Not Lost In Translation: Part 2 Day 2 with Kaleab

Thursday was supposed to be spent with our travel group touring some church that is very cultural significant in Ethiopia. We skipped the whole thing to be with:


I was unaware that people were staring at us everywhere we went. I didn't care. I had finally received what I had flown halfway around the world for, and he was holding my had. We had let our driver go for the afternoon, so when our two social workers asked if we wanted to see Kaleab's neighborhood, they almost choked when I said "yeah. Let's walk it." We took a cab. Eight people climbed in a cab and drove about four miles to the entrance to my son's "neighborhood." My son walks from home to his care center every day. I didn't think to ask him if it was his first time in a cab. I'm kicking myself now.

His neighborhood looked like all the others slums I had seen in Addis. Sheet metal, hay, mud and barb wire structured together like a house made of toothpicks. One wrong move or overturned lantern could be a recreation of the great Chicago fire. I ignored the open sewers, stray dogs and children who thought it hysterical to have two white visitors in their midst. Through all the stares and the outright comments, I felt so at home and at peace. This was my son's turf. He knew where we were going and I just wanted to soak in the company and forget that our relationship made no sense to most of the people who were observing it.

My son's story is tragic and heartbreaking. But it is his and only his to tell. But the woman in the picture below is his grandmother. She is my son's hero. She is my hero. She saved my son's life. Her goal for him is to be a good man, a good student and have a mama.

During our time with her, she told me about her grandson, her life, her love for Jesus. While we were talking to her through translators, she suddenly turned to Kaleab and asked him something. He nodded a response and turned to me and smiled.
Both social workers teared up and turned away from us. Incredulously, I kept asking "what did she say?" until they answered me.

'She asked him if he had finally found his mama.'