Tim was invited to give a series of lectures in India, and lucky me, I get to tag along. (My two sisters and a family friend are holding down the fort back home, taking excellent care of Mateo and Olivia. Thanks y’all! xoxo)

Anyway, yesterday as we walked back to our hotel in New Delhi after an afternoon of sightseeing, what did I spy but the distinctive yellow logo of Guatemala’s own Pollo Campero. I’m happy to report the place was packed with satisfied customers chowing down on the world’s best fried chicken, halfway around the globe.

I’ll try to post more pictures while we’re here, but I’m not sure of my computer access. One of these days I’ll join the 21st century and figure out all-internet-access-all-the-time, but for now I’m relying on the kindness of shared computers in hotel business centers.

In the meantime, long live Pollo Campero! ~

The case will go to trial with a different judge on February 28, 2012.

This situation points to only one of the many complexities faced by people who enter this country without documentation. From Hispanically Speaking News:

Without any policies in place to regulate the care of U.S. citizen children while their parents are detained, immigrant parents are unable to attend court hearings, contact caseworkers, complete parenting classes or take any of the necessary steps to meet the strict timelines dictated by juvenile courts.

On one level or another, everyone involved in this case has suffered, and may well bear scars from it for years to come.

I’m forever on the look-out for books that my children will enjoy reading and/or listening to me read, a task more daunting than it may appear. Olivia and Mateo know what they like, and it’s not everything. My unscientific research reveals a few surefire elements: likeable characters around 7 and 9, the same ages as my kids; a fun and engaging plot that’s not “too scary”; and a cast that includes cute, furry animals, preferably small.

So when a friend recommended Susan Clymer’s There’s a Hamster in My Lunchbox, published in 1994, and gave it this review: “Sweet school-kids. Not scary at all. A cute, furry Teddy Bear hamster named Squeaks.  Oh, and by the way, the main character is a girl named Elizabeth, who was born in Honduras and adopted by a single mom from Kansas,” I took note. A chapter book about a cute, furry hamster that also featured an adoption theme? I ordered a copy that afternoon. (Used, on Amazon; the title is currently out of print.)

As I introduced the book to my kids I made no mention of the underlying theme, but when I got to page six and read this paragraph about the hamster known as Squeaks–

“Can we adopt her?” Elizabeth asked softly. She knew all about adoption. She had been born in Central America in a country called Honduras. Mom had adopted her when she was a baby. Her little sister had been adopted, too. –

Mateo turned to me with wide eyes, and in a voice filled with wonder said, “Elizabeth’s adopted too!”

Olivia, less impressed, said nothing, but the fact registered. I know this because a few chapters later my daughter said, in the world-weary tone of an older, wiser sister, ”I’m tired of thinking about adoption. Can we move on?” 

In our home, adoption is a subject that’s discussed, debated, and dissected, and has been for many years. Maybe too much, too often? Reading the book together gave Olivia a way to communicate the complexity of her feelings about adoption, without having to tell me directly. Sometimes, she’d just rather not think about it, thank you very much. That’s important information I need to hear, too.

Two thumbs up from us for There’s a Hamster in My Lunchbox. Even without the adoption theme, the book is a good, fun read.

The Latino community often still frowns upon adoption, and fewer domestic Latinos are adopted annually. This disapproval seems less rooted in concern for the mother’s experience and more in the perception that it is evidence of a sinvergüenza: “what kind of woman could give up her own flesh and blood? No tiene corazon!” 

Moreover, the focus on familia and the belief that nobody could care for a baby (or a grown man) more than his madrecita is a cornerstone of Latino culture. Latinas are seen as nurturers, providers, makers of the home (even if she is not a homemaker). The reverence for the ultimate mother figure (the Virgen de Guadalupe) alone is testament to the value of maternity in Latinidad. So it’s not surprising that many Latinos might equate adoption with abandonment, and write off a birth mother as a woman who does not cherish the paramount values of family and sacrifice. 

But I would counter, that to give a child up for adoption is the ultimate unselfish sacrifice. It is more inconvenient, more indiscreet, and more painful than simply aborting an unwanted pregnancy (calm down, fellow Pro-Choicers; just making a comparison). 

A birth mother has recognized that she is not ready or able to provide the resources a baby requires, yet is not denying that baby its own future choices. She has committed to dealing with morning sickness, mood swings, back aches, exhaustion, frequent urination, swelling, stretch marks, and all the other joys pregnancy brings (not to mention the pain of childbirth). She’s done so, perhaps in the face of disapproval from relatives and friends, while navigating the awkwardness of well-meaning people peppering her with questions on name choices and nurseries, all without the eventual promise of a new miracle in her life to “make it all worth it.” 

