Where's my mom?

The following account, is a true account, but for the sake of anonymity, and to protect those concerned , names and locations have been changed.

Linda, displayed the courage of a lion when she came to Brazil on one of our volunteer programs

¨I was born in Olinda¨ she had declared, with a glimmer of hope and a great sadness in her eyes.

¨But was adopted at 2 weeks old, by a British couple and taken to England by my adoptive parents¨. (who incidentally are loving , supportive parents and have supported Linda in her quest to find her natural mother).

When we received this information from Linda, it was at first a blinding shock to us!

It was her second day in Recife and she hadn¨t disclosed any of this information during the volunteering application process – indeed - and why should she have!

My wife very predicatably, was in tears on being told this, and before long both Linda and my wife were comforting each other, in a uniquely Brazilian way, which was uncanny, because Linda had had no contact with anything remotely Brazilian (at least in the flesh), for the 22 years of her life – save the 15 and a half days in 1983 , spent as an orphan in a Recife convent.

Linda asked us if we could possibly help her to find her ¨natural¨ brazilian mother - there was only one possible answer to this request!

Linda¨s adoption papers at least showed us her mothers name and also indicated that she had a brother. But hell ! A lot can happen in 22 years, particularly in a developing country such as Brazil.

Questions surfaced; persistent, pertinent and worrying!

Was Lindas mother alive ? If she was, would she still be in Recife ? What about her brother ?

All the negative statistics surfaced; the mortality rate for people living in favelas is much lower than the average, was Linda¨s brother one of the hundreds of thousands of street children in Brazil, and if he was, did he survive ?

Was Linda¨s mother one of the thousands of women who are forced into prostitution ? Is she among the ranks of the countless women who fall prey to the drug dealers ?

All of these things and more were telepathically circulating around us, and through us...

Linda and her adoptive English parents (who were not in Brazil at this time) had supplied us with the information they had about Linda¨s Mom.

The major problem, was the information was dated; 1983, a lot has happened in Brazil in the 23 years which have passed.

At least we had a name and an old black and white photograph to go on, however, our hopes dropped when we discovered that the orphanage was no longer an orphanage and the Brazilian man who had helped the British couple with the adoption had since died.

It was Linda¨s brazilian grandfather who had briefly met the adoptive parents at the orphanage in 83, fortunately , they had written in their diary the district where he had lived, this was a lead, albeit a longshot.

We drove to the district and started to flash the photograph around, the response led us up many blind alleys, including one which pointed us in the direction of a notorious red-light area.

We ventured into a twilight world of drugs and prostitution.There were 2 claims that Linda¨s mother had died; one violently by the hands of her pimp, and the other from drug abuse.

Also on the evidence of our old black and white photograph was the claim that she had been whisked away by a German client to a new life in Berlin.......

To Be Continued.

Note: The photograph above is in no way connected to this true account - it is however, indicative of our orphanage project

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