Inside Ethiopia's Adoption Boom

Miriam Jordan:

Seated in plastic chairs in a grade-school cafeteria in Minnesota, Sandra and Alan Roth admired their 7-year-old daughter, Melesech, making her stage debut last month in "Peter Pan" as one of the "lost kids"--the children who find themselves spirited away to a magical place called Neverland. Four years earlier, to the day, the Roths had brought Mel home from Ethiopia, where they had adopted her.

"Oh, Wendy, we thought you were going to be our mother!" said Mel on stage, speaking her only line and wearing a rust-colored tunic and fuzzy Ugg-style boots.

"She is very special," said Mrs. Roth, 49 years old. For children like her in Ethiopia, she added, "There is no future."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 3, 2012 1:51 AM
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