A go ka

Moto ga ka. Ma hin suuru Musa. “The truck will come. Be patient, Musa.”

How many times had I heard that while waiting at that barren crossroads? After an exhausting 6-mile morning hike through deep sand up the narrow donkey path from my village, by the time I arrived at the way station (a simple, solitary hut on the desert hardpan), the sun would already be dominating the sky over the scorched Sahelian landscape. The searing heat of the day, while imminent, had not yet begun to oppress, but a sense of approaching heat was already in the air. I had to get to the river market before I melted into my usual apathetic lump of shade and water-seeking irritability for the rest of the afternoon.
Through the woven grass walls of the shanty hut, I heard the intermittent shooshing sound of a calm wind blowing through the straw reeds. But everything else was silent. Standing there in the vast Nigerien shrub and sandscape, I noticed the faint scent of smoke from acacia wood.

That roadway could not have felt more abandoned. The dirt I stood on was packed hard by months of absolute zero precipitation. Beyond what my starved perception craved, there was nothing coming along the road. Not yet anyway. In the stillness, there was no sign of movement: no oxcart, bicycle, camel or donkey--much less any motorized vehicle--within what seemed like a hundred miles of the place. Despite the sinking feeling I had in my chest, I gazed hopefully into the distance.
Several village men sat on their 50kg sacks of millet. They waited with me in the languid atmosphere.  
Watifo moto ga ka? “When is the bush taxi coming?” I asked.

A ga ka sohon. “It will come now.”

Sohon sohon? “Do you mean ‘now’ now?”

Oho. ...Sohon. “Yes. ...Now”

“Now” is such a relative term. It could mean literally now, approximately around now or, quite often, several hours or almost a day from now.

It would still be many months before I would learn to sit down under the shade of that thatched roof, still my impatience and rest my expectations. For now I waited as a tense and restless westerner, standing in my sturdy new Tevas, holding my unscratched Nalgene and full bottle of sunscreen. I even imagined that I could hear the distant hum of the truck motor.

Wa 'Allah i, moto ga ka. Ni ma hin suuru.  “I swear it will come. Have patience.” Those words were lost on me. I had somewhere else I needed to be and simply could not wait.

The experience of just waiting... and waiting... in the parched desert with seemingly nothing to do but perhaps sit until you turned to dust and blew away, was sheer insanity.
I had yet to learn that the wait itself was secondary to the real experience of just “being” there. After all, there was still plenty to do while I waited. Perhaps I could share some hard-learned Zarma conversational phrases over a two-hour tea session. Himadou just bought a new goat for Eid, and Hadissa is getting ready to plant her peanut crop! There is so much happening back in the village! We could spend all day just brewing and sipping tea and discussing these riveting topics. Then we could take a nap on our bags of millet seed, swatting at flies, sweating and wasting the afternoon away until the truck finally came.
I strained to look further, expecting at any moment to see that dented vintage Mercedes Grand Camion spouting its black plume of exhaust and sending a rooster-tail of dust behind it as it growled and scurried over the barren hardpan, hauling it’s daily load of dried fish, gum arabic, cows, chickens, old and young men, women, children—all piled into the flatbed or hanging from the sides of the steel roll bars.

Sure it’ll come. ...any minute now.

It did eventually come. And when it rolled to a stop, the line of live chickens tied upside down at the edges of the truck swayed back and forth in unison. The driver’s apprentice leaped from the top of the human pile he was standing on, and the commotion began: millet sacks were thrown into the back while I bargained for a place in the front cabin. While standing next to the tailpipe and inhaling the mix of crude diesel and cheap cigarette, I communicated in my most well-rehearsed Zarma amid the sound of infants wailing, hens clucking, goats bleating and people chattering.

The next moment I was on my way... finally. How exciting! The front cabin was already full, as it invariably always was, so I hoisted myself onto the rickety tailgate to join the circus. Standing precariously with my hands clinging to the steel frame as the wind whipped at my face and clothes, I conversed with the old El Haji’s in my broken Zarma, pretending the entire time not to notice the huge craters in the road or the alarming tilt of the vehicle as it made its lunatic turns through the scrub and brushlands on the way to the river.

