That Little Girl
We arrived at the Big Kids House to meet T for the first time just as they were preparing to eat their afternoon snack of dabo (bread) and shai (tea). We were called inside the Alcatraz Room -- the one window had bars and only the kids with parents there were allowed out of it to play -- while we were still saying our "metcha" hellos.
T had no idea who we were or why we were there. He's told us that he had no idea he'd end up on a plane with us and never going back to his first family. He hadn't been there long enough to see the steady flow of parents arriving and leaving with children and no one explained he was getting a new mommy and daddy. The photo album we'd so carefully sent on six weeks ahead of us had never been read to him.
"I didn't know who the heck you were," he has told me. I often feel like we effectively kidnapped him. That's how it must have felt to him, even though he didn't know the word for "kidnap." We took him away from his home and his family, never to return him. No wonder he's had so much anger.
But there we were inside the Alcatraz Room and T was selected to say grace because this was such a special day for him. The child who leads grace says one line and then all the kids repeat that line. I don't know the words -- the prayer is in Amharic, but I do remember "Jesu" ... "Jesu" ... "Christo" ... "Christo"... "Amen" .... "Amen." I don't think T knew the words either. He had only been there three weeks -- and Amharic was still a strange language to him. I tried to get him to say the prayer when we first arrived home, but he always looked at me like I was nuts.
So this tiny, extremely shy little boy dressed in a baby blue sweat suit was standing in front of a group of about 25 children looking like a deer in the headlights. Finally another child started in and all the other children followed that child's lead. T stood there silently throughout, occasionally glancing over at me with a confused and wary look. Then they began to eat.
I was seated on the cement floor, legs crossed. One little girl, who was probably four or five assessed the situation. She looked at T, knowing he belonged to me but that he wasn't making any move to come to me, and then looked at me and my empty arms. After a couple of glances back and forth, she clearly decided that if he didn't want me for his mommy, she was going to grab me. She got up and plunked herself down in my lap and looked up at me with a huge grin. "Take me home," it said. "I'm tired of watching all the other kids get mommies and daddies and being left behind every time."
I humored her for a moment and then removed her, so that T would know that I wasn't there to child-shop, but for him and him alone.
The rest of the week, this girl, one of the couple of expert Alcatraz escape artists, kept trying to win my heart. As much as T was running away from me, she was trying to attach herself to me. She wanted a home, any home, and mine seemed good, since the kid I was there for obviously didn't want me. I spent the week being nice to her, but also trying to make it clear that I was not her mommy. She would have been so easy to cuddle and play with, but I didn't want T to think I liked her better than him, even though he was fighting me at every turn, resisting physical attention, and spending his days trying to figure out how to get out of the compound. I think he seriously had a plan to run all the way back to his family if only he could figure out how to get over the fence and through the barbed wire.
I often think about that little girl. Did someone come for her shortly after we were there? Is she home with a family now? Who was she and where is she? Is her family struggling with indiscriminate affection as much as we have struggled with a child who pulls away from us?
I recently saw a photo of a girl from Horizon House who looked a lot like that girl. But, the timing was wrong and it was not her. I was disappointed that I hadn't found her.
Whoever she is and wherever she is, I hope she's doing well. She so desperately wanted a mommy.
T had no idea who we were or why we were there. He's told us that he had no idea he'd end up on a plane with us and never going back to his first family. He hadn't been there long enough to see the steady flow of parents arriving and leaving with children and no one explained he was getting a new mommy and daddy. The photo album we'd so carefully sent on six weeks ahead of us had never been read to him.
"I didn't know who the heck you were," he has told me. I often feel like we effectively kidnapped him. That's how it must have felt to him, even though he didn't know the word for "kidnap." We took him away from his home and his family, never to return him. No wonder he's had so much anger.
But there we were inside the Alcatraz Room and T was selected to say grace because this was such a special day for him. The child who leads grace says one line and then all the kids repeat that line. I don't know the words -- the prayer is in Amharic, but I do remember "Jesu" ... "Jesu" ... "Christo" ... "Christo"... "Amen" .... "Amen." I don't think T knew the words either. He had only been there three weeks -- and Amharic was still a strange language to him. I tried to get him to say the prayer when we first arrived home, but he always looked at me like I was nuts.
So this tiny, extremely shy little boy dressed in a baby blue sweat suit was standing in front of a group of about 25 children looking like a deer in the headlights. Finally another child started in and all the other children followed that child's lead. T stood there silently throughout, occasionally glancing over at me with a confused and wary look. Then they began to eat.
