Posted on 10/12/2006 11:29:04 PM PDT by MadIvan
A boy from an isolated village in Malawi's rugged bush was handed into the care of Madonna yesterday when a judge approved the pop star's adoption papers.
David Banda was born in a mud hut 18 months ago. His mother, Marita, gave birth without a nurse or medical equipment, save for a plastic sheet. She died days later.
The High Court in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, plucked David from his home village of Lipunga, where children in rags play in the dust beside women pounding maize, and gave him a symbol of Western popular culture for a foster mother.
Mr Justice Andrew Nyirenda granted Madonna an "interim order" allowing her to take the boy into custody. Today David is expected to leave Malawi with Madonna and her husband, the British film director Guy Ritchie, for London where he will start a life with her other children, Lourdes, nine, and Rocco, six.
Madonna and Ritchie recently admitted having had marital problems and insiders have speculated that an addition to the family will give their rocky relationship a fresh start.
David's father, Yohame Banda, 32, met his son's prospective foster parents during the court proceedings. Afterwards, he told journalists that he was "happy" that David would escape Malawi's grinding poverty.
Mr Banda added that he knew little about the boy's foster mother. "I'm not aware of Madonna. I don't know her. All I know is that she'll give my son a better life," he said. Mr Banda spoke at his home Lipunga, 120 miles west of Lilongwe. The border with Zambia runs along a range of hills behind his village and its people walk into the neighbouring country at will. While Mr Banda is a Malawian, David was born in Zambia to a Zambian mother.
Mr Banda, who was abandoned by his own father as a boy, was raised by Lipunga's chief, Henderson Geza.
"A few days after giving birth, David's mother died," said Mr Geza, 69. "Because of our poverty, we were unable to support the child. So we decided to send him to an orphanage."
David entered Home of Hope orphanage, about 40 miles from Lipunga. Madonna arrived in Malawi last Wednesday to help charities serving children who lost their parents to Aids. She visited this orphanage last week.
A teacher at Home of Hope said Madonna met David last Friday. "She was carrying the baby. She was smiling and she was saying 'ah, beautiful'," he said.
Then Mr Banda was informed that an "American woman" would like to adopt his son. Mr Geza said: "He said, 'I gave my son to the orphanage because I could not take care of him, so I would like him to be adopted'. I said, 'If that is what you want then, as your chief and as your stepfather, I give you my permission'."
Mr Banda told the chief that she was a "respectable American lady". Madonna's name was unknown to them.
"We were very happy," said Mr Geza. "We read the Bible and we thought 'this is coming from God'."
Yet for almost 40 years, Malawian law has banned foreigners from adopting children. Section Three of the Children Adoption Act states that an "adoption order shall not be made" in favour of anyone residing outside the country.
In 1993, however, Malawi signed the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. This says under article 21 that "inter-country adoption may be considered".
The government has agreed in principle to amend the Adoption Act and bring it into line with the convention. In its ruling yesterday, the High Court appeared to give the convention precedence over Malawian law.
But the people of Lipunga care little for legal niceties and wish David well.
"Here we are poor and we don't have enough food," said his cousin, Alex Phiri, 17. "Now David can make a bright future."
Where the heck does this kind of thinking come from?
"We're completely screwed up. Let's bring a helpless child into our marriage! That'll fix it!"
God help this kid.
Love your tag line. Best SF movie ever.
I wouldn't be surprised if this one gets "unadopted" one of these days.
In it, it says "Yohane had never heard of Madonna, or her raunchy songs. He was told only that she was 'a very nice Christian lady'. It was never explained that Madonna is in fact deeply involved with the Kabbalah sect."
The facts of these types of stories change from day to day. However, I hope that Madonna did not intentionally deceive the father. Apparently, he's never heard of her, and is not familiar with her music or image or religion.
The father also seems swept up in the whirlwind of this quickie adoption of his 13-month-old son, who has been in an orphanage since his wife died. I wonder if he will regret his decision.
I see that the facts are already in dispute. One article lists the baby's age as 13 months, the other as 18 months.
It seems so faddish. There are plenty of African American children who need homes.
Better for that child to live in a hut with a father that loves him, than live in a mansion with someone who is using him as a prop.
This is what makes me sick about this whole thing. The child HAS a father that apparently loves him, but is just too poor to raise him, so why the hell doesn't Madonna just turn loose of a little change and let this man raise his own child. They could live like kings for the rest of their lives in Malawi on what she spends to get her nails done in one year.
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