Once you've got a good starter and have completed a couple days of prep, your injera is finally ready to cook. You can cook your injera in a large skillet or a pancake griddle. But one of the things that I did after our girls came home was to spring for a mitad. The one I got is actually called a Heritage Grill ... more

Once you have your starter going, you're ready to do the final steps before making injera. I usually save about 2 cups of starter in a quart jar in the fridge in between batches of injera. A couple days before I want to make injera, I take my starter out of the fridge, drain off the liquid, then pour the starter into a big bowl. I then add two cups of lukewarm water, and stir well.

At this point I begin to add flour. You can use all teff flour (this will convert your wheat starter... more

The first step of making injera is to get your ‘starter’ going. If you’ve ever made sourdough bread or pancakes, it’s the same basic idea. Once you have a ‘starter’, you just save a little of the batter at the end of making each batch of injera and use it again to get the next batch going properly.

There are lots of ways to get your initial starter going. Some people use fruit in cheesecloth. Others use chopped up potatoes to encourage the yeasty bacteria to grow in the flour and water mix. I went the easy route and just used yeast.

To start with, I used about 2 cups of lukewarm water... more

I just found out about a new guesthouse in Addis and thought other adoptive families might like to know about this option as well. The New Flower Guest House is located in the Bole Road area of Addis not too far from the Bole Airport. The facility was opened by a woman with a strong interest in adoption. Because of this, the staff has been specially trained to be supportive to adoptive families.

The guesthouse has two floors and six bedrooms. There is a shared living room and dining room on the main level, as well as three bedrooms. The first bedroom has a king sized bed, a private bathroom and a balcony. The second bedroom has... more

The other day I was bored with the traditional pancakes-or-eggs breakfasts that we usually have around here. I thought of the breakfast polenta that I sometimes make. I wasn't sure if our new girls would like it, but I remembered reading that in Ethiopian there is a porridge-type food called genfo that is served with a dab of oil and berbere. I decided to make polenta and offer it with a choice of either Ethiopian (oil/berbere) or American (sugar/butter) toppings and see how it went over with the new girls.

It... more

One of the common issues that many families face is that of giardia. Giardia is a parasite that comes from tainted water. It causes frequent loose bowel movements, often accompanied by a very foul smell and lots of cramping and gas. Our first Ethiopian daughter had a good case of it, and I suspected it right away. Unfortunately when we had her tested in the US, three different stool specimens came back negative. The lab couldn't find a thing.

Finally our doctor got tired of not being able to figure out why she was having 6 dirty diapers a day, and he prescribed a 10 day course of Flagyl, the standard treatment for giardia. Three days after she began the medicine, her diarrhea... more

Overall, I would have to say that our girls are settling in happily and becoming gradually more predictable. I am becoming more familiar with their behavior, and am starting to get a feel for what motivates them and what helps them settle down and what brings a smile to their eyes. But still, the emotions can be all over the place in a single day, and that can be very wearing.

One minute a child will be writing 'I love mom' notes. Ten minutes later the same kid can be stomping off in a huff because I had the audacity to ask her to vacuum the living room. It takes constant on-your-feet thinking and creative problem-solving. And yet I must also still holding a line and be clear... more

One of the staples of afternoon at our house lately has been movie time. I think the new kids enjoy some down time where nothing is expected of them. I've found that the promise of a movie is a powerful motivator to when it comes to getting school work and jobs done. And I benefit from the break as well.

The trickiest part of afternoon movie time is picking the movie. I want the movie to be fairly clean, to have a racially diverse cast of characters, and to not be too old for the 5 year old who will also be watching. Forget anything PG-13. Actually even a fair number of PG movies don't thrill me. The 9 and 12 year olds, however, want action and excitement and 'older-kid' stories--... more

I've been meaning all week to write a little about the Ethiopian Millennium celebration that was held this week in Ethiopia. It is now the year 2000 for Ethiopia. How could that be?

The Ethiopian calendar has twelve months of 30 days each plus either five or six extra days each year, which they call the thirteenth month. The six-day month happens every 4 years and makes 366 days for that year, functioning just like our leap year. This all means that the Ethiopian calendar runs about 7 year behind the standard Eastern calendar.

Just as with the millennium celebrated in the Western world, the Ethiopian... more

A friend told me about a documentary called Angels in the Dust that was just released. It tells the story of a woman from South Africa named Marion Cloete. She is a therapist who left a comfortable life to build Botshabelo, a village and school that cares for over 500 South African children.

The stories of the children are interwoven with stories of orphaned elephants of Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa. In an attempt to reduce the elephant population in the park, many adult elephants have been killed, which has left many orphan elephants... more