ted Giesbrecht was asked to visit the transition home in Addis Ababa. Upon arrival, he was to find “46 children existing on “a kind of grain”. The children were between three months and three years old. Giesbrecht reported that the employees of the home were bringing their own food to keep the children from going hungry.

Meanwhile, 15 other Canadian families were matched with children and awaiting their cases to be completed.

After getting the news of the bankruptcy on July 13, 2009, the Quinns left for Addis Ababa the next day to bring their children back home. Michelle recalls her mixed feelings of anxiety and excitement as she and David arrived at the transition home and sat on the yellow couch with green and blue tropical flowers that they had seen many a time in photos.

First meeting

At last, after what seemed like a never-ending wait, two little frightened faces, a brother and his sister, appeared from behind the doors and were led to their new parents. “They were so tiny,” Michelle says, “and so very scared.”

The twins, Bereket and Eskedar, sat on the couch between their new parents. But, despite the physical proximity, there was a realisation, a stark awareness, of the vast distances of history, language and culture that separated the new parents from their children.

“We quickly pulled out some children’s books that we had brought along and a few family photo albums,” Michelle recounts. The children had a puzzled yet amused look on their faces as they flipped through the pages of the books and albums. “They gazed at the faces of their ‘granpappy’ and ‘gran’ and listened closely as we pointed to each and tried to pronounce the names in a language that was as foreign to them as Ethiopian was to a us!”

Up to this point, all was as well as could be; however, when the children realised that Canada, unlike what they had assumed, was not across the fence from their home but a place very far away from their friends and all of what was familiar, tears began to fall and feelings of anger and rage began to rise to the surface. “It was as if they were thrown into a very deep pool and all they wanted at that moment was to be rescued back to familiar, safe grounds,” Michelle says.

It also quickly became obvious to the new parents that their children were much more mature than an average Canadian of the same age. The painful circumstances they lived through had taught them lessons that Canadian children only learn many years down the road. “Bereket could skip a rope on one foot when he was three, and as young as they were, the children were assigned chores — they were skilfully able to fold clothes,” Michelle says. “During dinner outings in Addis Ababa, they would fold and refold the cloth napkins for hours!”

New home

Once on the plane, “Bereket wanted to push every button he came across and Eskedar refused to wear a seatbelt,” Michelle recalls. “But thankfully, the stewardess understood and Eskedar was exempt from buckling her belt!”

After a long flight, the new family arrived in Cranbrook only to find a crowd waiting for them at the local airport — grandparents, uncles and aunts, school children and staff, and countless friends. Eskedar pulled out the family album and tried to match the faces in the photos with those standing in the airport. Bereket decided to quietly head for the corner where his grandparents were sitting and began to share his box of raisins with them, one raisin at a time.

The first six weeks were spent at home, with the old and new members getting to know each other. “We had to start from scratch. We learnt the alphabet through stories, photos and songs,” Michelle says. “Their favourite book was ‘Panda Bear Panda Bear, What Do You Hear’?” She goes on to say that she must have read it a “gazillion” number of times! “David and I also learnt a few Ethiopian words in the process, but within three months, the children were astonishingly able to fluently communicate with us in English — it was truly amazing!”

“We prayed every night, and the children recited the English prayer they learnt in the transition home: ‘Father God, I love you. I pray Mummy, Daddy ...’ And then they would throw in any other English words that they had recently learnt and pray for whatever it was they were able to pronounce,” she continues. “It also become clear to all that Eskedar had so much to share with us once she was able to express herself in English, and her social character began to emerge and fill the house with spirit and charm.”

July 2012 marks the third anniversary of the children becoming Quinns, and Canadians. In Cranbrook, a serene, sunny town fenced by the Rockies in the southeastern part of the province of British Columbia, where the family lives, Michelle teaches kindergarten at an elementary school and David works in the accounting department of a local radio station.

‘Not for the faint of heart’

I asked, “What would you say to those who are looking to adopt from Ethiopia?” Her instant response was, “I would tell them that it is indeed a most rewarding experience, but it is definitely not for the faint of heart.” In all the photos sent to them during the waiting period, Michelle explains, the children posed with happy and smiley faces. But behind the smiles were stories of suffering and great pain. Once the honeymoon period is over, the grieving period begins — grief for loss of parents, culture, and the memories that are to be reconciled to and dealt with. When asked the reason behind the high number of adoptions in Ethiopia, Michelle sums it up in one word: poverty.

I was curious to hear about the children’s reactions to their new lives in Canada — to food, for example, after having had very little of it, if any, at some points in their lives. “They love food! Their favourite is meat,” Michelle says. “At the beginning, it was very difficult to satisfy their big appetites, but they were not picky at all, and everything was delicious and beautiful to them unlike to many of our children in the West who have become jaded, bored with everything and are always demanding more.” She recounts how once at a bakery in a grocery store, Eskedar savoured every bite of a pumpkin muffin as if she were sampling a taste of paradise!

Canadians, not Ethiopians

Michelle and David are now raising their twins in a warm, loving home and have gotten into the routine; the children are enrolled in soccer and piano classes, among other activities. I had the opportunity to attend Eskedar and Bereket’s poetry recitals at a local speech-art festival and was charmed by their presence on stage and by their Canadian accent, one that was no different from any other Canadian!

When asked if the children had to face questions from others or curious comments from passers-by, Michelle says she is glad that the community has embraced her children warm-heartedly and adds, “One man in the grocery store went as far to say to Bereket, ‘You are getting to be so tall, just like your dad.’”

Bereket and Eskedar also wanted to contribute to the article and they both shared their favourite songs: For Eskedar, Adelle’s “Rolling in the Deep” was the top choice, while for Bereket it was Shakira’s World Cup song “Waka Waka” because, he explains, “it has a great beat!”

Today, Michelle is involved with the Vulnerable Children Society, a vibrant registered Canadian charity run by Canadian volunteer mums, most of whom have adopted children from Ethiopia or elsewhere in Africa. The charity’s mission is to relieve poverty by providing food, water, shelter, education, sanitation and health care to orphaned children and to the poor in Africa.(On their website, the charity invites the world to help them in their mission, and one way is by sponsoring a child with CAD35 [Dh126] a month — less than what some Canadians spend on a beauty product. The donated money goes either to feed an undernourished child, to pay for a doctor’s visit, to secure a safe place for the child to stay while their parent or guardian works, or to subsidise school education.)

Michelle and David have indeed set an example to follow. The more such stories, the more smiles instead of tears on little children’s faces!

Ghada Al Atrash holds a masters degree in English and teaches at a college in Abu Dhabi.