Angel's birthday

I made this photo fourteen years ago and blipped it. She was then in the Army, visiting me in Portland before she expected to be deployed to Iraq. As it happened, she was not deployed but stayed in the USA doing office work. Today she’s 38 years old, so it is exactly 30 years to the day since the decision for me to adopt her was thrust upon us both. 

I was in Lesotho as a Senior Fulbright Scholar, 48 years old and at the top of my game, running three theatre projects and doing research on gender and environment; teaching African literature, creative writing, and theatre at the National University of Lesotho; interviewing African women, and writing like mad. My two sons were grown and (somewhat) on their own. I had been caring for Palesa for a year, with no intention to adopt her. My plan was to return to the USA, find a non-academic job, and send money to keep Palesa in the boarding school run by Holy Family Nuns where I had established her.

That all changed when Palesa came home for Easter vacation and freed Angel from the situation she was in (it was terrible, but I won’t say more in respect for her privacy), and brought her to me. At that time Angel was eight, undernourished, and so traumatized that she couldn’t speak at all. Palesa said Angel was a “broken bird,” and told me I had to take care of her, or she would die. Angel fell into my arms, silent as a tiny tomb, and held onto me tightly. 

I began the process of trying to find a foster home or an orphanage for her. I drove to Maseru, the capitol city, and talked with the Child Welfare officials there. They had no transportation, and there were four workers covering the entire country. I made an appointment for one of them to meet me, let me drive her to the village where Angel had been living with an old woman who was supposedly caring for her, and bring release papers for the old woman to sign.

When I got the worker to the house of the old woman, the worker asked to see Angel’s health book, which served as an identity document. The old woman knew that Angel was with me, and she knew who I was, though we had never been introduced. I had done so much research and oral history with people in the village that everyone there knew who I was. The old woman went searching through a trunk in a dark corner, and then she suddenly fell on her knees and started praying, weeping, wailing. I whispered to the worker, “What’s going on?” The worker whispered back,

“The old lady is begging god for forgiveness. She says Angel’s mother, who died 3 years ago, brought you here and is going to take vengeance on her for not protecting Angel. She says Angel’s mother brought you here to take Angel from her, and she says yes, yes, you can take her.”

“Why does she think all that?”

“Because the health book shows that today is Angel’s birthday.” It was June 17. 

Angel is anxious about traveling, so she hasn't visited since 2017, but we talk on the phone every week and sometimes several times a week.That doesn't offer me many opportunities for photographs, so I've made a photograph of this print.