**************

With every passing day on this long journey, we wait. We know our ride will come. And when it does, it will be exciting. For now, we’ll just sit along this quiet roadway, drink more tea, talk about our goats and chickens and go a little crazy. But I know it will come... someday.

A ga ka sohon, wala?

Oho may. Sohon sohon.

Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I think I can even hear that motor humming in the distance right now.

Ugh, make no mistake about it. Impatience during this wait is all-consuming at times. However, be it noted that we haven't taken to acting like our friend Veruca Salt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRTkCHE1sS4

...at least not externally.

Botanists say that trees need the powerful March winds to flex their trunks and main branches, so the sap is drawn up to nourish the budding leaves.

 

Perhaps we need the gales of life in the same way, though we dislike enduring them.

 

- Jane Truax

Get Rest While You Can

Happy spring everyone! Today is the spring equinox, the first day of spring, when plants grow and spirits soar as we shed the cool temperatures of winter and thaw out for some fun in the sun! Okay, so we're expecting multiple inches of snow on Friday. Today, we start to trend towards warmth and regrowth.

Since we started waiting for a baby to find us, we've gotten consistent advice from new parents to sleep while we can, get all the rest we can store up, and be prepared for sleepless nights. But there sure is a lot to think about when you're expecting a new person to enter your lives. In reality, if any of those new parents remember the phase of being pregnant, or waiting for their delivery, they might acknowledge that it's hard to simply "get rest" on demand.

We've extended our days by countless hours with the lights and technologies of our time. It's not just in the U.S. that we stay up later, ignoring the obvious hints from the sun to wind down. At work I review electricity development projects all over the world which have the sole intention of extending the daylight so that students can study into the evening or to improve safety in the darkness of their remote town.

However, one thing we loved about living in rural Niger was the way our bodies became accustomed to functioning after dark. We could see in the dusk by letting our eyes adjust to the shadows of the evening and, as the sun set, the sounds in the village were calming when life began to wind down. If you've ever been camping in the back country of our forested mountains, you know the feeling of the waning day. Contrast this with the sounds and sights of your late night news programs or prime time television dramas.

These days, it's go! go! go! until the split second when we shut off the light. It isn't transitional, but abrupt. It's hard for a mind like mine to just shut off like a light switch. I have been known to lie in bed and continue to process the day aloud as a way to slowly arrive at sleepiness. I think Josh's bedtime stories are a means for him to quiet me down and get my brain to slowly settle into stillness.

In the morning, it all starts again with the sound of the alarm clock. In our case, our alarm clock is a recorded rooster followed by the Muslim prayer call to remind us of waking up slowly with our neighbors in Niger. But, it still startles us awake from a shortened deep sleep rather than letting us ease into the day. Lights come on, showers start, and we hit the floor running, albeit groggily.

Inspired by multiple friends who periodically follow a "cleansing diet" or attend spiritual retreats and by our own constant feeling of dragging ourselves through the days with eyes half-open, we dreamed up a new tradition in our home and we're calling it ELO Week - Equinox Lights Out. Since Saturday, and until next Saturday, we're living from sun up to sun down without turning on the lights. We have been able to wake up slowly as the sun creeps in and we go to bed when it sets, spending a few additional minutes recapping the day and falling asleep by about 8:00 pm.

Unfortunately, we can't store it up and we're likely to go back to a later bed time when this is over. But for now, we feel refreshed and rested. It would be a great time to be placed with our children and, from this restful place, begin the slow decline to evening naps between feedings. We're now ready to be up all night!

Sure, we picked the easiest time to try this out. After all, we can't get all of our work done in the shortest days of winter and we might end up with even fewer sleep hours if we tried it in the height of summer. But there are other reasons to focus on rejuvenating our bodies and souls at this time of year. Here's a nice description of the significance that springtime holds for some:

Spring Equinox Blessings to you!

A Spring Kiss by Moonrabbit

After the winter solstice the days have lengthened and the nights shortened and here in the northern hemisphere the spring equinox marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Light and dark are in balance now, but light is gaining.

The earth awakens... new life emerges, sap rises, buds shoot and spring flowers are celebrated as gifts from nature. Spring returns and rejuvenates our own life force.

