HOMELAND TOURS STRENGTHEN CONNECTIONS
by Ann Bjorseth (annbj@echo-on.net)

Post-Adoption Helper, August 1997, p. 8

Reprinted from:
Post-Adoption Helper magazine
185 Panoramic Dr.
Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. P6B 6E3
Contact: smartot@age.net

When I left Asuncion, Paraguay, in March 1995, baby Daniela in a borrowed stroller, I was so overwhelmed I couldn't think about returning. As the two of us struggled onto the plane, I could only feel relieved, and so happy to be free at last to take her home.

Since then, through almost three years of parenting, new experiences, lack of sleep, and the most wonderfully intense relationship with my daughter, life continues to be overwhelming. Through it all, I have thought of a woman I have never met, whose life experiences I can only guess at, who is Daniela's birth mother. I thought of her almost every day. And in a similar way, I have sought out people, information, images, anything that could help me connect more and better with my daughter's homeland. And I've thought about when, not if, we would travel together to return to the place where she was born.

Paraguay in '98

The vividness of my desire to return showed itself again recently when I heard about a homeland tour being planned for next summer, 1998, to Paraguay. I hadn't been thinking about this kind of trip, certainly not so soon. In fact, I figured my step-son Adrian, adopted from Colombia in 1981, would be the one to be ready soon. When we offered him that trip, it was clear that it wasn't right for him now, so perhaps we had missed "the right time". The outline of the proposed Paraguay trip, plus the pressure I felt from that missed opportunity, really got my attention.

Carol Vollmar Pope, an adoptive parent, will travel with the group, along with two Paraguayan women who provide cultural heritage tours for Paraguayan school children as well as others interested in Paraguay. I learned that over the years since her adoption, she has traveled to Paraguay six times, doing community development work to assist economically disadvantaged artisans in Paraguay to improve their quality of life. Carol sounded like someone who could help me make the kind of trip that would have meaning for me and my family. Not a sight-seeing trip but a trip into the country, into the landscape, into the culture, into that people-to-people space that I wished for. In the same way that I made life-changing and hopefully lifelong friendships in the course of our adoption, I have been realizing how important the relationships will be in planning our homeland tour.

Ties Program

The Paraguayan tour is a part of a program called "The Ties Program-Korea and Beyond". Becca Piper, founder of the Ties program, is an adoptive mom and an active member of the Milwaukee adoption community. She is an experienced escort, and has accompanied each of the previous tours, which until now have been only to Korea. This year, Becca's program has expanded to include South America. When I talked to her last week, she was getting ready for her first trip to Peru, leaving on August 4 for Lima. Their trip sounds amazing: Arequipa, Cuzco, Machu Picchu, the reed boats of Uros, and Pisac on market day, plus visits to an elementary school and an orphanage and dinner with a Peruvian family. Becca sounded ready to go, and into it!

"Don't think of little old ladies with white hair!", Becca Piper said when I called to ask her about the tours. She said many people resist tours because they don't want to feel like "tourists", especially on such an emotional trip whose main purpose is connection and personal understanding. Becca is an adoptive parent, and has been organizing and accompanying the family groups for several years. From the written materials, I felt she had a feeling for the emotional aspect of homeland tours, well beyond the planning and organizing-which, with over a hundred people in these trips, would be plenty.

Talking to her, I realize what a complicated experience adoption has been for me. I don't realize, until I talk to someone else who has been thinking about these things too, how isolated I feel sometimes. A heritage tour will be as important to me as it is for my daughter.

As the only Canadians we knew adopting from Paraguay, we were often on our own with the paperwork and other processing. I would really like to not do it alone the next time. After talking recently to a family that traveled to Peru to visit their children's birth town, meeting friends and family again, I know that a single-family trip can work very well. But this time, I would like the comfort and support of others, as well as help in finding my way through the very political, very indirect, very changeable communication system in the Paraguayan adoption community. And despite my desire to know Spanish well enough to communicate directly, I won't know Guarani, the indigenous language spoken or woven through the language of most people in Paraguay.

