"Siblings from Ethiopia give sick N.H. teen a chance for a cure" by Eric Moskowitz | Globe Staff May 03, 2014
STRATHAM, N.H. — It is unusal for Ethiopian orphans and their adoptive parents to maintain contact with birth families for a host of logistical and emotional reasons. But there is nothing ordinary about Behaylu Barry or the New Hampshire couple who adopted him, Aidan Barry and Midori Kobayashi.
Barry is an Irish engineer-turned-teacher-turned-entrepreneur who got his first taste of the United States in college and settled here soon after. His wife grew up in Japan. They met in 1978, when he was 30 and Kobayashi was an 18-year-old exchange student backpacking cross-country.
After they sent the last of their three biological children to college, they lived what Barry called “the life of Riley,” buying a hot tub and flying to London on a whim for a concert, while contemplating adoption of one more child.
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They began supporting a Vermont-based charity for orphans and marginalized women in Addis Ababa known as the Selamta Family Project.
In the process, they befriended a Selamta worker, Abel Solomon, who agreed to track down Behaylu’s family as the growing boy began to ask questions about his background.
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Mindful that the most optimal stem-cell transplants occur within 80 days of a diagnosis, they shipped test kits to Addis Ababa. Solomon explained the situation to the birth parents, drove the kits to the village, and swabbed the siblings’ cheeks. A Red Cross lab in Dedham confirmed that Behaylu’s 16-year-old brother, Rediat, and 9-year-old sister, Eden, were perfect matches.
Behaylu’s parents worked with their US senators to expedite passports and visas for the two village children, who lacked birth certificates. New Hampshire neighbors and civic groups raised money for airfare and other expenses.
On April 22, Solomon escorted Rediat and Eden 7,000 miles to Boston....
Time to go into “battle mode.”
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Related:
Antigay rhetoric rises in Ethiopia
Planned antigay rally in Ethiopia is canceled
Everybody happy now?
