 Thursday, March 01, 2007
Joe Blundo, Columnist
Columbus Dispatch
Maria is a portrait of anticipation. She fidgets; she squirms; she utters question after question in Spanish as she makes sense of her novel situation: new school, new family, new continent.
"What grade will I be in?" she asks during a tour of Riverside Elementary in Dublin. "What do they eat for lunch? Why can’t I go outside in the snow? "
Until a few days ago, Maria, 11, lived in Colombia. Now she lives in Dublin with her adoptive parents, Mike and Janet Jenkins. (Photo at right.)
On a recent weekday, they visited Riverside, where Maria would soon enroll.
Her late-winter relocation is a result of Summer Miracles. Operated by the nonprofit Kidsave, the program brings orphans to the United States for several weeks each summer to meet families who might want to adopt them.
Two years ago, Maria was placed in a foster home in Bogota, the Colombian capital, after she was abandoned by her birth mother. Last year, she was one of seven children brought to Ohio from the South American country for a visit. Six of them are being adopted, said Donna Berger, former state coordinator for Kidsave. (Berger stepped down to devote herself to her adoption of a 15-year-old Colombian girl.)
"When people think of adoption, they tend to steer toward the younger children and the babies," said Berger, of West Salem. "Kidsave has a heart for the older kids — the underdogs, basically. They want to help the older kids because their chances of finding a family are quite small."
Maria became the fourth child of the Jenkinses, who have biological children ages 16, 14 and 12. The family bonded quickly with Maria, said Mr. Jenkins, a 47-year-old sales manager for AT&T. "By the time she had to leave, we had made our decision (to adopt)," he said. "And that made it more difficult for her because we couldn’t tell her."
Mrs. Jenkins, a 45-year-old dietitian, works at St. Brigid of Kildare School in Dublin. She spent five weeks in Bogota this winter to finalize the adoption. She returned home with her new daughter on Feb. 16, when Maria encountered snow for the first time.
"She spent three hours playing in the snow on Saturday," Mrs. Jenkins said. By then, she had learned an important English word: wow.
Maria’s limited knowledge of English isn’t unusual at Riverside. Its ethnically diverse student population represents about 20 languages, including Chinese, Korean, Russian, Somali, Spanish and Swahili. On the tour of Maria’s new school, Celina Nova, an aide and a Spanish interpreter, went along to answer her many questions. Among them: Why can’t I start school tomorrow? (She had a conflicting doctor’s appointment, but she joined a fourthgrade class two days later.)
In her new bedroom, Mr. Jenkins said, Maria displays photos of her friends in Bogota. Otherwise, she seems eager to leave the past behind. In the summer, someone asked Maria what was the best thing about her visit to America.
Her reply: "Having a family." |
