Ethiopian orphans together again

Ethiopian orphans together again
The basketball court at Pitt is the new playground for two 7-year-old boys adopted by two American families
Friday, June 27, 2008
By Daniel Malloy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Steve Mellon/Post-Gazette
Yosef Devany, left, and Mahari Jackson, 7-year-olds from Ethiopia, were reunited this week at a basketball camp at University of Pittsburgh's Petersen Events Center.

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When Billy and Trish Devany visited an Ethiopian orphanage in May 2006 to adopt their new son, Yosef, they made a promise they weren't sure they could keep.
They assured Yosef's friend Mahari that he would be adopted soon enough, and once he made it to America, they would find him and reunite the boys.
"My husband and I felt like we were giving him such a shallow promise," Trish Devany recalled yesterday.
But this week, Mahari and Yosef, now both 7, played together once again, trading the streets of Addis Ababa for the pristine courts of the University of Pittsburgh's Petersen Events Center, at coach Jamie Dixon's basketball camp.
Mahari was adopted a month after Yosef by Kim Jackson, of Leesburg, Va. The adoptive parents kept in touch -- along with the new parents of a third friend, Gediyon, who now lives in New Hampshire -- and decided to meet up once a year to keep the promise.
Ms. Jackson, a Butler native, went to graduate school at Pitt and sent out a Christmas card with her kids clad in Pitt T-shirts. It turned out to be something else they had in common with the Devanys, who live in Houston -- Billy is Mr. Dixon's cousin.
After discovering the Pitt connection, they decided to sign up both the boys for a week at the camp, the second time they have gotten together in America. Mr. Dixon, who hosted the Devanys at his home this week, even arranged to get Yosef and Mahari on the same team.
Though they share a past, the two friends are quite different.
Yosef is a runt, but he throws himself into the fray on the basketball court. During one drill yesterday he unsuccessfully battled for a rebound with players twice his size.
"He's a little smaller," Mr. Dixon said. "But he has a lot of energy and is very aggressive."
Yosef is the social one. Mr. Dixon had the Pitt basketball team over for a cookout at his Franklin Park house Sunday, and Yosef, who watches the Panthers on television, struck up a conversation with star point guard Levance Fields.
Mahari is more shy, but a he's a star athlete and student. He's playing one age group up on a soccer travel team and has been identified for the gifted and talented program in his school district.
Both ditched their native Amharic and picked up English with remarkable speed upon arrival in the United States, a way to separate themselves from depressing childhoods.
Mahari grew up in a village called Awassa. His father died at war and his mother died of malaria. He still is petrified of mosquitoes, and if he spots one, he will swat it quickly, saying, "You killed my mom!"
Mahari's aunt brought him to the Horizon House orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, where he met Yosef, who had been brought there by his mother. Yosef grew up in Addis Ababa and his father, a truck driver, died in a wreck when Yosef was very young.
Instead of scraping to provide for her son amid poverty and squalor in what Forbes magazine this year ranked the sixth dirtiest city in the world, Yosef's mother decided to give him up.
"He would even be considered kind of middle class in Ethiopia, even though they lived in a hovel of a home and had no running water," Trish Devany said.
"[Yosef's mother] wanted him to grow up and be whatever he wanted to be, and that was not a reality in Ethiopia."
The Devanys and Ms. Jackson, already experienced at adoption, found the boys through Wide Horizons adoption program. The Devanys adopted a 15-year-old daughter, Rihana, from south central Los Angeles, and have biological children Jenny, 17, and Billy, 9. Ms. Jackson adopted Emily, 9, from Russia, to go along with 9-year-old biological son Troy.
The families were concerned about adopting older children -- Mahari and Yosef were both 5, while most parents seek babies -- but the boys' trials made them mature beyond their years, and their transitions were smooth.
The only real problem Mahari faced, Ms. Jackson said, was food. When he first arrived, he would only eat bananas in hot dog buns and spicy taco meat, the closest ways to mimic Ethiopian cuisine.
In an interview, Yosef and Mahari said they recognized why they needed to leave and were grateful for the opportunities afforded them here. For Yosef, that means he gets to go to school and have better medical care. For Mahari, a Nintendo Wii aficionado, American wealth also extends to the fact that there are more sports to play than just soccer.
Though they talk and act like typical American children, the boys maintain a strong connection with their homeland. Mahari wants to be a pediatrician; Yosef dreams of being a dentist and a dog catcher. And both want to use those skills to return to Ethiopia and help.
Yosef keeps in touch with his birth mother on the rare occasions she can make it to a computer. When Mahari turned 7 in January, he asked for donations instead of gifts and raised $860 to send back to the orphanage.
When they reunite once a year, it's like visiting a slice of home. They jump into each other's arms and start playing, just as they did in Addis Ababa.
Only later, back at home, their parents said, do the emotions start to rush back, and the boys shed tears for what they left behind.
"It's sad," Ms. Jackson said. "Because their memory of each other is the worst time of their lives."
Despite the pain of that shared past, it's something they have promised never to forget.
Daniel Malloy can be reached at dmalloy@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1731.
First published on June 27, 2008 at 12:00 am

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