For the past ten plus years (or as many of those as she can remember), we had promised our daughter that, at age 12 (why 12? We can’t remember!), we would take her to Colombia to visit her country of birth.  When we were last in Bogota, in the winter of 1993, we were disquieted by the political situation; several people had been killed in the downtown area the week before we arrived (car bomb) and we were awakened one night at 3:00 am to a bomb down the street from our Residencia that broke windows in an adjoining room.  The U.S. government does not currently recommend Colombia as a destination for travel; why would we leave the comfort of family and home and travel across the continent?  For her we would, and did.

There aren’t as many as we thought, it seems, who make the revisit trip; what a gift it is to you and your child to save the time and money to do so. Age twelve is a perfect time to make it.  And every minute was worth it.  Colombia is a visually beautiful country – full of flowers and mountains and valleys and beaches.  I thought to myself daily about how much heredity and history are reflected in the things Kika loves to do in Minnesota – she loves color and music and art and creating small things out of clay.  She loves to play soccer and sing and create.  Each day we gained a better understanding of why this is so.  Her birth country is full of music and dance and color and art.  Even in the adoption house, where she spent her first months and we spent the better part of a day, salsa music played in the infants’ rooms as they slept.

The adoption house (Ayudame) treated her like royalty, welcoming her “home.”  Kika (and we) spent more than an hour with the director, as she answered our daughter’s questions about parts of the history that she didn’t know already.  The director talked of her own experience as a mother of two Ayudame children, and spoke with such pride of the experience of watching them grow.  We witnessed a family receiving their baby (yes, of course, I cried in memorial joy!) and played with babies and toddlers, dancing with them, hugging them, and celebrating their lives and the happiness that they will bring to their new families.  All of them had homes; what a wonderful thing for all of us to know, as we watched them drift to sleep.  Kika spoke several times of her desire to study in Colombia and volunteer at Ayudame. 

At the Residencia Paris, we shared tables and conversation with families who were with their new children for the first time; we listened to their stories, giggled with their toddlers and gooed at their babies.  They looked at Kika and saw their own child, some twelve years hence, and were proud.  So was Kika, to be “sister” to these beautiful children.

We traveled outside of the city several days (no safety issues), and later spent six days in Ecuador, which was also beautiful.  But the highlight of the adventure for all of us was the day at Ayudame, filled with old memories, making new memories, and celebrating new life and new beginnings.  Kika felt so “at home” in Colombia; at one point she turned to us, eyes laughing, and stated, “You guys look like tourists – and I DON’T!”  When people turned to us to talk in English, then turned to her to and talked in Spanish, she beamed.  Here she immediately felt that she belonged.  Her people and her country were so gracious and giving, so respectful (“si, senora!”) and so lovely.  All of us wanted to stay longer; no doubt we will each return.   But until we do, we, the parents, have a new set of memories to add to our first minutes and days with one of the best things that has ever happened to us.  And she has a visual of the land which brought her forth, and brought her to us.  She has a new and real sense of pride about her beginnings and her nation, a sense of emotional “safety” about belonging, even in absentia, to Colombia - and a new foundation for the next series of years of her life. 

Can you think of any other trip that can offer so much?

Learn more about adoption from Colombia