Selam Negussie publishes "Fire on the Mountain" in Ethiopia

"Fire on the Mountain"

Selam Negussie found the book "Fire on the Mountain" in the library where she works and read it. She liked it, specially because it was an Ethiopian folk tale, though it was retold in English by an American writer, Jane Krutz. She believed that if this story were written in Amharic, Ethiopian children would enjoy it. That was why she translated it.


"Fire on the Mountain", as Selam herself admitted, is an old folk tale. But writing and presenting it for reading has a fresh appeal to what used to be told only orally, she says. Moreover, documenting an oral story preserves its content though not in its originality.

Folk tales are passed down generations orally as fathers and mothers tell their children and grandchildren. In the process, the stories are added to or reduced from and modified in different ways. In some cases, characters and settings undergo minor changes to give them local flavor as the same story is retold in another country.

Selam has read "Fire on the Mountain" written by two other foreigners besides Jane Krutz. The stories were basically the same, but featured different styles. [The late Wolf Leslaw had written "Fire on the Mountain and Other Ethiopian Folk stories" in the 1940s.]

"If children in other countries can read our stories why not our own children in whose country the stories originated?" asked Selam. This presentation in Amharic does not only entertain children, but also helps them develop taste for reading.

"Fire on the Mountain" tells the story of Alemayehu, an opphan boy who is hired by a wealthy, arrogant country man. When the man declares that he has once spent a night on the freezing top of the mountain all by himself and says no one else can perform such feat, Alemayehu, dares to take the challenge. The man bets a sum of money and cows that Alemayehu will not make it. But Alemayehu returns from the mount alive early the following morning. How did he not freeze to death? the rich man asks. Alemayehu says he has seen fire flickering on top of a distant mountain. "So I imagined myself sitting by the fire and enjoying its warmth", he answered. "That was how I survived".

Looking at fire is as good as lighting one, the man argues, and refuses to give Alemayehu the reward he has promised. The rest of the book tells how Alemayehu's wise sister traps the rich man by the same cunning tactic in which the man will be forced to admit his fault and give the boy his just reward.

Selam had not planned to have the translation of "Fire on the Mountain" printed. There was recently a "Book Week" at the Children's Library during which all children were encouraged to read and listen to stories. Since most of the books in the library were in English, Selam had to sit in the midst of the children and translate the stories for them to Amharic orally. She had read for the children "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Hen and the Woman", and "The Ugly Duckling" and two other stories by Christian Anderson when she stumbled upon "Fire on the Mountain" by Jane Krutz.

The children enjoyed hearing the Anderson stories but even more "Fire on the Mountain" because it was about Ethiopian boys and girls with whom they could identify.

The illustrated book was printed bilingual by the permission of the English edition's publisher, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers and donations from the people of Tippery, Ireland, coordinated by Piers Elrington who also did the designing.

Over 40 percent of the 5,000 copies of the book will be distributed to children in rural areas around Addis Ababa for free. It has been a week since the book was published and Selam says the free distribution has already started in Dukem and Sululta.

By Yelibenwork Ayele

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Adoption rate in free fall

Australia- Ethiopian children accounted for 12 per cent of all adoptions.

February 21, 2008


Thirty-five years ago there were almost 10,000 adoptions in Australia. Last year there were just 568.

A new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) suggests various medical, social and policy factors are the cause for the drop in adoptions.
"The availability of more effective birth control together with the emergence of family planning centres and sex education classes has had a substantial impact in reducing the number of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies," the Adoptions Australia report says.

"In addition, decreasing fertility rates may reflect a general change in individual preferences and social trends with regards to having children."
The increasing success of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) also has negated the need for many adoptions as has an increasing social acceptance of raising children outside marriage, the report says.

In 1971-72, there were 9,798 children legally adopted in Australia.
Three and a half decades later, in 2006-07, 568 children were adopted.
The vast majority of children adopted last financial year - 71 per cent - came from overseas.

Most were Asian - 31 per cent came from China, 20 per cent from South Korea and 11 per cent from the Philippines.

Ethiopian children accounted for 12 per cent of all adoptions.

The increase in intercountry adoptions corresponds with a fall in the number of Australian children seeking adoption.

There were just 59 local adoptions in 2006-07 and 105 "known" adoptions - in which the child is adopted by a step-parent, other relatives or carers.

"A range of factors have contributed to this fall in adoptions of Australian children including more effective birth control, family planning centres, and sex education classes, as well as changing views on parenthood and child rearing," Nicole Hunter from the AIHW said.

Over the same 25-year period, intercountry adoptions have increased from six per cent of adoptions to 71 per cent.

The proportion of South and Central American children being adopted into Australia has steadily declined as Chinese and African children gain popularity.

The report also shows that 92 per cent of adopted children were younger than five years old, while 59 per cent of local adoptions were infants.

It was more common for girls to be adopted than boys - 58 per cent compared to 42 per cent.

Birth mothers had an average age of 26.5 years - older than previous years.
About half of the children were adopted into families with no other children and three-in-five had adoptive parents aged 40 years and over.

