randomness

Syd getting ready for soccer practice.

Sitota being his smiley little self.

Isabel and her BFF, Ryan, cruising around the house.

A hero is lost

A true Ethiopian hero has passed on...

From the Ethiopian Review:

It is reported that Haregewoin Teferra has died yesterday of natural causes at her home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

This is her story:

Haregewoin Teferra was happily married to Worku Kebede, a biology teacher and high school principal. She worked in the accounting office of Addis Ababa University and of Burroughs Computer Corporation. The middle-class couple lived in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, and doted upon their daughters, Atetegeb, born in 1967, and Suzie, born in 1969. Then a pair of tragedies altered Haregewoin’s life. In 1990, at the age of 54, Worku collapsed and died from a heart attack. Bereft, Haregewoin raised her daughters alone. Atetegeb married, had a baby boy, then fell ill. Her sickness seemed untreatable. Haregewoin spent eight months at her daughter’s side, seeking every cure, consulting every clinic and physician, until, at the age of 24, Atetegeb died.

Haregewoin’s life ended. She spent all day every day draped in black, seated beside her daughter’s grave. A year passed in this way. She felt unable to return to work, unable to accept visits from her friends. “But my daughter,” she protested when they sought her out. “I liked her very much.”

She typed out a line from a song she remembered – “There is no me without you” – and placed it over an old photograph of teenage Atetegeb and Suzie laughing together. After 18 months of profound mourning, Haregewoin asked the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to take her into seclusion. She would leave the world, she would inhabit a hut in the cemetery near her daughter’s grave.

Instead, a Catholic organization approached Waizero [Mrs.] Haregewoin and asked her to shelter a homeless teenage girl. “My life is over,” she replied. “It doesn’t matter what I do. If you think God wants me to take her, then I will take her.” Two weeks later, the Catholic group phoned again to ask if she could shelter a homeless 17-year-old boy. Again she replied, “My life is over,” and she took the boy. Two weeks later, the agency phoned again, this time with two orphaned little girls. They’d lost their parents to AIDS; no one, in that moment of the dawning pandemic, wanted to risk contacting the disease by sheltering the children. But Haregewoin, who felt her life had ended anyway, accepted them into her compound, into her heart.

All that occurred roughly 400 children ago. Today Mrs. Haregewoin provides two houses to about 40 orphaned children, half of them HIV positive.

She has named her two compounds after her late beloved daughter, Atetegeb Worku. Thus: Atetegeb Worku Metasebiya Woleji Alba Hitsanet Merja Mahiber AWMWAHM (Atetegeb Worku Memorial Orphans Support Association) Mrs. Haregewoin gets no government help to care for these children; she relies on the generosity of friends, neighbors, and outsiders.

Did the turkey exist in the Jurrasic period?

I just had this great conversation with Izzy

I: Can I have some more chicken nuggets please? (at least she got the please in there)

Me: No, they are all gone.

I: Can't you just make more? (she's always thinking, that one)

Me: No, you ate them all and they are all gone.

I: NO, I mean make them. All you need is to kill a turkey, cut it into tiny pieces, dip it in bread crumbs, and cook them.

Me: I think it is a chicken, not a turkey. And where am I going to get a turkey?

I: I don't know... the store? Maybe Kroger has one. They have to come from somewhere, mom.

So- today while I am at the grocery, I will be on the lookout for those rogue turkey's running around. I guess they do sell some live animals at the Meijer...

Then there was this conversation the other day:

Izzy had made a stegosaurus out of clay in kindergarten and then came home and made a tyrannosaurus out of play-dough. She was holding the stegosaurus so I picked up the T-rex and started fighting her dinosaur.

I: Mom, you know this couldn't happen.

Me: What, my T-rex would totally beat up your stegosaurus.

I: No, mom, not possible. The stegosaurus lived during the Jurassic period while the Tyrannosaurus lived millions of years later, during the Cretaceous period.

Me: Are you sure?

I: Uh, yeh.

Me (thinking I could stump her): Oh yeh, well do you know how to spell Pterodactyl. (I don't even know how to spell it without my spell check which I did just use, but I figured she at least wouldn't know it started with a "P"). She spelled it, with a "P". Not sure if the rest was right or not, but she got the silent "P".

Me: Uh, OK, I guess I will go check my email or something.

Actually, I went straight for my computer to google this information. Guess what? Turns out the little know-it-all was correct. Looks like Jurassic park was wrong... no T.Rex's during the Jurassic period. That is the last time I get my information on dinosaurs from Steven Spielburg.

 I have always known since Isabel started talking at 7 months, that she would someday surpass me in general knowledge base. I had assumed this would happen around the high school, maybe even college years. Looks like I was a bit off. It may be more like 3nd or 4th grade. One thing I do know; if put head to head, a tyrannosaurs would totally kick a turkey's ass (even if it had an ax).

Welcome Home Sitota!

Today we had a fun baby shower/welcome home party hosted by our friends the Sterleys and the Buczkowskis. Unfortunatley the Sterleys were unable to attend due to sickness... they sure were missed! I, as is usually the case when my friend Emily is present, did not take any pictures (I even bummed the photo above off her website). So here is my usual post directing you to Emily's blog to look at pictures... CLICK HERE!!!