Amazing Brazil Adoption

I had a great 10 day trip to Brazil. I could recount the great beauty and diversity of the sights I saw, but the most interesting part was on the flight home from Rio where I sat next to an energetic woman from New Jersey who was traveling with 9 children and her husband. She had just spent 2 months in Brazil finalizing the adoption of 7 siblings.

<>When asked why she did this seemingly insane thing, she quoted the bible, something about helping widows and orphans. I thought that was a proofreading term, but apparently there is more to it than hanging words on a page. Since that was the first thing she said to me, I prepared to be converted to the faith, but she never came back to it, only to say that she was pleased that the one sight they got to visit in Rio was Corcovado, and to see Jesus up close. Since I also saw that sight, I paid no further heed to her potential Christian fundamentalism. Her second reason was that she was told that it was impossible to adopt children from Brazil, which made her more determined, because that is the type of woman she is. <>

The 7 children (5 boys and 2 girls) have 3 other siblings who were old enough to care for themselves, and were already settled in their mountain village with job training and getting on with adulthood. The remaining 7 being adopted range in age from 6 (a toothless cutie who was infatuated with the plane's headphones) to 14 (a boy crazy cutie swaggering around the airport).<>She was traveling with 2 of her 4 children. Which means, yes, that she now has 11 children between the ages of 6-15. Her youngest natural son, age 7, was on the plane, playing his gameboy and suffering from terrible ear pain, and not getting the attention he craved for such discomfort, both in his ears and in his new life.

This couple and their youngest son had just spent 2 months living in Brazil with their new family, bonding and proving to the courts that this adoption would work. I peppered her with all the questions I could get in between her jumping up to care for one or the other kids who demanded attention for various arguments, seatbelt adjustments, snacks and general fidgetiness on the 1 hour flight to Sao Paulo (where we all changed planes and then I didn't sit near them).

Here is more of what I learned:

- they are not rich, a teacher and bookeeper;

- they recently bought a "7 or 8 bedroom house" (she wasn't sure which) and a 15-seat van;

- she is in college to get a degree in accounting but will probably stay at home a while until the kids are settled;

- the Brazilian kids eat candy and cake for breakfast and have bad teeth, but otherwise they are in excellent health;

- the 13 year old girl seems to be the most challenging, not dealing too well with the idea of having a new mother;

- the kids' parents are actually alive, they aren't orphans at all, but can't care for them;

- the kids had been in the orphanage for 5 years;

- the woman recently lost 110 pounds;

- the family is from a small mountain village a few hours north of Rio;

- while they knew they wanted to adopt an orphaned family, they didn't count on falling in love with such a large group and tried very hard to become involved with smaller families, but they kept coming back to these particular kids;

- the educational system is so different in Brazil that the 14 year old boy is actually at the 6th grade level, though in the US he is ready for High School, so she isn't sure exactly what they will do about school;

- the kids speak not a word of English and while her Portuguese sounded good to me, she assured me that it was difficult to communicate with them easily;

- they will all be signed up for Little League this spring despite my attempts to convince her that she had an entire team of soccer stars living in her new house.

The canoe trip in the starry night on the Rio Negro was also pretty cool.