Allah's Well That Ends Well

So Monday night found me bawling in the bathtub, freaked out by forty hours of travel and the fact that there are just too damned many items on the menu at Steak N' Shake. Re-entry isn't always easy.

But it's Friday now, and life goes on in the sunny snowy Midwest. I've caught up on gossip at the hairdresser's (Brad and Jen split! Local Boy's embarrassingly eighties coke habit more out of control than ever!), gotten back to Pilates classes and Happy Hours and rediscovered the American ecstasy of accelerating when a good song comes on the radio and feeling the road unwind joyfully beneath the wheels.

And then, there's Aïcha. I'm learning more about international adoptions and the Hague Treaty than I ever wanted to. Telling myself that motherhood doesn't have to mean minivans and modest necklines. Bottom line: It ain't going to be easy. But, we're going to try. For now, I'm sending emails to likely allies in Mali and putting together her first Care package. Children's chewable vitamins: Check. Bulgari soap: Check. Cheers, darling.


Aïcha

Conversation with my mom:
M: Well, I know you must've been homesick. What did you miss most?
C: Sex. And my iPod.
M: Cindy, I did not raise you to be nasty.
(Silence) Umm, is your little girl ... black?
C: Uh. Yes, Mom.
M: Well ... that's all right. But Theresa Heinz Kerry is African, and she's white.

Thanks for your emails and support. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did. The journalistic, edited, fancier version of these dispatches will be at Slate.com later this month, with bonus coverage of Pays Dogon and my closest brush with death, which came in the form of a large black bull. (Note to self: No red skirts in countries where cattle roam freely. Who knew?)


Cave painting (mmmmm, more goat!) at Dogon village of Songho

Later, kids.

Love,
Cyn