I was seated on the cement floor, legs crossed. One little girl, who was probably four or five assessed the situation. She looked at T, knowing he belonged to me but that he wasn't making any move to come to me, and then looked at me and my empty arms. After a couple of glances back and forth, she clearly decided that if he didn't want me for his mommy, she was going to grab me. She got up and plunked herself down in my lap and looked up at me with a huge grin. "Take me home," it said. "I'm tired of watching all the other kids get mommies and daddies and being left behind every time."
I humored her for a moment and then removed her, so that T would know that I wasn't there to child-shop, but for him and him alone.
The rest of the week, this girl, one of the couple of expert Alcatraz escape artists, kept trying to win my heart. As much as T was running away from me, she was trying to attach herself to me. She wanted a home, any home, and mine seemed good, since the kid I was there for obviously didn't want me. I spent the week being nice to her, but also trying to make it clear that I was not her mommy. She would have been so easy to cuddle and play with, but I didn't want T to think I liked her better than him, even though he was fighting me at every turn, resisting physical attention, and spending his days trying to figure out how to get out of the compound. I think he seriously had a plan to run all the way back to his family if only he could figure out how to get over the fence and through the barbed wire.
I often think about that little girl. Did someone come for her shortly after we were there? Is she home with a family now? Who was she and where is she? Is her family struggling with indiscriminate affection as much as we have struggled with a child who pulls away from us?
I recently saw a photo of a girl from Horizon House who looked a lot like that girl. But, the timing was wrong and it was not her. I was disappointed that I hadn't found her.
Whoever she is and wherever she is, I hope she's doing well. She so desperately wanted a mommy.
The Alcatraz room is a good name for it. I was so mad that the other kids couldn't came out that with the help of the other mamas with me we would let them out--even with the pissed off nannies looking on. I didn't give a shit, it also made my daughter feel better to have her friends outside with her...it was too much pressure just to be with us. Can you tell I could write a book on that one policy. As you know Ms. A was not there for a long time and I am so grateful to her father for explaining as much as he could in a way she could understand. And she had a photo book. We also got to travel home with her best friend at HH-Had that not happened we would have had more of a shit show than we did those first few weeks home. I am so sorry, I feel like your little guy really got screwed by the system in so many ways (as did you)--so unnecessarily.
ReplyDeleteAlcatraz...perfect name for it. I, too, had a little girl who was my shadow. I, too, wonder where she ended up. It's so hard to see all those kids crammed into Alcatraz and not want to keep every single one of them.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, because when we were there, the children were out with us often. Perhaps because we were there for so long, 10 days each time? Or we brought bubbles and balloons for all of them and played each day? We spent each day with them from around 9-12 and then after nap say 3ish to 6 and they were mostly out. I don't know what i would have said or done if they were in all that time while I was there. The only day I can remember it begin just us was the last hour before we left after the first visit. It was heart breaking. We were lucky too in that he had his album (he got it the day we got there because he arrived there the same day we did) and the nannies explained everything to him. I do think the two trips helped in that sense. He met us, got his album and then had 6 weeks to look at the album with his older friends telling him how lucky he was. Also, my husband is Black and for the big kids that meant B hit the jackpot. B is an extremely closed off little guy and it's taken 2 years to peel off perhaps only the thinnest layer of his foreboding. I think it's an important discussion to have, the transition. What would it have been like for he or us, if he had felt like he was kidnapped????? As it was after 6 weeks there and 'waiting forever' for us to return, he wanted to sleep with us the very first night and never wanted to go back to the big kids section of the house. He was 3 1/2 the day we brought him home. I'm grateful that we had the time we did, but wonder about all the time B was there without us. I wonder too if perhaps because my husbands Black that the nannies were different with us. Who knows? They always greeted us with open arms, lots of laughs and we never felt the 'evil eye' stare.
ReplyDeleteYes, they still had the policy of only kids with their parents visiting allowed out before 10AM when we were there. On the other hand we were very lucky with the photo album - it was five months after we met our sons that we came to bring them to the U.S. but they still had the album. We also met a little girl who clung and climbed on us whenever she could... I wonder where she is now.
ReplyDeleteUm hm. Still wonder about some children I met in 2009. Deeply grateful to know what happened with two of them, still wondering about two others, one little lad I could not help but imagine joining our family.
ReplyDelete