BELLAIRE • MEMORIAL • RIVER OAKS • TANGLEWOOD • WEST UNIVERSITY

Brother is worth the wait

By Callie Hester, age 11 | July 1, 2016

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Callie Hester, who recently graduated from Horn Elementary School and will begin sixth grade at Pin Oak Middle School in the fall, visited Ethiopia last year when her family adopted her brother, Zachary. (Photo: Joanna Brandt Photography)

After five years of waiting, 24 hours of flying across the Atlantic to Ethiopia and a 30-minute drive to our guest house, we were finally going to meet my little brother. My family of five waited on the front porch of his children’s home, ready for the nannies to bring out our new addition. His name is Zachary, and we adopted him in July 2015. He was almost a year old when we met him, and he was so cute! We quickly bonded with him and felt like he had always been in our family.

We spent a week in Ethiopia, and a lot of that time in the little room Zachary lived in. There were nine other babies, all Zach’s age, and two nannies. The babies would laugh and dance around as the nannies sang made-up songs. The kids melted our hearts as we played with them, fed them, and just held them.

We also played with the older kids at the home. They were great at football, which we call soccer. They could pass the football in the air just by heading it. Even though I play soccer, I couldn’t compete. I also taught some kids how to jump rope. Playing games with the older kids was a blast. The language barrier made it tough, but kids and games are the same everywhere.

One of the best parts of the trip was celebrating my birthday along with Zach’s. Our birthdays are just over a week apart. I was so happy to celebrate my birthday with my new little brother! We enjoyed Ethiopian food and music to celebrate our special days.

We had to wait until the government said we could take him home. Leaving him there was the hardest part of the whole journey. It tore my heart to leave my brother. But sooner than expected, my parents got the call to make a return trip to Ethiopia, this time bringing Zach home. Finally seeing him in our home made five years of waiting and 24 hours of flying all worthwhile.

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