Haiti Orphans

I was going to post that today is our 1 year anniversary of moving to Germany. But that is more of a Facebook status update than a blog post. The orphan situation in Haiti was bad before the earthquake (approx 300,000 orphans in a country of 9 million), and now has at least doubled, maybe even tripled or quadrupled. Coincidentally, someone contacted me the day before the earthquake about adoptions from Haiti. I went to the website and said "I'll consider it". But now adoption groups are flooded with well meaning citizens asking how they can get their hands on one of those Haitian orphans.

Catholic relief workers from orphanages that were badly damaged or destroyed are working to have orphans that were already matched with families before the quake airlifted to the States. Pennsylvania's governor Ed Rendell even flew to Haiti with his wife to assist in the evacuation of some 50 orphans that had been matched with PA families. In order to meet the immediate needs of the scores of new orphans, some aid groups have suggested a large scale airlift a la Operations Babylift or Pedro Pan may be the best option. The children would then be placed in group homes around Florida or foster care. For now, the US is only giving humanitarian visas to children that were already matched with families before the quake. Why? Because the "new" orphans may have family members that are searching for them. Airlifting them to the States may meet their immediate needs, but makes reunification with their birth families much more difficult and adds the additional trauma of being removed from the place they call home. Since the chance of these kids being reunited with family that can afford to take care of them is quite slim compared to the risks of remaining in a country where resources have become even more scarce, it seems that temporary relocation may be the only option for some orphanages, especially where their facilities have been badly damaged. I pray that all these little children will have their needs provided and one day find themselves in a loving home either in Haiti or abroad.

Photo courtesy of Gloria Kreps/UPMC: Jamie McMutrie with one of the orphans and Gov. Ed Rendell.

World AIDS Day

For lunch I was down at the Christmas Market again when I came across two young people collecting donations to benefit the AIDS mission in Frankfurt. For my donation, they gave me this bear and a ribbon to wear on my coat. As a scientist and self-proclaimed humanitarian, I would like to see the day when this disease is eradicated, or at the very least, see the day when the social stigma is gone. There has been so much progress in fighting the spread of HIV in recent years, thanks in part to President GW Bush. Yes, thanks to GW! He established and funded the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR. The funding pays for testing, treatment, support for patients' families, prevention programs, and dispelling the AIDS stigma in many African countries and Vietnam. Despite the program's great success, the Obama administration wants to reduce funding, which has earned them a D+ from Global AIDS Groups.

“Our investments in PEPFAR, the Global Fund, and overall global health have made a positive difference and we will continue our support, but we have to do more. We have to make sure that our programs foster conditions that improve people's lives and in turn promote stability, prosperity, and security. In this time of very tight budgets in our own government and our own people suffering from unemployment, from other kinds of cutbacks in services, we have to do more even here at home. We've seen some of the results of the cutbacks that are happening at the state and local level. So while we're talking about our commitment internationally, let's not forget our fellow citizens who are suffering right now.”

This attitude gets failing marks in my book; it's trickle-down humanitarianism. The "suffering" Americans are experiencing due to the economic downturn is mild compared to the daily lives of people benefiting from PEPFAR. Obviously there's less money to spread around due to "tightened budgets", so hopefully any cuts to the PEPFAR funding will be temporary.

H1N1

For the first part of this week, Gianna's school is closed due to parent-teacher conferences and Veteran's Day tomorrow. Dan met with Gianna's teachers on Monday to discuss her pre-school progress:

-Gianna is not afraid to say "no!" to the boys when they want to start rough play. She doesn't ask for help from the teachers to make them leave her and her friends alone.
-Although she is the youngest in the class, she is amongst the brightest.
-She is behind in English, but is on track with other ESL students.
-She is very eager to start activities and learn; she often understands concepts that the other children can't grasp.

I am not sure if I will send her back for the remaining two school days this week. One of her classmates is down with suspected H1N1. It will take 3 days to get results back, as Germany does not seem to stock in-office tests. In fact, their whole attitude towards the disease has been rather arrogant. They received one batch of quality vaccine from Baxter last month and inoculated their military and politicians (um, are they planning to take over the world again?). Later this month, a batch of lower quality vaccine will arrive to vaccinate high risk patients including pregnant women and children. I've spoken with several doctors including Gianna's pediatrician, asking where we can go to get her inoculated and their answer is they won't be getting any vaccine in because they "don't expect it will get as bad here as in the States". And that conclusion is based on what scientific logic? Americans are going around coughing on each other and licking door handles whilst the German superstitions of wearing scarves year-round and opening all the windows in the morning to let the stale air out are going to keep them protected? Once I hear batches of the vaccine have arrived, I am going to call around, see who has it, get both Gianna and myself vaccinated. Until then, my ears are finely tuned to any child that's down with H1N1. Schweinegrippe raus!

I love the UK

Germans love conformity. They have about 3 styles of kids shoes available in mauve (pictured), burgundy, or brown. They are ugly, overly supportive (like our kids are nurses on their feet all day), and EXPENSIVE. These modestly priced Lauflern-Booties will set you back €55. I guess that's why Germans buy all their kids shoes two sizes too big, so that they will last two seasons. Thank God for the UK, they are our lifeline for tasteful fashion at sensible prices. They offer US brands like Skechers and have character shoes like Dora that you can buy online (online purchasing is a concept foreign to traditional Germans). You should see the stares Gianna gets with her current pair of white [gasp!] Dora [choke!] sneakers [arg! not the German way!]. They have one too many sparkly stripes and a little Latino girl; what could be worse in the eyes of a German?

