The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys
Read The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys Online
Authors: Marina Chapman,Lynne Barrett-Lee
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Biography
Table of Contents
The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys
Marina Chapman with Vanessa James and Lynne Barrett-Lee
This book is dedicated to Maria Nelly & Amadeo (Forero)
And in memory of loving Maruja
‘Stop the car, John. I want to get out!’
Hearing my mother’s words, my father glanced in the rear-view mirror and skidded to a halt without saying a word. It was as if they had a secret arrangement, though no one knew what she was about to do. The sun was gradually retiring from the sky as dusk approached, and the quiet Yorkshire country lane where we stopped was framed by dark hedges. They stood tall, like a domineering army barrier, protecting the miles of open space beyond.
My mother rushed from the car excitedly, jumped over the hedge and disappeared from view. My fertile young imagination went into overdrive with possibilities. What was going on?
My eyes were fixed on the dense shrubbery as I eagerly watched for her return. After some time, I saw a flash of messy black hair. Mum climbed carefully back over the hedge, holding something in both hands. I watched her petite feet as they dangled over the edge before she jumped nimbly back onto the roadside. She bounced back into the car, panting from her exertions and grinning at my older sister and me with her wide Latino smile. In her lap, firmly clasped, was a large, unhappy wild rabbit. ‘I got you a pet, girls!’ she announced in delight.
That is the earliest memory I have of my mother, and of my first pet, ‘Mopsy’. I wasn’t surprised at my mother’s actions; when you’ve been brought up around her quirky and unpredictable performances, this was just another ordinary day.
My mother has often said, ‘A life like mine isn’t extraordinary in Colombia. Ask any street child, and you’ll have your story there.’ She has never thought her own story special, as kidnappings, abductions, drugs, crime, murder and child abuse are a common theme in descriptions of Colombia in the 1950s and ’60s.
You may be wondering why my mother is choosing to share her story now, after so many decades. Well, to be honest, she’s never had the desire to do so. She’s not one for chasing the neon lights of fame or gain, for she is simply besotted with having her own home and a family – her ultimate goal and dream.
This book began purely as a daughter writing down her mother’s life story. It was my way of documenting our family heritage, as I realised Mum wasn’t getting any younger and her memory might start to fade with each year. I also wanted to understand the struggle she had gone through, without which my sister Joanna and I would not even exist.
It’s not been easy to piece together Mum’s tangled memories, but after two years of chatting over many cups of coffee, delving deep into her past and making a research trip back to Colombia in April 2007, we then started to build a picture from her floating memories. And it soon became clear that we had a great book.
Although we hadn’t started the project with this in mind, we began to see the potential benefits that releasing her story might bring, such as the chance of bringing forward Mum’s real family. And in a world where millions of parents have lost their children in similar ways, we hoped that her story might bring some hope or comfort.
It also gives us the opportunity to shine a light upon certain charities that are dear to Mum’s heart: SFAC (Substitute Families for Abandoned Children), a non-profit charity founded within our family, and the deserving monkey charity NPC (Neotropical Primate Conservation). In addition, we hope that to hear how a fellow human triumphed over adversity in so many ways will provide those in darkness with inspiration.
People often ask me how I learned about Mum’s story. It’s never been a case of her sitting us down to tell us about her past but more that almost every day something would remind her of her time in the jungle. A vanilla pod, for instance, would open up the paintbox for her to colour a whole magical world for me right there in the kitchen. I loved seeing her excitement when she rediscovered something from her past – like finding a picture of a certain plant or tree, or visiting a market stall to find the variety of banana that was a certain monkey’s favourite.
And the story didn’t come out only through her words but also as a result of her actions. Being brought up by such a wild and spontaneous mother suggested to us that she herself had been raised by another breed. She has always been our own ‘monkey mummy’. She was sometimes criticised for her unorthodox style of parenting, but her only example was from a troop of monkeys. So, from what we’ve seen, my sister and I are clear – they must be the most loving, fun, inventive, creative parents on the planet!
Typical adventures of a Chapman day out would involve us three girls scaling the trees while Dad studied the bark and lichen below (no doubt pulling out his pocket specimen bottles). At some point there might be an animal-rescue mission, then a spot of getting lost as a result of trying to discover a hidden back road or following something that sparked our curiosity, and the day would usually finish with Mum cooking up steaks on the portable BBQ (which would be brought out without fail in all seasons, even in snow). Thanks to my family, I am rarely able to have a ‘normal’ walk, simply following the path. Instead, I often return home with twigs in my hair.
