A cool reunion

Since being here I have been able to witness new babies come in and many adoptions take place. Just this past Monday, one of our 2 year old boys, Lucas, was adopted by an Ecuadorian family. Last week I got to see something a little different. Jairo, a seven year old, was adopted last year by an American family. I worked with Jairo last year, taking him on field trips and doing cooking class with him. He was adopted last March and his parents decided to take a trip back to Ecuador and the orphanage so that Jairo could visit his old friends and so that his parents could learn more about Ecuadorian culture. It was so great seeing Jairo. He now speaks English fluently and attends a bilingual school to keep up his Spanish. He came running up yelling, “Miss Jennifer!” His parents told me that Jairo always talks about the cooking class that we did together. I’ve gotten to spend some time playing with him over the past week. He is so happy with his parents and so well adjusted. I had them over for dinner. For dessert we made a special recipe together, spiders. We used marshmallows for the body and pasta pieces for the legs and then poured chocolate on top. I am so happy for him and his parents. I asked his parents to talk to the group that was visiting to explain how they decided to adopt an older child and how the adjustment went. During the meeting I was playing with Jairo so I didn’t hear all their answers. But they did explain how they couldn’t imagine their lives without him.