Colombian Culture, Colombia Adoption and Raising Colombian Kids

When we completed our adoption, over 4 years ago now, we weren't sure where to stay. We had the advantage of being in Colombia, where family and friends were plentiful. We also knew that our budget couldn't take 8 weeks in a hotel. We began by asking our agency what they recommended. We were told by our Social Worker that because we were adopting a toddler and not an infant, that we should not plan to stay with family. We were given a list of reasons why. I'll share them here: #1 The child would be grieving his foster parents and previous surroundings. He would be looking for someone to cling to and ideally that would be us. If we were in a place with a lot of other adults around, he might become confused about who his caregiver should be. He may have actually rejected us in favor of another adult, particularly those that seemed more familiar )ie. a Colombian aunt or grandma and not a tall blondish gringa). #2 We would be unable to establish our own rules and ...

When my husband and I received the referral for our son in May of 2010, we considered staying at Zuetana again, but ultimately decided to rent a private apartment for several reasons. The first reason was that we knew we were probably looking at a long stay and we wanted to be as comfortable as possible -- with our daughter we ended up in Bogotá for 9 weeks, and with our son we were there for 7 weeks. For us, this meant that the kids needed to have separate rooms so as not to disturb each other during naps and at night. My husband needed an office since he was going to be working during our stay in Colombia, and it also allowed us to have a "family room" where my husband and I could hang out at night, watch TV, talk on the phone, etc... and not worry about waking the kids. The second reason was that we knew renting an apartment would give us a little more privacy. We could walk out into the hall wearing our PJ's (or less!) and not have to worry about it, and we wouldn...

A two-part guest post from adoptive mom Ruth. Thanks Ruth :): When adopting from Colombia, one of the biggest decisions you will face is where to stay. Out of the many options available, the two that I can speak to personally are the "adoption guesthouses" and renting a private apartment. Keep in mind that my experience is in the city of Bogotá only. My husband and I completed our first Colombian adoption in 2008 and brought home the most beautiful baby girl! Our adoption agency recommended that we stay at a hotel called " Zuetana " in Bogotá , which is sort of a Bed and Breakfast that caters to adoptive families. (Some names of similar adoption hotels in Bogotá are the Halifax, Hotel Paris, Betty's Place, Las Palmas , and El Refugio. In Cali, there is Pensión Stein.). Since we had never traveled to Colombia before and were adopting for the first time, we went ahead with our agency's recommendation. We had a mostly good experience there, but as wi...