She’s also not the woman with seven kids who neglects or abuses them all – or allows her novio to do so… 

No, adoption is not for everyone. Obviously it’s a big decision that requires careful consideration of many factors, and ultimately not everybody should choose it. But it’s time to stop the judgment and denigration, and re-examine the assumptions we make about those who do.

I appreciate Sepulveda’s point of view, and her call to stop judgment and denigration of women who choose adoption as a personal decision right for them.

After reading Mary Jo McConahay’s book, Maya Roads: One Woman’s Journey Among the People of the Rainforest (Chicago Review Press), I wanted nothing more than to get on an airplane bound for Guatemala, hop on a bus headed to the country’s interior, and begin exploring.  In Maya Roads, Mary Jo creates a vivid account of her experiences by drawing on her three decades of traveling, working, and living in Central America. Of the book, Peabody Award-winner Richard Rodriguez (author, Brown: the Last Discovery of America) wrote, “From enchanted jungles at the center of the Americas all the way to military roadblocks and nightmare massacres, [McConahay is] the best sort of guide… I cannot imagine a better chronicler of this time and place.” Laura Fraser (author, An Italian Affair and All Over the Map) said “From the moment Mary Jo McConahay steps into the deep Mexican jungle, you will follow her anywhere.”

Mary Jo began her career as a freelance journalist in Mexico; became a staff reporter for the Arab News, in Saudi Arabia; and reported for the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, and London-based economic magazines. She covered the Central American insurgencies for a decade for Pacific News Service, and U.S. newspapers such as the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle. Mary Jo’s work has been published in Time, Newsweek, Vogue, Rolling Stone, Ms., Salon, Sierra, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Parenting, The Progressive, National Catholic Reporter, and more than two dozen other magazines and periodicals. She may be best known to adoptive parents as the co-producer of Discovering Dominga, a documentary about a 27-year-old woman born in Guatemala who was adopted at age 11 by American parents, after surviving a massacre on her Maya village.

Recently, I caught up with Mary Jo to ask her a few questions about Maya Roads: One Woman’s Journey Among the People of the Rainforest. She responded via email from Antigua, Guatemala.

I agree with Don George of National Geographic Traveler, who said of Maya Roads: “In its hungry passion and wide-eyed wonder, it’s an extraordinary literary journey and a moving testament to a region and a life.” Can you talk a little about where your passion for the Maya people, archaeology, and rainforest originates?

When I was in my twenties, studying Spanish in Mexico, I saw a museum exhibit about the Lacandon Maya Indians who still wore their hair long, hunted with bow and arrow, and were said to live much as their ancestors had lived in the remote southern jungles of Chiapas.  The idea fascinated my romantic mind, and I set out on a whim to visit them.  The beauty of the Maya rainforest, its dense and varied forms of life, the remains of the magnificent pre-Columbian cities — all of it captured my imagination and never let go. Over many years as a journalist and resident of Guatemala, and through friendships, I came to know better the reality of the lives of modern Maya.  I continue to admire their traditions and ancient history, but even more now I respect how the Maya survived recent incidents of genocide at the hands of a brutal army, their push for education, and the movement toward a pan-Mayanism that demands recognition of indigenous rights and customs.

You have a long history with Guatemala and Central America, covering the region as a war correspondent, and living with your husband and daughter in Antigua for 11 years. In the years since you’ve known Guatemala, what changes have you witnessed?

When we first moved to Antigua as a family in the late 1980s, we knew everybody by first name in the “foreign” community, often Europeans or North Americans who had made their lives here.  A post-war business and investment boom has changed all that, with many newcomers.  Increased security also means increased tourism country-wide, which is great for the economy; Guatemalans invest more in their own country now than before with businesses springing up big and small.  The atmosphere of militarization, thankfully, with soldiers in camouflage ubiquitous, seems gone. A huge change is an improvement in communication. There were so few phones in the first years we communicated with our friends in some towns by telegram, which had to be translated into Spanish before sending for security reasons (“How about dinner Friday?”). Now it seems every Guatemalan has a cel, and the country is wired.  It’s wonderful.

 What advice do you have for someone who would like to follow in your footsteps today and explore areas in Guatemala not on the usual “tourist path.”