Ninety-five per cent of the adoptive parents were in a registered marriage.

Indigenous children made up just six adoptions during 2006-07 - four were adopted by indigenous parents and two by other Australians.

The report also briefly mentions information services offered to adopted people and their birth parents once they are over the age of 18.

There were 2,851 requests for information in 2006-07.

That is the least number of requests made over the past decade and is a drop of 6 per cent over a year.

The majority - 73 per cent - of information applications were made by the adopted person and the vast majority were over the age of 25.

Birth parents made 15 per cent of inquiries and other birth relatives 7 per cent.

3,500 Ethiopian children have been adopted by American families since 1990

Broadneck teacher adopts Ethiopian sisters


By ELISABETH HULETTE, Staff Writer
www.hometownannapolis.com/
Published February 18, 2008

For the past few months, the Stimely family's four daughters have been throwing nightly dance parties in their living room to the tunes of Disney's wildly popular "High School Musical."
It'd be a nightly scene like any other, except that two of the girls are brand new to both American people and pop culture. The Stimelys adopted Masene, 5, and Safiya, 3, from Ethiopia in November. Their mother, Carol Bittner, said the dance parties have brought the girls closer to their new American sisters, Ruth, 7, and Lillian, 3.
"It feels good to have two new people in the family," Ruth said. "We just play and have fun."
The Stimelys are among a growing number of people adopting from Ethiopia. China and Russia have been the major hubs for adoption, but Ethiopia's star is rising, Ms. Bittner said.
A combination of the country's relatively easy adoption paperwork and large number of children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic has drawn an increasing number of adoption agencies over the past few years, said Merrily Ripley, director of Adoption Advocates International, the agency that helped the Stimelys adopt Masene and Safiya.
About 3,500 Ethiopian children have been adopted by American families since 1990, and of those, about 1,250 children were adopted in 2007 alone, said Hermela Kebede, director of the Ethiopian Community Center in Washington. Government officials have estimated that 4,000 will be adopted in 2008, she said.
"That's how much it's growing," Ms. Kebede said.
Wait times for adopting Ethiopian children are longer than they've ever been, said Ms. Ripley, as agencies realize that Ethiopia's clear adoption procedures make it a good country for international adoption.
Also, because of new drugs that reduce the risk of spreading HIV, American families can now adopt HIV-positive children, Ms. Ripley said. Adoption Advocates placed about 30 HIV-positive children from Ethiopia last year, she said.
"That's something we never thought we'd be able to do 5 to 10 years ago," she said.
American families are aware that HIV, malaria, yellow fever and poverty have left many children orphaned.
"I think because they're aware of the need there, the orphans, a lot of folks are motivated by wanting to adopt a child," Ms. Ripley said.
That was one reason why the Stimelys decided to adopt from Ethiopia.
Ross Stimely, a teacher at Broadneck High School, and Ms. Bittner, who is an attorney for the federal court in Baltimore, had talked about adopting for years. It would be a way to make a difference and also grow their family, Mr. Stimely said.
They decided to work through Adoption Advocates because unlike agencies that focus on babies, Adoption Advocates works with older children and tries to keep siblings together, Ms. Bittner said. The agency has placed as many as five siblings together, Ms. Ripley said.
They applied and in May were told the agency had found two little girls who needed a family. But summer is the rainy season in east Africa, and the Stimelys had to wait until November to make the trip.
They passed the months by writing to Masene and Safiya, sending them photos of their new house, their new sisters. The trip they finally took in November with Ruth and Lillian was the furthest they had ever traveled, Mr. Stimely said.
He and Ms. Bittner met their new daughters on Nov. 19 - a date that also happened to be their 13th wedding anniversary.
Masene and Safiya are from a rural part of southern Ethiopia, where people raise sheep and goats and have neither electricity nor running water, Ms. Bittner said. The girls were apprehensive when they first arrived in the United States.
To help them adjust, the Stimelys have been cooking traditional Ethiopian food, like potato stew and injera, a sort of pancake that's a staple of the Ethiopian diet, Mr. Stimely said. Ruth and Lillian have been taking Ethiopian food to school in their packed lunches. And they're trying to learn Amharic, the regional Ethiopian language.
Lillian and Ruth have already picked up some Amharic, he said, just as Masene and Safiya have picked up the words to High School Musical. Lillian, at 3 years old, has already forgotten what it's like not to have adopted sisters, Ms. Bittner said.
"For her, it's completely normal," Ms. Bittner said. "Like, doesn't everyone have a sister from Ethiopia?"
The Stimelys hope their story will inspire more people to adopt one of the many Ethiopian children who need families. If their family can do it, anyone can, Ms. Bittner said.
"We are completely normal, regular people, except we saw a problem and acted on it," she said. "We're just raising our kids. It's just life, and you can do it and it can be great."

Children's Books about Ethiopia

Here is a great link to a list of Children's books about Ethiopia. Click HERE!