Ahl-geh-bah-gnim

Ahl-geh-bah-gnim or for those of you (like us) who don't speak Amharic "I don't understand."  This is a phrase that we have practiced over and over as we are sure that it will be used quite often in the first few weeks that our son is home! :) 

We've had many people ask us if our son speaks English or if we speak Amharic?  Well, unfortunately, the answer to both is No.  On a positive note, though, we are both making attempts from opposite sides of the world to learn a few basics in each other's language.  We were able to set up private English lessons for our son at the orphanage for 3 hours per week, and we have recently begun a few Amharic lessons of our own!

Our son's progress seems to be decent.  The orphanage said he is now able to count to 100 and write the alphabet, and from our experience with him, we are guessing that he has maybe 50-100 vocab words.  He was not able to understand much (if any) of what we said to him in English or form sentences while we were there, but we think he still has a good start.

As for our progress, well. . . . we are trying. . . but this language is HARD!  Our Amharic connection and lessons have come through an Ethiopian refugee in St. Louis who a friend introduced us to.  Meeting this man and his sweet wife (who just came to the US 3 months ago) has been a true blessing. We have learned just as much about the Ethiopian culture as we have about the language.  When we went for our lesson last night - they had a traditional coffee ceremony for us - what a great surprise!  And our progress with the language you may be wondering . . . well we can count to 10 and have learned several important phrases like - Are you hungry?  Don't do that! and Do you need to shint?**  We are slow.  :)

So between us learning a little Amharic and our son learning a little English, plus a LOT of charades hopefully we will survive the first few weeks at home.  We have talked to several families who have had to overcome a similar language barrier and they have told us that the children catch on VERY quickly.  We know that their will be lots of frustration, though, in the first few months so we will covet your prayers when we embark upon that part of the journey!

For those of you in the Ethiopian adoption world - we have found this book to be particularly helpful.  We bought it on Amazon.

**  Sidenote on "Shint."  So the Amharic word for urinate is "shint."  I know - interesting, right?  When Joseph came home from Ethiopia he used a handful of Amharic words and one of them used regularly was "shint."  One day after tireless efforts at potty training, while standing in the checkout line at Target, Joseph starting YELLING, "Mommy, Daddy - I need to go SHINT!"  Oh my - can you imagine the looks we got from everyone standing around us!  That was certainly a hard one to explain. . . .