Be smart, as you would traveling anywhere, but don’t let excessive caution cauterize your curiosity.  We just watched the sun rise at a little-visited Maya site near Tapachula, Mexico, then took a  7-hour bus ride along the coast to reach Guatemala City.  From here in Antigua where we are on a family visit, our daughter, now 25, and her boyfriend made a recent shuttle trip to Lake Atitlan and visited its small villages with local boatmen.  They took a day to climb Pacaya volcano.  Start easy and make sure you speak a little Spanish — it’s not hard to memorize a short list of words at least, which can make a big difference in your journey.

You interviewed Rigoberta Menchu in 1992, on the day the Nobel Peace Prize committee announced her name as the 1992 recipient. How did that come about? Any impressions you can share? 

Rumors had been floating that Rigoberta could receive the prize, although she was considered a long shot, but I calculated the time difference from Oslo and set my alarm in a San Salvador hotel room for 4:00 a.m., just in case. When it rang I opened my eyes, pressed the remote and bang, there was her round, smiling face.  I didn’t even listen to the announcement, raced madly to catch the first flight to Guatemala City, where on board I was lucky enough to get quotes from some government figures who hadn’t heard the news.  I went to the headquarters of the indigenous widows organization where I knew Rigoberta had to come sooner or later, and she did. There were so many well-wishers, in every sort of Maya traditional dress, and many non-Maya too, that it was impossible to talk, so we climbed up to the roof overlooking the city and volcano.  Someone brought the new Nobel Laureate a cold beer and we had a wonderful interview.  Soon enough a party of the widows found us, somebody put on a marimba casette, and I left her on the roof dancing the elegant son with the other women.

While writing the book, did you learn anything about Guatemala or the Maya that surprised you?

No outright surprises, but many unexpected delights, and entries into corners of recent history that had been fairly hidden. I saw that social and political resistance by indigenous such as we have seen in our lifetime is not unique, but part of a cycle that will not end until the chance for a dignified life is available to all, Maya and non-Maya.

Do you have any projects currently?

I continue to do readings and speak on the world of Maya Roads, including for book clubs, churches and interest groups.  At the same time, I am working on a book about Allied and Nazi espionage and counterintelligence in Latin America during World War II, a time when much of this hemisphere admired fascism.  Having seen it up close, I live appalled by the human cost of any war, and I’m moved to know more about the motivation and history of those who participated in the big one, from Brownsville to Brazil.  I’m making some interesting discoveries.

Learn more about Mary Jo at her website, maryjomcconahay.com; and about her new book at mayaroads.com.

Overall explanation of Certificate of Citizenship for your Internationally Adopted Child

Adoption Based Forms

Application for Certificate of Citizenship (Form N-600)

Application for Replacement of Naturalization/Citizenship Documents (Form N-565)

While you’re at it, you can also apply for a Return of Original Documents by filling out the G-884. The process can take months or years–I won’t bore you with my number of go-rounds before the CD containing the information arrived–but believe me, the reward of a complete adoption file is worth it. And, unlike almost every other form you’ve filled out, this one is free. ~

Mom reunites with biological child 77 years later

SAN JUAN OSTUNCALCO, GUATEMALA—Another woman arrived early this morning at Ruth Ana Maria Perez’s house, across from a small corn field on the very edge of town.

She lies now in Perez’s concrete, purple front room, on a green plastic mattress tucked into a turquoise wooden bed. It is cold and damp; the rain pours down every afternoon. Perez checks her pulse, pulls a needle from a box in the glass cabinet near the bed and, after filling it with rociverine (a muscle relaxant), she pokes it into the woman’s exposed haunch.

“She’s five centimetres dilated,” Perez says. “This will help open her faster.”

Dona Ana, as she is known, is the most successful midwife in town. She delivered her first baby at age 11, when her mother — a midwife — was too ill to get out of bed. Since then, she has ushered 11,000 souls into the world, up to 10 a week during a full moon.

Her success glows from her mouth — a row of gold stars embedded in her top teeth. Her butter-coloured two-level house is grand by local standards. There are two cars parked out back. And she can afford the cabinet of swabs, medication, surgical scissors and latex gloves.

She has never been trained to use any of it. Nor was she trained, formally or informally, to attend births. Like most Mayan midwives, Perez considers her midwifery a “don” — a skill she was born with.