Spring is a time of the Earth's renewal, a rousing of nature after the cold sleep of winter, a time to celebrate the renewal and rebirth of Nature herself, and the coming lushness of summer.

At this time we think of renewing ourselves. We renew our thoughts, our dreams, and our aspirations. We think of renewing our relationships. This is an excellent time of year to begin anything new or to completely revitalize something. This is also an excellent month for prosperity rituals or rituals that have anything to do with growth. It is an ideal time to clean your home to welcome the new season. Spring cleaning is more than physical work. Some cultures see it as a concentrated effort on their part to rid themselves of problems and negativity of the past months and prepare themselves for new things.

This equinox is also known as Ostara or Eostre - and is celebrated as a festival of new growth, renewal, a re-balancing of energies and the return of longer days. It is also known as the day of equilibrium. Now is a good time to consider the balance of our lives - work, play and relationships.

It is now time to lay the seeds of new projects and new directions that you have meditated on throughout the cold months. Now is the time to start taking action. Decorate your home with spring flowers and sprouting greens. Begin a new project. Key actions to keep in mind during this time in the Wheel of the Year include openings and new beginnings. Start working towards physically manifesting your plans now.

Yep, that all sounds like as good a reason as any to hit the reset button on our overly active minds and bodies and take a break before beginning the fun times of spring and summer outside. Or, we're just lazy and wanted a lofty-sounding excuse to sleep more.

Three to Eighteen in a Day

I had the privilege of watching our neighbors on Wednesday, ages two and almost four. It was just for an hour after they were in day care all day and mom and dad weren't off work yet. The three-year-old explained to me that we were going to plant something because her mom told her that I am "a wonderful planter." Armed with two cups, some potting soil, grass seed and garden shovels, we went to work.

Now, since I'm in the thick of starting seedlings, I had it in my head that we were going to fill the cups with soil and plant grass in them so the kiddos could watch the grass grow in the coming weeks. Silly Tiffany. It turned out that the goal of the afternoon was to dig up a patch of daddy's lawn (which I've watched him tend to lovingly for the past few years), pour an abundance of seeds all over our hole and then fill it with water to jump in. The cups were to transport rocks from the patio to also fill the hole. The potting soil seems to have been intended as an exfoliating substance for our hands after immersing them in the puddle. It was an education.

Time was up and I came home to Josh, leaving their mom to get them cleaned up for dinner. Aren't I nice? I sat down at our dining table and stared out the window at our own back yard. I just couldn't find a patch that I would want dug up by our own kiddos. Thoughts of a boring, restricted life for our poor children flooded my mind as I considered the pros and cons of undoing the past four years of work creating our little backyard oasis. Then it dawned on us, a sand box! We have one spot left in our yard that could be enclosed by relocating our back fence. Yay! Problem solved! We would be good parents after all! (I am aware that they will want to play everywhere except the sandbox. They make locking gates for that. - just kidding.)

Thursday night we attended an event sponsored by the alumni association of my alma mater. It was to welcome newly accepted students and their parents to the university and to try to convince those who were still undecided to accept the invitation to attend. I was filled with the sense of pride and nerves in the room. The parents were mostly trying to figure out how to fund their child's impending educational expenses, but were beaming as they discussed their kids' success at getting accepted. The high school students were wondering about dorm life, what classes they should take to succeed and if it was really that cool to go to university in a town minutes from the beach and the mountains (duh).

Lately we've been so focused on what the first few years of our adventures into parenthood will look like that Thursday's event was an interesting take on a few steps down the road. Who knows if our kids will want to go to college, but at least we have seen that there is a time, later in life, after the midnight feedings, unending music lessons, arguments about appropriate attire and the beginnings of dating when they will begin to make their own decisions and it looks very exciting. There's a lot of work to be done between now and then, but we are hopeful to be sitting in an acceptance reception someday, shooting proud glances at our kids and watching them squirm with embarrassment as we brag about them to strangers.

Tiredly Hopeful, Hopefully Tired

What a beautiful early spring day! It snowed all day Saturday, and then that melted on Sunday. Last night the snow fell again, but it's supposed to be 62 degrees and sunny tomorrow. You gotta love Colorado weather. It's as ever-changing as the mood of adoptive parents enduring The Wait!