Painting a picture of life at home involves revealing some embarrassing truths, although it’s only since moving away that I have realised how unusual we were. We had an unconventional way of asking for food at times. As a game, Mum would sometimes sit with a bowl of sweet porridge and have my sister and me ask for it by doing our best monkey impressions. I’m glad social services never visited us!
After dinner, we would often spend what felt like hours grooming one another, by picking through each other’s hair. It was a magnificently relaxing activity – the best way to pass the time – and the three of us would appear to be in an almost drugged state. I remember when a case of head lice plagued our school – I think that had to be the highest point of our grooming careers!
When it came to pets, she’d only allow us to have one if they were out of cages during the day. Caged animals upset her. So we had a number of rabbits who hopped around our garden and those of our neighbours, although this didn’t work so well with the birds, obviously . . .
As she couldn’t read well, I don’t remember Mum reading me a bedtime story. Instead, she would invent stories of her own. She would come up with the most magical tales and base them on one of my less admirable character traits (such as lateness or over-sleeping). It would unfold into a gripping story that ultimately taught me valuable lessons in life. She has never let her so-called deficiencies stop her from giving us the best upbringing. The one she never had for herself.
*
As far as Colombia is concerned, much has changed over forty years. Today, it is a vibrant, progressive and, in the main, safe place, but when my mother was growing up there in the 1950s and ’60s certain parts were plagued by kidnapping, trafficking, corruption, drugs, crime and injustice. The country’s response to attempted social reform by the liberals in the late 1940s brought forward a decade of rebellion and banditry. They call this era ‘La Violencia’. Accounts of killings, torture, abduction and rape were common, and there was an atmosphere of insecurity and fear. Hundreds of thousands of deaths (including those of innocent children) came about because of this unrest.
That Colombia is very much still in Mum’s blood. When she had just given birth to my sister Joanna, she wouldn’t let the nurses take her from her because, from what she knew, a hospital was a market place for swapping a handicapped child for a healthy one or stealing newborn babies to sell on.
In 1997, it was estimated that one in three of the world’s abductions happened in Colombia. Sadly, kidnapping is still a regular occurrence. For the past few decades on a Saturday night, there has been a radio show called
Las Voces del Secuestro
(Voices of Kidnapping), and from midnight until 6 a.m. the phone lines ring continuously with family members wanting to send messages to their loved ones in captivity. It’s heartbreaking.
For those children – for all children who have been affected by other people’s greed, as my mother’s life has – she is living proof that circumstances don’t need to be the end of anyone’s story. In fact, it is her upbringing that has made her into the strong, grateful, loving, generous, selfless, positive – and of course wild and unconventional – woman she is today.
While we were growing up, Mum would never allow us to sulk for too long. Instead, she would inspire us, saying something like, ‘Pick yourself up, stand up tall, invent something with what you do have, be grateful in the little, and get moving!’
Mum sees the value in everything – for the breath in our lungs, for a new day and for the greatest joy in her life, of being a mother, a grandmother, a wife and a friend. So allow me to introduce to you an extraordinary woman with an extraordinary tale to tell. Marina – my mother and my hero.
Vanessa James
I have a story to tell you. The story of my life. And I had thought that this bit, where I introduce myself to you, would be the easiest thing in the world. I was wrong. In fact, it is the hardest.
When meeting someone for the first time, it’s customary to tell them your name. It’s the first thing that we all do and gives others a way to identify us. I do this. I tell people that my name is Marina. But rather than it being a name given to me by my parents at birth, this is a name I chose for myself at the age of around fourteen. My birth name, like everything else from my early childhood, has been lost over time.
The things that matter, you see – the early memories that help us to establish our identity and which most people take for granted – have, for me, long been forgotten. Who were my parents? What were their names and what were they like? I don’t know. I have no picture in my head of them at all, no hazy memories. I have no idea what they even looked like. I have so many questions that will never be answered. What was my home like and how did we live? Did I get on with my family? Do I have any siblings who remember their sister, and if so, who and where are they now? What did I enjoy doing? Was I loved? Was I happy? When is my birthday? Who am I?
For now, this is everything I know about myself: I was born sometime around 1950, somewhere in the north of South America. It is most likely to have been Venezuela or Colombia. I’m not sure which. But as most of my later life was spent in Colombia, that is where I tell people I am from.
The only real memories I have – that I can remember with sufficient clarity to be able to share them with you – are very faint and not particularly insightful. My black dolly, for instance. I do remember her. I still remember the detailing of her black frilly rah-rah skirt and the red-satin ribbons that were threaded down her blouse. Her skin was soft to touch and her hair was black and straggly; I remember how it framed her delicate, dark face.