***

Almost 500 years since the Spanish infantry conquered the Mayan K’iche’, Guatemala remains a divided country. There are the Spanish-speaking Ladinos, with their jeans, light skin and briefcases, who live in the southern cities. And there are the Mayan descendants, who live in the north and western highlands, tilling the milpa — corn fields — in their skirts and huipels. They speak their own languages — 21 Mayan languages are used in Guatemala — and retain many of their customs and beliefs, including those of medicine.

For Mayans, illness results from imbalance, often between hot and cold. Their main curative is the tuj — steam bath. They are behind most houses: waist-high, made of mud bricks or cement, with just enough room inside for a bench and fire. The tuj is considered especially important after birth, when a woman has lost much “hot” blood.

It doesn’t matter how well-equipped or even beautiful a hospital is — the regional San Juan de Dios hospital in Quezaltenango is sheltered by whispering pine trees — for many Mayans, it is a symbol of colonial oppression.

Even Mayan doctors I spoke with say they feel degraded in Ladino hospitals when they arrive as patients. They are made to change into thin hospital gowns, showered, and then taken to a sterile birthing room to deliver their babies alone, without the support of family.

That’s standard practice, the obstetricians at San Juan de Dios told me. But, the Mayan women don’t understand. Despite the prominent sign declaring every pregnant woman will be treated in her own language, doctors acknowledge none of their colleagues speak Mam, the predominant language of San Juan Ostuncalco. The sign is written only in Spanish.

***

[Dona Ana's] current patient lies corpse-quiet in the turquoise bed. She whispers that her name is Lorenza Augustin. She’s 33. She is from Las Barrancas, the canyons — a rural village two hours away by twisting dirt road. Her family farms corn and squash. She has never been to school. She speaks only Mam.

This is her fourth baby. Her three daughters were born in her bed at home. A urinary tract infection early in this pregnancy spooked her family. They decided going to Dona Ana, with her Western medical supplies, would be safer.

They are hoping for a boy.

“Aye,” Augustin says softly, as Dona Ana massages her hips to ease the pain and get her to dilate faster. It’s her version of an epidural — her glass cabinet contains no pain medications.

Dona Ana pulls a chair beside the bed and waits. The room is quiet. A wall clock ticks. Augustin’s breath quickens to a pant during a contraction and then falls silent again.

“She’s very brave,” Dona Ana says.

***

Two days later, Augustin is back in her own bedroom, resting beside her baby in one of two double beds. Her mother-in-law and nieces flit around, bringing cups of hot chocolate and bowls of beef broth. These are considered “hot” foods by Mayans, unlike green vegetables and white meat. For 40 days, while she recovers, Augustin will only eat hot food.

She will stay in bed for that entire time.

The house, which overlooks a lush green valley of trees, is as big as Dona Ana’s. Husband Rogelio Delgado built it with his brother five years ago, using money they had saved while working construction jobs illegally in the United States.

It took him a year to pay off the debt to his smuggler after his first clandestine trip to California eight years ago. Since then, he has snuck across the Arizona desert twice more, sending money home every month. He shows off a large American fridge in the kitchen — a real luxury here — and a bathroom shower, both of which he shipped from California.

Both came at a price.

“My third girl, Sandra Valeria, she was 5 weeks old when I left the last time. When I came back, she was more than 5 years old. She just knew me by my picture. She didn’t come close to me for 15 days,” Delgado says.

The family tuj is next to the driveway. Augustin’s mother lit a fire in it last night, and boiled a giant pot of water for her newest granddaughter’s first sauna. Then, Augustin and her baby went inside together.

The baby still hasn’t been named.

“We are thinking about either Kimberly or Lorenza, like her mother,” Delgado says. The extended family will decide together.

Two things are certain. Her life will be much more comfortable than her mother’s. A school has been built down the valley. Her sisters walk there every day. Her world will expand beyond the milpa, where her mother started working at age 5.

Second, she will grow up in a household of women. Delgado is planning to return to California soon.

Christmas is still a magical time for my children, and I hope it always stays that way. We’re lucky to be spending the holiday with family in San Diego–my parents, all five of us siblings, nieces, nephews, friends, and significant others.

I’m enough of a realist to know that days like these don’t come often, so I’m cherishing each and every moment.

Sending you warm wishes for a joyful winter season. ~

As a first-time author, I know how difficult it can be to convince the world to notice a new book by an unknown writer. Thus, when my fellow adoptive parent and Facebook friend, Gil Michelini, asked me to read his personal account of adoption from Guatemala and post about it, I quickly agreed. Gil and his wife, Fran, were biological parents to three daughters when Gil felt his calling to adopt. The book Gil wrote about the experience, Daddy, Come & Get Me (Emiliani Publishing), traces the couple’s journey to become parents to the girl they named Gemma. Gil describes Daddy, Come & Get Me as “the first memoir of an American dad’s adventure following his calling to adopt a daughter from Guatemala.”

