To Africa with love...

Here is an article that was recently published in the Calgary Herald paper about a family that had lost their refferal for their Ethiopian baby earlier this year...Very touching article.

http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/reallife/story.html?id=87977862-f0d8-422c-98c0-6ee97da56fcf&p=1

To Africa, with love
As a Calgary couple mourns the adopted Ethiopian baby girl they never got to hold, friends swing into action to provide assistance to the hospital where she died

Monday, June 26, 2006

This is how they knew her: a thumbnail photo on their fridge. A little baby with a shock of curly black hair. She had been named Samiya by her adoptive parents in Calgary, who were waiting for the paperwork to clear so they could bring her to Canada from Ethiopia. Tragically, she never came home.

This is the story of how one tiny person touched many lives in a country thousands of kilometres away, inspiring a Calgary community to raise money to help prevent other needless deaths.
The story begins with Anthea Jennings and Patrick Davitt, a Calgary couple who already had two small boys, now five and three, but felt compelled to do something for a South African child, where Jennings was born and raised.
The seeds were planted one Christmas when Jennings visited a store in her hometown of Durban, South Africa, that was accepting donations of presents for needy children. When she asked the shopkeeper about the little ones' backgrounds, he told her: "You don't want to know their stories."

Back in Calgary, Jennings, who never forgot those youngsters in Durban, had a heart-to-heart with her husband about having another child. Davitt, a family physician, felt it made sense to adopt a baby in need. Jennings, a 37-year-old art teacher turned full-time mom, agreed.
Originally, they planned to adopt a child from South Africa, but when that country closed its international adoptions, the couple opted to search for a child from Ethiopia through the Alberta government.

In December 2005, after almost two years of home visits, paperwork and spending close to $15,000, they were matched with a baby girl born in the capital city of Addis Ababa. She had been abandoned and placed in an orphanage run by a Canadian charity; her birthdate was unknown and she was decidedly underweight and frail. Based on this sketchy information, would the couple take her? There was no question.

"For me, my heart has always been with Africa," says Davitt, 43. "I just couldn't see adopting from any other continent. I have travelled (to Africa) eight times, worked there as a physician and loved it."

They named their new daughter Samiya, primarily because Jennings liked the sound of the Muslim name, which means exalted. A picture arrived from the orphanage and was posted on the fridge. Friends began dropping off baby clothes. Jennings mailed some pink sleepers to Samiya and waited anxiously.

It's normal for months to pass while a passport and paperwork for an adopted baby is sorted out, but Jennings had many restless nights, wishing she was there to care for her new baby.
Then, in mid-February, two months after the match, Davitt took the call: baby Samiya, by then only two or three months old, had developed diarrhea and dehydration. She died in hospital.
"In Africa, childhood illness is such a big problem," Davitt says. "Kids are sick and weak to start with and then run into problems with diarrhea and dehydration. Babies die here, too, but it's rare."

It's rare here because simple rehydrating treatments are readily available. That's not the case in the impoverished Third World. Still, Samiya's fate was unusual; of the 350 international adoptions made by Albertans over the past three years, she is one of only two babies who died before arriving on Canadian soil.

For Jennings and Davitt, her death was not only devastating, but complicated. How do you mourn a child you haven't met, but who is lodged in your future?
"It was like being pregnant, except you've formed a bond long-distance," Jennings says. "Emotionally, I'd held her in my arms. I'd dreamt about her life and had a future for her."
But what was surprising was how acutely their family and friends also felt the loss. Flowers and meals arrived with condolences. And then unexpected action began.

Carmyn and Chris Prefontaine live a few doors down from the Davitt family in the northwest neighbourhood of West Hillhurst. Their family business, Fratello Coffee Company, donates 10 per cent of its profits to a small Ethiopian village of 250 people through Canadian Food for the Hungry International, a Christian relief agency.

Given their ties with the African country, the Prefontaines had followed their neighbours' adoption efforts with interest. Like everyone else, the couple was shocked by Samiya's sudden and senseless death.

"There was so much anticipation, and it was just horrible," Carmyn recalls. "It just opened up a conversation about what it's like for kids in other points in the world."
The Prefontaines decided to do something, and immediately thought of Canadian Food for the Hungry International. Its international medical equipment distribution program will send a container of medical equipment and supplies worth $15,000 to a hospital specified by the donor. In this case, it would be Zewdita Hospital, the one where Samiya died.
In early May, the Prefontaines hosted an Ethiopian coffee party for 25 family and friends that raised $6,500.

A month later, neighbours Jim Stirling and Alex Robertson held a bake sale, raising another few hundred dollars. So far, $8,000 has been raised, and fundraising efforts will continue over the next year until the remainder is procured.

Meanwhile, Davitt marvels how such a tiny baby could have influenced so many people.
"It seems to have been a wake-up call for many people about the disparity that exists between Africa and the developed world," he says.
"I think her death brings home the level of poverty and lack of basics," adds Jennings. "She just needed food and good health care and love. Children just need the basics. They don't need a lot of stuff."

There's postscript to the story: Despite their grief for the child they never got to meet, Davitt and Jennings decided to go ahead with another adoption.
Happily, they've been matched with a baby girl who is in foster care at the same Canadian orphanage in Addis Ababa. On Aug. 20, the couple will fly to Ethiopia to meet their new daughter, whom they have not yet named.

She'll be about eight months old when she comes to Canada. Until then, she and Samiya's photographs hold a place of honour, side by side on the fridge in their family home in Calgary.