A Kiss Delayed by War

MONROVIA, Liberia —  Their playground is a sandy, fly-infested yard, their bed a dingy foam mattress on a concrete floor. Their bath is a tin pail or plastic bucket that they wash in outside. When hunger bites, there is typically little or nothing to eat.

It is a wretched existence for Nymah Sumo, 7, and Doretha Rubben, 6, who live at a squalid children’s home in this battle-scarred capital. But it is an existence they hope to soon escape.

Thousands of miles across the Atlantic, in Arizona, a new life awaits them: an American mother, two Chinese-born sisters, matching sheets and down quilts, Brownie uniforms, even new names.

“You tell them their beds are ready for them, their teddy bears are ready, their sisters are ready,” said Barbara Taylor, 57, a retired Air Force colonel from Long Beach who now lives in Phoenix and won adoptive custody of the Liberian girls this year. “We’ve got a whole community here waiting for them to come home.”

But the vicious 14-year-old civil war in this West African nation, which was settled in the 19th century by freed American slaves, has delayed the departure of Taylor’s girls and nine other children who live at the Hannah B. Williams orphanage and welfare center in Monrovia.

In all, about 40 Liberian youngsters have been adopted by American families and are awaiting visas, according to U.S. Embassy statistics. The turmoil here has prevented embassy officials from conducting investigations necessary to complete the visa application process.

The delays come amid a worsening plight for children in Liberia. War and other ills are swelling the ranks of orphans, who now number at least 10,000, although an exact figure is impossible to obtain, local aid officials say.

Liberia is one of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones for women and children, along with such countries as Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Angola and Congo, according to a report by the Save the Children relief organization.

Children here become orphaned or separated from their parents as families caught in the war’s cross-fire flee their homes. Many women and children face harassment, violence, rape or indiscriminate killing, aid officials say.

Some impoverished parents simply abandon their children. Relatives who normally might care for parentless children have also been separated by the war. And Liberian youths face such hazards as malnourishment, disease, psychological trauma and the possibility of being conscripted as child soldiers, officials say.

The recent arrival of the first wave of West African peacekeepers and American military advisors has buoyed hopes that a cease-fire will hold, a new interim government will soon step in, and life will return to some semblance of normality.

While the White House continues to deliberate any further action in Liberia, adoptive American parents ponder the fate of their children.

Most of the parents learned of the children on the Internet, many through a Santa Clarita-based agency called Angels’ Haven Outreach that arranges adoptions around the world. Liberian welfare officials have given the procedure the green light, and adoption papers have been filed with the Liberian courts.

Liberian law does not require prospective parents to visit the country or meet the child before they adopt. But they must file a petition for adoption and get written consent from the biological parents if the latter are alive. Any adult is eligible to adopt, and there is no marriage or age requirement. Additional paperwork required by the U.S. includes an immigrant visa for each child.

But an upsurge in fighting in June, as rebel soldiers made a heavy push on Monrovia, has hampered the process and left many children in limbo.

“The war has stopped everything,” said Hannah B. Williams, the cheerful woman who opened the children’s home bearing her name in 1972. The facility, housed in a dilapidated former church, accommodates 155 children ages 1 to 18. Some are orphans, others wards of the state. Most know no other life and probably never will, as they are unlikely to be adopted.

Nymah’s parents died during the 1998 escalation of the civil war. Doretha became a ward of the state some time ago after her parents said they could no longer care for her.

Taylor, a single mother who adopted two other girls, Samantha Su, 8, and Amanda Lin, 10, from China in the 1990s, said the Liberian youngsters would make her family complete.

“I have only seen a picture of them that was on the Web, but I fell in love with them right away,” said Taylor, a medical programs coordinator in the Homeland Security Office for the state of Arizona, who also volunteers as a Girl Scout leader. “I said, ‘These are my daughters.’ ”

She has selected new names for the girls, trying to mix their African names with a bit of America. Doretha will be called Dore-rae Dakota, and Nymah will be Natalie-Ny Amahlie, said Taylor, who attended public school in Compton and holds a PhD in psychology.

“I hope they like them,” she said.

It may take a while for her to get the answer. Adoption agents in the U.S. and many of the parents believe that U.S. bureaucracy, as well as the Liberian crisis, is hindering the children’s departure.

Although the U.S. State Department has approved the adoption petitions, embassy officials here have been unable to prove that the children are really orphans or that they were legitimately given up by their parents.

In an age of child trafficking and abuse, the prospect of fraudulent adoptions has raised concerns. Some Liberian children’s homes have not been properly licensed, according to local humanitarian officials. Other facilities are makeshift shelters where do-gooders take in hordes of youngsters -- parentless or not -- in hopes of attracting sponsors and welfare assistance.

Sometimes, cash-strapped guardians try to give the children to foreigners because they are convinced a better life awaits them abroad.