Import Tariffs

Yesterday I spent the morning at the east docks retrieving an Amazon.com package from customs. This long awaited beauty contained 6 DVD box sets of Star Trek TNG, Birds of Britain and Europe Peterson field guide, and Lonely Planet Vietnam, 2009 edition. As I sat in the chair with the box opened before me, Wil Riker stared back from one of the box sets and whispered "you're going to have to pay a lot of money if you want to take me home. Hope you brought cash!" Oy, for the amount of euro I spent getting that package out of customs, we could have got Wesley Crusher to make a personal appearance in our living room. Too bad we couldn't get the DVD's from Amazon.de, the German site, but we didn't really want to watch Star Trek voiced over in German. The Amazon UK site had them in English, but not the American format. So, this is important, if you would like to send us a package for Gianna's birthday or Christmas, the only safe bet is to order from a German site (like Amazon.de or ToysRUs.de). Packages from private parties (sent person to person) can still get held up in customs with taxes due. So unless it's something small and marked as "gift" with a low retail value, there's a good chance they will stop it and make us pay. Another option for Gianna is to let us know what you would like to get her, we can buy it over here, and you can deposit money into our US bank account.

Snapfish photo book >:-(

Today my neighbor came back from the US with my Snapfish photobook in hand. Anxiously I opened it...but was quite disappointed! This thing cost me $30 plus shipping. We have Snapfish.de, but for whatever reason they wouldn't send my photobook to Germany, just my prints. Here is my email to them:

Recently I received a Snapfish photo book. This photo book was originally ordered during the Oprah free photo book promotion back in November/December 2007. Somehow the order was not processed correctly and I never received the book. Even though the promotion was over, I decided to order the book anyway since I had spent so much time adding photos and commentary. I just received the book today and am very disappointed in the quality of the photos. Since Snapfish merged with HP, shouldn't the printing quality be top notch? Instead, the photos taken with my Nikon D80 look like they were taken with an old polaroid. The colors are off and the photos look out of focus and grainy. Yet Snapfish photo prints of the same photos look wonderful, even blown up to 11x14. The colors are perfect and there is no grainy distortion.

This photo book was supposed to be a special reminder of our trip to Vietnam to adopt our daughter, but now I am embarrassed to show anybody due to the low quality. I just want to know, how can the printing quality be so poor?

Germany deporting Vietnamese nationals

Take a look at this news article. The details are few, because it sounds like the government is being pretty tight lipped about it. But I am slightly...concerned. The German government has given us so much grief over Gianna because of her Vietnamese name, even though she is a US Citizen and we have all of her paperwork in order. But I feel really bad for these Vietnamese refugees that will be deported back to Hanoi. What kind of life is waiting for them? What kind of consequences will they have to face for leaving the country as a refugee? At any rate, I feel like tethering Gianna to my wrist until this blows over so that they don't pick her up off the playground and put her on a plane bound for Hanoi. I shake my fist at you Germans!

Racism: alive, well

"Two happy parents and their sleeping daughter"

or

"Two happy white parents and their adopted Asian daughter"

Racism is definitely alive and well in Germany. Germans...racist? Don't be shocked! You see on the news that Obama has so much support overseas, but we often hear "how could the US elect a black man?" from people on the street. I was in tears the other night and uttered words I never thought I would hear myself say "I miss New Jersey". It's not the strip malls, the shore, good bagels and pizza that leave me longing for the Garden State, it's our ability to blend in with other multicultural families without being subject to stares and inappropriate questions when we go out in public. I've stopped taking Gianna to the playground because of bullies small and large. The pasty white German kids won't let Gianna play on the equipment with them and the pasty white German mothers keep asking me if I'm the nanny. When I explain that I am Gianna's mother, they insist that's impossible unless I have a Vietnamese husband at home, which would still be wrong in their book because I'm white. I can't imagine how it makes Gianna feel when she hears me defend our mother-daughter relationship to German busy-bodies at the playground, on the street, in the train station, at the grocery store, you get the picture. And lately Gianna's been getting picked on by some German girls at school, in the hallway and in the bathroom. I can't say for sure that it's racially motivated, but Gianna is Asian, small for her age, and shy, three reasons to pick on a kid. Now she is afraid to go to the bathroom if other kids are around; she grips onto my legs and hides. Just want to give those little German brats a good ol' fashioned American Arschtritt. I need to have a good plan in mind for the next time I see it happen.

Being a multicultural family and living in another country are awesome experiences that teach you a lot about life. Gianna still speaks plenty of Vietnamese, but we are hearing more and more English every day. Sometimes she will repeat German words, but is not consistently speaking any German. Today we were looking at her Vietnamese "My First Animal Book" các loài vật. She kept saying the word "gián", paging through the book, and stopping on the insect page. Turns out, gián means cockroach. Now how does she know that word so well? I can just imagine the orphanage workers chasing away the gián, "gián không! gián không!" Another mystery I have solved with my Vietnamese lessons is Gianna's Curly (as in Three Stooges) impression. She often says "nuk! nuk! nuk!" and I thought she was mispronouncing milk. Turns out, the Vietnamese word for water, nước, sounds just like nuk. In the future, I will be more sensitive to her request for water :-) And I am also going to speak to the school director about the bully situation.

Ash Wednesday Transit Strike

The local U-Bahn, buses and trams are not running today on account of a labor strike. They are calling this a "warning" strike, so it will just be for today. We were joking that they probably did not file their strike paperwork properly 6 months ago and are only allowed to have a 1 day strike. This strike will not completely cripple the city, as Frankfurt is not that large. People can walk if they have too. We live in the city center, but Dan's work is located on the far west end. Since it would take him around an hour to walk, he took the day off. I guess if the strike lasts any longer, he's going to have to put on those walkin' shoes or hitch a ride with some random neighbor.