HER STORY

Ked sa narodi clovek-akoby si spravil pevny prívetivy dom,

akoby si bol dvere otvoril,

povedal trochu rozpacity: nech sa paci,

vstup a cit sa tu doma.

When a person is born-it is like if he was making

solid pleasant house,

as if he was opening the doors,

said a bit embarrassed: you are welcome,

enter and feel at home.

On those lines I would like to tell you the story about one lonely child, who has found her real family.

Let's go and start from the very beginning. I studied at a Secondary economical school in Banská Bystrica. Following graduation I worked as a secretary for one year. I wanted to improve my English so I decided to go to England and work as a nanny. I stayed in England for a year and lived in Hatch End, north part of London, working for an East Indian family that had three girls one three year old, and 2 years old twins. It was a very hard work and I felt that children of this family were very spoiled. Their mom was at home all the time, however she wasn't interested in her kids.

Before my departure to England I needed some experience with children and during the weekends I was working in the baby orphanage in Bojnice. Children from birth to age of four are being cared for by the state in this institution. I was working with the two year olds, mostly girls. Because I have only one brother (20), I became very close with the girls. We were playing games in the garden, went for walks, I read them stories, etc.

Gradually, I got very close to one blue eyed girl. Her name was Adriana. I was always looking forward to seeing her. I you asked me why did I liked her so much, I couldn’t answer, I really don’t know. She was so sweet and her eyes were so beautiful and full of hope. In September 1993, I suggested to my parents to have Adka spent the Christmas with our family. First they said no, but I tried and tried again and finally, one month later to my surprise, they agreed. She spent three weeks at our house during Christmas holidays. She was three at the time. After that we used to take her to our home every weekend, holidays, etc.

At the beginning she was very afraid of men, even of my dad and my brother. Later on she started to like them both very much. Her speech was very poor too as she had problems with pronunciation of some sounds.

Each Monday we took her back to the institution. She always cried, as she wanted to stay with us. This was very difficult for everybody. After some time she started to call my parents mom and dad. We started to talk about a possibility of adopting her. Big decision stood in front of us: adopt her or not? We decided to become her legal guardians for the time being. My parents were invited to the court together wit Adkas mother. She came but didn’t show any interest in her daughter. So now I have a little sister already for four years. I am absolutely sure that Adka is very happy with us. Se became darling of the whole family and our friends. Everybody loves her. Recently we were able to change her last name to ours, as that was her wish. From this September she will be attending the primary school.

And what else can I say about her? In June she will be seven. She is very bright, has a beautiful voice, sings and dances very nice and What's most important, she is very happy with us.

Adka is 10 now and these pictures are from May 2000

Maria Rybarova

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Published in the Slovak Heritage Live newsletter Volume 5, No. 2, Fall 1997
Copyright © Vladimir Linder 1997 
3804 Yale Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5C 1P6
The above article and photographs may not be copied, reproduced, republished, or redistributed by any means including electronic, without the express written permission of Vladimir Linder. All rights reserved.