Ethiopia Day 2 - Court day

Monday was court day! We thought the boys' relatives were going in the morning, and us in the afternoon, but apparently the court called and said they wanted us all there in the morning. I was glad because we got to meet Z's older brother, and Melaku's aunt. We went there with another couple who is adopting a baby, and it was crowded; we waited around for a while to be called in.

I tried to talk to Melaku's aunt while we were waiting and get more information about his family, because we have nothing, really -- his file has no info about when his parents died, no siblings. I called Zerihun over to translate, and one of the first things the aunt said was that Melaku has four brothers and one sister that live out in the countryside, some older and some younger! I was flabbergasted. We had to go in to court, but later we sat down with her with a social worker to try to get more info, and she said the same thing. She did say some of them were children of a stepmother, which doesn't make sense because the father died first -= anyway, we have to get it all straightened out, because apparently she told the judge he has siblings, and the paperwork didn't have that info, and they have to have it for the adoption to be finalized.

When we went in to talk to the judge (us and the other couple), she asked us various questions like what did our other children think about the adoption, were we learning about Ethiopia and planning to teach our new children their heritage, etc. I ended up answering most of the questions for all of us, because no one else was speaking up - I didn't know this till afterwards, but apparently Darren and the other couple couldn't understand a word the judge was saying! She spoke English well, just spoke very quietly. They were waiting till I answered to hear what the question was. :)

At the end, she told the other couple that their baby was now theirs, but she told us that they would let us know later. Apparently this is very common, when some of the paperwork is not complete. We found out later that they were missing one recommendation because the women's ministry had been closed the Friday before, and also that they will need Melaku's aunt to come in again and give a statement about his siblings. It was hard not walking out of there knowing the boys are officially ours -- but everyone tells us these things should pose no problem. Please do pray that they won't.

The boys had gone with us to court, because often the judge wants to talk to older kids to make sure they consent to the adoption, but she didn't ask to speak with them (for which Z was very relieved! :)).

After court

We found out that as of right now, Zerihun's birth certificate says he was born on June 17, 1996, which would make him a month or so younger than Alex; but the doctors think he is probably a year older than that, so they will probably add a year when the official birth certificate is made.

Later that afternoon we went shopping for a bit, to a silk factory and a basket shop, and that evening to an Ethiopian dinner with traditional dances from many of the country's main tribes (like Oromo (Z's tribe), Gurage (Melaku's tribe), Amhara, Somali, and Tigrai). The dances were really interesting to watch - they do a lot of neck and shoulder jerking moves which are amazing, and in one dance, a woman spins her head and hair around and around, really fast, which gave me a headache just watching. The boys got to go with us to all of this too, which was awesome (they can't be out with us alone till the adoption is finalized and the papers are in hand, but we had one of the social workers from Layla with us, so it was more of a field trip).

Ethiopian dinner