Takes a Village, #1

This is Manuel. He's not quite 2 here.

It's 2003 and we are in Guatemala to visit friends and spend time with Manuel. Eme, Asa, and I are adopting him! Twice we have gotten to spend a few weeks with him while we all wait.

Then after two years (and $20,000), officials in Guatemala get the impression I might be gay. They close the file and bar me from ever adopting in that country. They feel it is better for Manuel to have no mami than two mamis.

Manuel had aged out of the adoption cycle by that point. He was never adopted. I've checked and he's with his lawyer's family, who decided to keep him with them, thank god. Manuel is 10 now. He wouldn't remember us, of course. But we all remember him.