(Amharic for "family")

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Weekend O'Many Cultures


Michael and I celebrated a less than traditional St. Paddy's Day together this year. This weekend we drove to Minnesota in order to attend Ethiopia Day, a conference hosted by our International Adoption Agency. The conference started bright and early Saturday morning in St. Paul, which was amazingly only 10 minutes from our Hotel Schuenke (college friend's house who was kind enough to host us)!

The conference was super... we listened to a St. Cloud University's Professor Tedasse speak about his experience moving from Ethiopia to the US as a teenager. He is a professor on cultural relations and had wonderful
thoughts to share on many different subjects. Last Monday he flew back from Ethiopia, after adopting a set of siblings through CHSFS himself. Our lunch was provided by Queen of Sheeba, an Ethiopian restaurant. Although we are not quite sure what we ate, it was delicious! Which says a lot if you know how adventurous Michael and I are with trying new foods. In the afternoon we heard from a panel of families and also watched a slide show presented by 2 social workers from CHSFS. We met families from Madison, Iowa and of course Minnesota who were all in a variety of stages of the adoption process. It would be great to keep in contact with them.

Saturday evening Mike, Michael and I celebrated our "Irish" sides. After cheering on our bracket picks for NCAA basketball (no matter how hard I cheered Villanova & Georgia Tech are not making it to the Elite 8 after all) we went out for some green beverages and pizza. Irish soda bread made for some good snacking after we got home. I do not think that I will become a fan of late night MTV shows but did enjoy the company :)

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