A month or so ago, our agency reached out to those of us waiting to be matched, placed, and kept up all night with a kiddo and asked how they could best support us through this period of no news. We all responded with differing ideas and they settled on quarterly meetings at the agency and monthly calls to check in with each of the 8 couples individually. Our first monthly call was last night. We were open and honest with them and were able to share that we're just plain tired of this wait. Sure our moods change, but lately it's just getting old. Admittedly, it does feel good to be wavering between hopeful and impatient rather than hopeful and angry, but it is still tiresome to be waiting.

On some level, we know you can all relate to this most simple, stripped down experience of the entire adoption process. Remember waiting for the response from a job interview you know you nailed, or for your boarding group to be called to get on a plane bound for a fun vacation? I know you've at least experienced watching the clock until the end of the work day when you're headed away for the weekend. Time never passes so slowly as when you're excited about the beginning of something wonderful and life-changing. There's no way around it. Waiting is boring and aggravating and makes you feel like a whiny 3 year old inside who just wants what you want now, darn it, flailing fists, stomping feet and all.

Spring is the time of year when it seems that all things are possible with a little effort. Before long we'll be basking in a fully grown garden, reaping the benefits of what we've sown in the storms of late winter. As snow melts, we look around and start to identify the next yard project, or trail to hike, or outdoor event to attend. It's definitely a time to live with intention and purpose to make our dreams come true!

But inside, we just wait. We spend a little time lying on the floor in the nursery, gazing up at the stars on the ceiling and get lost in our meditation to the sounds of owls hooting in a windy forest (courtesy of Josh's interpretation of the need for white noise in a baby's room). We want to be able to make something happen, but in the case of The Wait, there's nothing we can do. Our responsibility in this part of the process is to be patient.

Oh to be virtuous! http://youtu.be/vXNBH7S8YqY

Distraction is sometimes more of an effective tactic than just twiddling thumbs. The best distracting thought we gained from our call with the agency last night was that they are working with more birth mothers. None of them are ready to look at profile books of waiting parents yet, but they are at least seeking support through a difficult time in their lives. If they've walked through the agency's door, there's more of a chance that they are considering an adoption plan than if they hadn't. So, I'll focus on these prospective birth mothers and hope that they have found a peaceful place where they can make the best decision for themselves and their babies, whatever that may be.

Peace and patience hover around the outskirts of our psyche right now since we are still very hopeful that we're very tired soon.

What are You Grateful for in Life?

I mean for you to really think about it, and often. Josh and I share two things that we're grateful for each day as we lie down to sleep. We try to focus on bigger things relating to our family and friends or our own souls' smiles, but sometimes we're just happy to have gotten a tricky work assignment taken care of or the house cleaned. It turns out that considering how great some things are is one ticket to being happy in life.

Last night, we were fortunate to find a couple of extra hours in our evening without plans. We turned to the top of our old TV looking for the ever-present Netflix movie taunting us and waiting patiently to be watched. Typically, movies sit and wait for us to get to them for months, but last night there was nothing there. Worried that someone stole a movie out of our mailbox (because for some silly reason that was more plausible to us than the truth), we turned to the Internet and found that our on-line queue had run out months ago. We hadn't even noticed. So, we browsed the instant watch options.

We came across a film simply called: Happy. It had been recommended to us recently, so we gave it a whirl. It looks at happiness levels in different cultures around the world. As travelers, we've already learned that a lot of people who we Americans would think must be miserable because they have so little are actually quite content in life. This wasn't a new message for us, but it's worth revisiting often. Reviewing behaviors that lead to the opposite of happy is also a good thing to keep our eyes on lest we drain our own glass to half empty.

We're soaking in some glass-half-full days recently, but that doesn't mean we don't need reminders to know that we're pretty darn lucky. Keeping the right perspective on how great the rest of our lives are helps to make up some imbalances on the happy index when we get lost in thoughts of our history with trying to grow our family. It's always worth noting that while our immediate family under one roof has maintained a constant of two, our extended "family" has grown leaps and bounds in recent years. Thanks to all of you for contributing to one of the key ingredients to creating true happiness, our community.

Enjoy the film when you have some time: http://www.thehappymovie.com/
(Available for download to watch instantly on Netflix and lasting only a quick 76 minutes.)