It's my girls birthday today

sunmamma · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:16 pm

My daughter Gabriella turned 2 years old today. She is adopted from Ethiopia and I traveled to Africa to get her when she was 5 months old. She is truly a gift

kimberley · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:17 pm

She is lovely and what a wonderful thing you did in adopting her

bundles of bengals · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:22 pm

what a beautiful girl, such lovely deep warm eyes & you can have lots of fun with her hair!
happy birthday to the little lady

RachelJones · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:24 pm

sunmamma · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:30 pm

This is a link to video slideshow I made of my trip to Africa to get her.
http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=26 ... m=text_url[/url]

melwylde · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:56 pm

That is truly beautiful and happy birthday to a beautiful baby girl. xxx

kimberley · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:26 pm

sunmamma · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:30 pm

kimberley · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:33 pm

sunmamma · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:37 pm

kimberley · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:13 pm

abooksigun · **Posted:** Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:50 pm

ginnym · **Posted:** Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:49 am

Fantastic story - happy birthday to Gabriella. I sponsor 2 children in Ethiopia through World Vision and was lucky enough to go and visit one of them last year, as well as other people being supported through a project my church funds. My mum worked in Ethiopia before I was born too so I have a special place in my heart for the country and the people. I'd love to go back and see more of the countryside (we only went to Addis Ababa last year and a day trip to Lake Wanchi).

sunmamma · **Posted:** Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:15 am

ginnym · **Posted:** Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:45 am

I agree. My mum had told me lots of stories about the wonderful people from when she was there in the 1950s but I still wasn’t really prepared for their warmth, their joy, the music in their souls and their voices. They have so little (in a material sense) but celebrate the fact they have life which is a lesson to us all. In some ways my trip should have been very distressing – we were visiting Lideta which is a very deprived suburb of Addis Ababa where people have none of the basic comforts we take for granted. It was certainly very shocking to see the conditions first hand but it was also a visit full of joy and laughter. The hardest thing to deal with in some ways was the realisation that it takes so little (in our terms) to totally transform lives in a place like Lideta. It’s a sad indictment on the so-called “developed” world that so many people in Africa still don’t have the basics in life.

This is a picture of me with a lady called Fikri and her son. While in Addis, I went to visit the school my mum had worked at and took some old photos with me. When the Head Teacher showed them to one of the staff, he got very animated and led me by the hand out of the school, up narrow lanes to a tiny little shack where his mum lived - she was Fikri and had been my mum's servant in 1957 and we'd been told many stories about her when we were children. My only sadness is that my mum died 8 years ago so never got to hear about my trip and me meeting Fikri.

It's my girls birthday today

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