Meeting Birthparents

Becca's tours all offer opportunities to make and remake contacts with important people in our children's lives: lawyers, foster mothers, orphanages, adoption facilitators. Even, if desired and possible, birth parents. Our adoption facilitator did not help us with birth information-this is an understatement! Although we did meet families who had the opportunity to meet their birth mother, it was in each case a fortunate coincidence which was frowned on by our lawyer Lois Melina, editor of Adopted Child newsletter and advocate of open adoptions, devoted a newsletter to the idea that middle childhood, ages 7 to 11, may be the time to contact birth parents. She suggests that seeking out birth parents earlier has several big advantages, mostly related to dealing with the reality of those particular people, as opposed to dealing with a big unknown. Will I try to contact Daniela's birth mom? I don't know, but I think I want to start thinking about it seriously. I am forever tied to a country that until three years ago I barely knew existed. It feels like fate sometimes, a blessing certainly, to have formed my family in this special way. Daniela's birth mom, where she is, how she is, what she's doing, captures my imagination in a way that spurs me to the task of searching. For now, I can make small steps, including some emotional working-through, that will help the search along. Not being alone, and getting help in making search contacts are real advantages of going on a planned group trip for our homeland tour. Becca told me about some other advantages of group trips. For the kids, having a group of other kids to hang out with, fool around with, for checking out each others' reactions, would be a great advantage. The kids don't like to be confined, she said, even the best travelers, and having the larger space afforded by group travel, really helps. The difference between family dynamics when three or four or five family members travel together alone, is vastly different than when the kids have others kids to be with some of the time.

Doing more for less

The cost? Group travel allows more for less, Becca told me. She described a family she is helping who are going to be living in Japan and want to use that opportunity to make a trip to Korea with their adopted child. She found that the price for their trip was about double in terms of in-country expenses. Regular rates are much more than group rates, and only one family covers the cost of the translator/ guide. She emphasized that time is of the essence, and rather than spending half a day looking for an interpreter, it's really better to have one meet you right at the train station.

Also, single families simply wouldn't have the options that a group does. Individuals just can't do things that have been found to be irreplaceable to the families involved. In Korea, their group visited a maternity home, definitely not possible for most travelers. In each country so far, a local community organization has facilitated more personal connections: school parties, farm barbecues, visits to artisan communities including an opportunity to make pottery. The dinners in family homes have been eye-opening and heart-opening experiences.

Wait until they're older?

What is the best age for a homeland trip? One of the first articles I read was a wonderful account of Korean trips by Lois Melina. When she wrote it, ten years ago, the prevailing wisdom was that later was better, that adoptees should wait until at least age 22, because young children and teenagers become bored with the attractions and food. But that perspective doesn't hold true for many people.

Post-adoption Helper editor Jennifer Smart took her son Ben to Korea at age 4, and the report of her trip shows how a younger child who travels well can have a great experience that will lay important groundwork for strong self-esteem later. Becca Piper feels that, overall, younger children reap the most benefit. She says, in an article about this question, "the kids see the whole Korean personality and it is warm and friendly and funny, and they fall in love with Koreans and themselves!" Thinking back over our experience with Adrian, I feel that the need to make plans for a trip sooner rather than later. I don't think there will ever be a time when it's too late, really, but I do think the sooner we go, the more positive associations Daniela will have with her heritage, and the more specific images she have about this place called "Paraguay". One thing that occurred to me, after talking to Becca, was how fortunate we are in Toronto, and in increasingly more places in Canada, to make cultural connections here at home. Jennifer Smart mentions this in her account of her trip to Korea with Ben. In preparing for her trip, she got to know other Korean families in Sault Ste. Marie, connections which are ongoing. That has been an important part for her of keeping their trip from being an isolated event, she emphasizes.

Cultural Diversity

Our experience here in this neighborhood, with many Spanish-speaking mothers and children at our park, a greengrocer from Tagucigalpa, Honduras, going to a children's Spanish class held in a Ecuadorian church, and with the biggest grocery store on our street owned by a Chinese family from Lima, is one of cultural diversity-multi-culturalism in the best sense. It lets me be integrated, not split between there and here, and lets Daniela be connected to her culture and also be at home. She can go to a school where a Latin face is very likely to be the norm. At the Spanish classes I go to, I can learn about the subtleties of the culture which I could never find out in Asuncion. I can get to know about the meaning of adoption in Latin America, not just by guessing about the motivations of the people who helped us adopt, but also by knowing people long enough-months, years-to learn about individual people's deep feelings, based on two-way relationships over time.

