This is going to be a bit of a challenge following in such illustrious blogger footsteps as Lisa and Julie, but I will try. I am quite overwhelmed by the events of the day, but did not want to go to bed without letting everyone know that Leanne met her mother and 4 - can you believe it - 4 sisters! Add 2 nieces and a darling little nephew and it was quite the day.
We met early this morning with a Cambodian man that Andy had contacted when he was here in 2004. Since then, this fellow had apparently followed up on our documents and pictures. He came by early this morning with the Directress of the Kampong Speu orphanage. We were able to verify that, yes, the orphanage is the same one where she lived....but most exciting news of all was that he had located her family!
We made arrangements to meet the Directress at the orphanage at 1pm. She had offered to go ahead and let Leanne's sisters know that she was coming. Apparently they live in the town of Kampong Speu, only miles from the orphanage. Yoen graciously agreed to drive us out and translate when needed. The road to the orphanage was very familiar, yet turning in we noticed that only one of the original buildings remained. We were able to see the room where Leanne slept and several of the areas where she ate and played. The orphanage is now sponsored by several US charitable organizations and has many new buildings and is quite nice. Three of the original nannies were waiting to see us and oohed and aahhed over pictures that we had brought to show from our time there in 1991. They pointed out the 2 girls that Leanne had told us were her sisters and quickly pointed to Leanne's caretaker and said that she is her mother....
About this time a motobike appeared and I recognized at once the woman that had cared for Leanne and who she talked about when she came home. She was thrilled to see her and the first weeping embrace was worth the entire trip for all of us. The motobike driver was her younger sister, who was a baby when we left. We hugged and hugged and cried and cried and finally drove into town to her older sister's house. They knew that we were coming and I guess that her mother got tired of waiting!
The family is delightful. Her older sister has 3 children. Her younger sister lives with her and tends to the kids while the sister works selling clothes in the market. Her husband sells charcoal throughout the province. We were taking lots of sister pictures when we all realized that the 2 teenagers in the room were Leanne's mom's daughters by a new marriage....Total Khmer sisters now at 4! All sisters total at 5 (let's remember the fairhaired sister at home) Sister #3 looks the most like Leanne and even has a funny little toe that sticks up on the same foot! We told stories about when she was little with lots of smiles and giggles. We had several poignant moments when the family shared that they thought that they would never see her again.
We are invited back to the sister's home on Sunday for a family celebration complete with Cambodian food. You should have seen Mike's face when Yoen told them explicitly not to prepare any intestines, skins or bones. We are so proud of Leanne and how poised and loving she was today when holding her mom, telling her sisters stories, or playing with her nephew...
How blessed are we to have had the privilege of having her in our family and now being able to return to Cambodia and share her with her birth family who obviously adores her.
Wonderful day :-)
PHOTOS: 1. First hug with Leanne's birthmom. 2. Leanne meets her Khmer family. 3. Getting to know the family. 4. Happy smiles with her birthmom. 5. Five sisters together after 17 years.
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