“While we remain concerned for these children, the ongoing violence makes conducting investigations impossible,” a U.S. official in Monrovia said. “The embassy is aware of these cases and, when it becomes possible to process them, will do so as quickly as possible.”

Many prospective parents have written to President Bush, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and their local legislators, to no avail.

“In the meantime, the children are going hungry,” said a frustrated Sherry Archer, executive director of Angels’ Haven Outreach. She said her agency had taken pains to follow all the rules to ensure the adoption process would go smoothly. “We feel that we can’t wait. If the children are starving, it’s a luxury we don’t have.”

Life is hard at Hannah B’s, as the orphanage and the owner are affectionately known. The continued closure of Monrovia’s port, which is still in rebel hands, has delayed food distribution to the city, where all resources are sorely lacking.

“The children are desperate, especially during this war,” said Moses Lamin, acting director of Christian Aid Ministries, a local nongovernmental agency whose efforts to assist scores of orphanages across Liberia has been hindered by the war. “We have not been able to effectively give help to the children, and they have been left in a situation of desolation.”

In good times, dinner for the children at Hannah B’s is a small bowl of rice and boiled greens. In bad times, there is often no meal at all. Sometimes, small snails gathered from a nearby swamp must suffice.

These are bad times. Often giddy from hunger, many children pick through the sand hoping to find a few fallen grains of rice.

Others weave their way between rickety houses, along trails of mud and garbage, to reach the swamp. Here, they typically wade for hours in search of edible leaves.

“Sometimes they remain with gas in their belly from morning to night,” Williams said. “We are really suffering now.”

Some of the children’s hair is wilted and yellow from malnutrition. Scabies is rampant, and many of the youngsters smear ash on their face in an effort to stop the itching. Diarrhea is a common malady.

Nymah and Doretha are frail for girls their age. Lack of food in recent weeks has contributed to their weight loss, Williams said. Their thin arms and legs are flaky from skin rash.

Still, the girls -- currently on a break from the orphanage school -- don’t hesitate to offer a smile. At church services, which are held at the orphanage on Sundays, their chirpy voices blend with the cacophony of fellow small worshipers.

When recent fighting raged in the capital, the children wept and cowered in corners, Williams recalled. Fear has made many of them moody. Others just sit silently.

“Most of the children are traumatized because of the war,” said Arthur Tucker, who helps out at the orphanage. “Recreation is a problem. They have to have play therapy. They are missing that sense of belonging.”

Such information has Jeff and Kimberly Atkinson, from the tiny cattle-ranching town of Dickens, Texas, sick with worry. Their adopted daughter, 5-year-old Agatha Williams, is among the children waiting.

“We just can’t wait to get her here,” said Kimberly Atkinson, 39, a restaurant worker. She and Jeff, 47, an electricity meter reader, each have an adult child from previous marriages.

“If I could go out there and visit and get her myself, I would,” she said.

The Atkinsons and other adoptive parents expressed frustration over what they see as a lack of real commitment from the Bush administration to help Liberia.

“It’s a tragedy to stand there and let this take place and not do anything,” Kimberly Atkinson said.

Most of the parents said they knew little or nothing about Liberia before deciding to adopt.

“I had to find it on a map,” said Taylor, who has been learning to cook Liberian cuisine and stocking up on African art, to give her new daughters a “feeling of home.”

Chad and Kayla Stewart -- so far the only parents working with Angels’ Haven Outreach to have gotten their adopted children out of Liberia -- have learned much about the country in recent months.

The Valencia couple started the adoption procedure in October and their boys arrived in March, before hostilities escalated. Two-year-old twins Matthew and Mark, once scrawny wards of Hannah B’s, are making rapid progress in their new home.

When they arrived, Matthew weighed only 12 pounds and couldn’t walk. Today his weight has more than doubled and he is walking.

Mark was so small he didn’t make the medical growth chart for children his age, the Stewarts recalled. He also required surgery for a hernia.

“Now he is walking much more quickly and jumping,” said Chad Stewart, 33, a digital animator. He and his wife have four biological children -- girls ages 8, 6, 4 and 2.

“They’re just as happy as ever,” Kayla Stewart, 34, said of the twins. “Their little personalities are coming out.”

She broke into tears as she contemplated the suffering of those still at Hannah B’s.

“Please tell them we’re thinking of them and we pray for them every day,” she said.

Armie Williams is praying too. The 13-year-old, who has lived at Hannah B’s all her life, said she couldn’t wait to meet her adoptive parents, Charles and Elaine Deprince of Cherry Hill, N.J.

She’s eager to continue school and hopes to become a nurse. And although America remains for her a strange and far-off land, she imagines that little could be worse than her present predicament.

“It will be good,” said Armie, a bright smile filling her face, “because I will leave from here.”

More information about adopting Liberian children can be obtained from Angels’ Haven Outreach at www.angels-haven.com or by calling the agency at (661) 259-2943. Additional photos of the Hannah B. Williams orphanage are available at latimes.com/orphanage.