Daddy, Come & Get Me is available as a physical book ($14.95) as well as in the Kindle ($2.99) and Nook ($2.99) formats.  For details, visit Gil’s website www.DaddyComeAndGetMe.com and select a vendor from the ones listed across the top of the page, or order through your local bookstore. Please note: Daddy, Come & Get Me contains strong religious themes.

Recently, I caught up with Gil to ask him a few questions about his story and the writing process.

What gave you the idea to write your book?

I knew when we brought Gemma home that this was a story that had to be told. The only problem was that the Gil I was at the time was not a person who could tell it through this medium. I had to be humbled and clear out a lot of my baggage I had been carrying around. Five and a half years after bringing Gemma home, I was finally the right person to start this project.

Holding Daddy, Come & Get Me is a thrill because I struggled with the basics of the American language while in school. Writing a book was a lifelong dream.

Did you learn anything about yourself in the process?

Aside from being able to touch people with my story and possibly help an orphan become an adopted child, self-discovery has been the greatest gift of writing this book.

There is another book, at least the size of the final version of Daddy, Come & Get Me, that ended up on the cutting-room floor. It is the stuff readers didn’t need to know, but I needed to get out and deal with. Most of the four years of writing and re-writing and re-writing and re-writing and re-writing was discovering who was I during that time. Why did I do the things I did? Why didn’t I do what I should have? Several time during the writing process I had to seek forgiveness from my children and my wife, Fran, for who I was then. My marriage is much stronger now because of the book, as is my relationship with my children.

As a writer, you chose to reveal the character of Gemma’s birth mother, Dolores, through episodes as you imagined them. What led you to that choice?

Originally, I wrote a chapter where I’m in the hotel room the night before we left Guatemala, recounting what we read in Gemma’s adoption documents. That’s what actually  happened, but it was one boring chapter.

Later, I was at a writing class when someone was talking about bringing a character alive for her historical fiction book. The character was historical and the author had to develop a situation where she encountered her fictional characters. From this conversation, the idea for the chapters involving Dolores [Gemma’s birth mother] was born.

Those were the hardest chapters to write because this Anglo-White-American-Male had to write a story of what a Guatemalan woman might be thinking. Through Facebook, I found a Guatemalan woman who helped me with the details. The Holy Spirit did the rest because I could not have written those chapters on my own. Almost all of those chapters are based on official Guatemalan adoption documents. All the characters–except the ladies in the park–are real, but their names have been changed. I wrote these chapters to honor a woman I most likely never will  meet, but who gave me one of the greatest gifts,  my daughter.

Religious faith plays a large role in your story. Can you talk about that?

I hired a book coach to review the first fifty pages and give me an evaluation. One of the first things she told me was to dump all the religious references because I would narrow my market too much. I knew then that I should leave it all in.

Adopting Gemma was so far beyond anything I had ever accomplished on my own. It never would have been possible without Divine intervention. To have told this story without talking about its Author would not have been true to essence of the story.

Yes, the book coach was right. Including God has narrowed my market, but this is not a story for everyone.

Do you have any advice for people considering adoption? Are there things you would do the same? Differently?

Fully understand why you are planning to adopt. It is the hardest way to become a parent and prospective parents must be very clear in their goal, or else they may be tempted to give up. Do not adopt to save a child.

If I could have done the adoption over, I would have spent much more time ensuring Fran and I were in agreement about the process. There is a scene in the book when I consider that I might be selfish about the whole thing. The truth is, I was selfish and pushed Fran into this rather than walking together. Because Fran was a person who did not want to cause conflict, she went along to get along, and it was easy for me to be that person. When we came home, Fran struggled because of her anger with me.

How has adoption changed your family, if it has? Is the experience what you expected?

We look at the world much differently because we’ve seen more of it. When we hear about the suffering of Guatemala, our hearts hurt because they are family. I care much less about my European heritage than I did before because I do not want to exclude a family member. Because of our family’s experience, we are better able to understand the challenges of different ethnic and cultural heritages.

Any plans to write a follow-up?

Daddy Came &  Got Me is Fran’s idea for a children’s book that tells Gemma’s story. We’re still batting around ideas. I’ll let you know when it’s completed. ~