I'm sure other families will have different priorities, different meanings for their homeland tours, but for me my priorities are: helping my daughter to see firsthand the life and people of her heritage, making any contacts that may help her contact or know about her birth parents when that's possible, and strengthening our relationships in the family. I think a group tour will be better for us, not next year when Daniela is four, but when she's seven or eight. And I'm glad I'm starting to think about it now, because there's so much to think about, and it's so important.

Ann Bjorseth (annbj@echo-on.net) and Stephen Harris live in Toronto with their four children, Adrian, Alex, Michael and Daniela. Ann is a psychotherapist.

For her story of adopting Daniela from Paraguay, see Adoption Helper 17, July 1995

Ann supplied itineraries for three homeland tours, which should be of interest if you are planning such a trip

PARAGUAYAN TIES - 1998
Aug. 13, 1998 Arrive Asuncion
Aug. 14 Asuncion (The Gran Hotel del Paraguay)
Aug. 15 Visit school; evening Folkloric show
Aug. 16 Visit farm in Nueva Italia
Aug. 17 Dinner in family home
Aug. 18 Visit village school, 21 de Julio in Tobati area
Aug. 19 Igassu Falls (hike), Itaipu Hydroelectric dam
Aug. 20 Wood-burning steam train to Aregua, Valle Dorado (hike), visit artisans and learn to make Paraguayan pottery, Asuncion.
Aug. 21 Return home

KOREAN TIES - 1997
June 28, 1997  Arrive Seoul
June 29  Holt Children's Service (worship service and tour); Kyonbok Palace
June 30  Visit to four social service agencies (Holt, Eastern, Korean Social Service, Social Welfare Society) and time for birth parent search; Korean home for dinner.
July 1  Folk Village; Eastgate Market; visit to a maternity home for unwed mothers (for children over 11).
July 2  Mt. Sorak National Park
July 3  Beach; Ocean drive; flight to Pusan
July 4  Jagalchi fish market; Pusan orphanage
July 5  Kyongju
July 6  Express train to Seoul
July 7  Free time
July 8  Free time; optional trip to DMZ; visit to elementary school
July 9  Return home; escort babies.

PERUVIAN TIES - 1997
Aug. 4, 1997  Arrive Lima
Aug. 5  Lima, various sites
Aug. 6  Visit to elementary school; evening flight to Arequipa
Aug. 7  Arequipa
Aug. 8  Fly to Juliaca, stay in Puno, reed boats
Aug. 9  Fly to Cusco; visit orphanage
Aug. 10  Pisac
Aug. 11  Train to Machu Picchu, return to Cuzco
Aug. 12  Flight to Lima; dinner in family home
Aug. 13  Return home

For more information:  Ties Program-Korea and Beyond (Becca Piper): 11801 Woodland Circle, Hales Corners WI 53130, 414-425-0675, 800-398-3676 (800 in Canada); Programs for Korea, Peru, Paraguay and Chile.  Also, ask for "Traveling to Your Child's Land of Birth: What Age is the Best Age?"

Lois Melina, Adopted Child, issues October 1987 and December 1990 (P.O. Box 9362, Moscow, Idaho 83843, 208-882-1794) and her website http://www.raisingadoptedchildren.com/

Jennifer Smart's "Korean Homeland Tour, June 28-July 9, 1992" is in Adoption Helper 8, Sept. 1992 and is at the Post-adoption Helper web site..

FOR MORE INFOMRATION ON ADOPTION HELPER AND POST-ADOPTION HELPER MAGAZINES:
* Robin Hilborn, Publisher
* Adoption Helper (AH) and Post-adoption Helper (PH) magazines
* 185 Panoramic Dr., Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Canada, 705-945-1170
* Email AH: helper@helping.com [Robin Hilborn]
* Email PH: smartot@age.net [Jennifer Smart]
* Website: Family Helper