Imagine visiting a third world county for the first time. You are traveling to adopt a child through an agency. The agency provides you the profile of a 10-year-old girl that looks emaciated; she’s probably no more than 60 pounds. Her hair is unkempt, and broken off from not having it done correctly, and her clothes are disheveled. She has on stockings with high top worn down pink and white sneakers and a fancy white ruffled church dress, but her eyes are huge and full of life, so you anticipate adopting this child with excitement. She’s the middle child of nine children, living in a bad neighborhood and is being raised by a single mother who makes less than $10K a year from government assistance. Prior to the adoption, you must spend at least two months in her home, observing her lifestyle and living conditions to help her transition once you bring her back to the United States. Upon your entry into her home, you quickly notice the walls are a dingy white with hand smears running across them (probably from the children in the home), and the molding in various places is corroded. As you travel up 13 rubber encased stairs, you spot clothing and underwear with holes in them hanging to dry from the doors that have slight mold running beneath the clothing. You can smell the stench of mold, but the children carry on and are unbothered. As you continue searching for your promised child, you look down to find the floor tiles are slightly chipped and the toilet in the bathroom is surrounded by dried up urine. Roaches have infested the place; climbing in and outside of crevices and scurrying across kitchen countertops. All food in the cabinets are encased by Belo grocery bags and there are roach eggs in the refrigerator, freezer, and stove drawer which makes you question how anyone would be able to safely eat here.

In one room there is a mattress on the floor and a huge television atop a dresser. The room next door to it is closed and has a child’s name written across it in black marker. You bypass that room and finally arrive at your soon to be adopted child’s room. When you walk in you notice pictures of Florence Joyner and Kersee on the door to her closet, a radio sitting on the dresser with notecards in the corners of the mirror with small handwriting that says “Grammys,” with a large poster right above her bunkbed entitled “Drugs.”

 

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