Except for the difference in kingdom locations, they both are beautiful princesses. (Check out the lips, eyes, brows, hair and headlights!)
Posted on 09/19/2006 1:02:31 PM PDT by freepatriot32
(Sept. 19) - Adopted two days after her first birthday, Sarah Culberson grew up the youngest daughter in a close-knit family from Morgantown, W.Va.
She was surrounded by love in her home, but always wondered about her roots. Searching to unlock the secrets of her past, at age 22, Culberson began searching for her birth parents.
She quickly learned that her mom had died a dozen years earlier from cancer.
Culberson was crushed. A few years later, a private investigator helped her locate her birth father, along with an unbelievable surprise. Culberson wasn't an average suburban girl -- she was a princess.
Her father, a ruling member of the Mende Tribe in Bumpe, Sierra Leone, was living in Africa. By birthright, Culberson was royalty. She could one day be known as paramount chief in a country she's never seen.
Talking with ABC's Robin Roberts on "Good Morning America," Culberson said it took a while to process the shock of discovering her biological dad.
"It took a couple of years to kind of deal with finding my father and having two dads," she said.
Her father invited her to Africa to meet her family.
The entire Bumpe community came out to welcome its princess -- a happy homecoming for the American girl who never knew that by searching for her birth parents, she'd find herself.
"They were amazing," Culberson said, remembering her first impression of the Bumpe. "There are about 200 [people] to 300 people there to welcome you in the ceremony, singing, dancing, and I was like, 'What did I do to deserve this?'"
While she found Sierra Leone beautiful and exciting, it was also heartbreaking. Culberson saw people suffering from the 11-year civil war. The school where her father worked as a headmaster was in desperate need of rebuilding. She wanted to help.
Now 30, Culberson's settled from the shock of meeting her father and learning about her family. She's started a nonprofit foundation for her father's community.
The Kposowa Foundation is dedicated to rebuilding the school buildings of Bumpe High School, which was destroyed during the civil war. She's also making a documentary about her trip. In December, Culberson will return to Sierra Leone with her adoptive father so that he can meet her biological dad, too.
She says her West Virginia family has stuck by her through her discovery.
"They're like angels. They said, 'You know we support you in whatever you want to do,'" Culberson said.
She encourages adoptees to try and find their biological parents, but she asserts, they should not go into a search expecting anything. "I had no expectations. I didn't even know if I'd get a phone call return."
Culberson's search returned a new life, and a new mission: the Kposowa Foundation. For her, being a princess means helping her people.
"The title princess means responsibility, and that's what I'm taking on," she said.
Learn more about Culberson's project at bumpenya.com.
Sept. 19, 2006
Except for the difference in kingdom locations, they both are beautiful princesses. (Check out the lips, eyes, brows, hair and headlights!)
If she was a 'Princess', why was she put up for adoption?
I wonder about the circumstances of this adoption. How/why did the newborn daughter of a recent widower who was doing well by the standards of his own society in Africa, end up being adopted in West Virginia, USA? He may have given her up (or sold her) for her own good, but only on condition she go to America.
I don't see a problem with her hair - as long as it's kept neatly and clean, she's welcome to that sort of hairstyle (which is pretty much what I say to my teenaged daughter, who has had a similar hairstyle in the past)...
Her birth father was a visiting college student. Apparently her birth parents decided that they were too young to raise her,and gave her up for adoption. Isn't it wonderful that they chose life for their baby instead of abortion? She seems like a very nice girl raised by a good family.
Far more likely, her father was a college student here in the U.S. and he either abandoned her mother after she was pregnant, or he never knew she was pregnant when he returned to his home country.
I'm sure someone knows for sure though.
Not even that. Try kid of a tribal warlord.
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