For anyone else concerned about what the NC Supreme Court decision today voiding gay adoptions means for gay families in NC

NOTE: This is probably obvious, but this post isn't about Nicaragua.  I just haven't set up a non-travel blog yet.

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So I may have jumped the gun on declaring myself a one-mom child.  Here's what I've figured out so far:

[DISCLAIMER: I'm not a law expert by any means, so I could be totally off here.]

Sounds like my family will be fine as Alice and I were both second-parent-adopted in New York, where state adoption laws explicitly allow second-parent adoption.   "Full faith and credit" clause of the US Constitution means NC can't invalidate an NY adoption just because we live here now. But then again, exceptions have been carved out in the past for other controversial "contracts," like interracial marriages and gay marriages (i.e. the Defense of Marriage Act which allows states to ignore gay marriages if they want).  However, there's a recent federal appeals court decision that affirmed the fact that out-of-state gay adoptions are binding in any state: http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/06/06-6213.pdf

Looks like bad news for all the gay couples in durham who did their adoptions here though.  The whole issue hinges on the ability of a non-related person to directly adopt the child of another person without the latter relinquishing their parental rights, which the court decided is not possible under current NC law.  The Court found that crazy liberal Durham judges had no right to waive that state requirement, and thus the adoption is void.  Unclear whether this immediately applies to all second parent adoptions completed in Durham, but that would certainly seem to be implied.

Article in the N&O: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/12/21/873846/same-sex-couple-adoption-voided.html

Full text of the decision is here: http://appellate.nccourts.org/opinions/?c=1&pdf=2010%2F416PA08-2.pdf

To me, a mere liberal arts undergrad with no experience parsing Legalese, the court seems to go out of its way to show that their decision invalidating the adoption is solely based on a technical jurisdiction issue, not any sort of ill-will towards gay adoption as an idea.  In fact, it includes lots of lovely language about the healthy relationship between the child and his two moms, and reinstates joint custody.   It also has a helpful comparison of the three types of adoption in NC: direct, agency-assisted, and stepparent. Second parent adoption is a modification of the direct adoption procedure, where a birth mother allows a new parent (or set of two legally married  parents) to adopt her child.  In order for second parent adoptions to be granted again, state legislature would have to explicitly change direct adoption laws.  Until then, sounds like a trip to New York is your best bet to re-adopt your own children.  

Some key quotes from the case [essentially, one mom attempting to invalidate the adoption as a way of preserving sole custody]:

Happy Lesbians: "Plaintiff’s parenting skills were found to be 'very attentive, very loving, hands on and fun.' ... The child refers to plaintiff as “Mom” and to defendant as “Mommy.” [Aww...] ... As the trial court stated, the minor child 'shows lots of love and respect for both parties..."

The Jurisdiction Issue: "Because the General Assembly did not vest our courts with subject matter jurisdiction to create the type of adoption attempted here, we hold that the adoption decree at issue is void ab initio."

2nd Parent Adoption vs. State Regulations: "In her petition for adoption, plaintiff explained to the adoption court that she sought an adoption decree that would establish the legal relationship of parent and child with the minor child, but not sever that same relationship between defendant and the minor child.  As we have established, such relief does not exist under Chapter 48." 

The Uniformity Issue: "The record shows that this new form of judicially-created adoption may have been available only in Durham County and not available in the other counties of North Carolina.  If our uniform court system is to be preserved, a new form of adoption cannot be made available in some counties but not all.  This Court has the responsibility to ensure that the law is applied uniformly in all our counties." [But it would be fine if it was available across the state?]

Joint Custody Maintained: "Defendant explained to the adoption court that she 'intends and desires to co-parent with another adult who has agreed to adopt a child and share parental responsibilities.'  Thus, defendant shared parental responsibilities with plaintiff and, when occurring in the family unit defendant created without any expectation of termination, acted inconsistently with her paramount parental status." [Essentially, even if plaintiff was legally the only parent, she sure didn't act like one.]

What's sad about the case for me is that a gay woman is willing to invalidate adoptions for the entire state  just to try and take back sole custody of her son from her ex-partner.

Blargh. 

So how was your semester?

Yesterday, I attended the 6th Annual Beaver Queen Pageant.  A fundraiser for the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, the competition consisted of men and women dressing up as beavers (some in beaver drag), and parading around Duke Park while supporters were encouraged to bribe ridiculously costumed judges, with all proceeds going to benefit efforts to clean up a tiny urban creek.  I'd estimate upwards of a thousand Durhamites turned out, and the organizers expected to raise over $10,000 through the beaver festivities.  The day before, I went with my family and a friend to a free outdoor Folk concert in the beautifully restored American Tobacco district in Downtown Durham.  For lunch today, we headed down Ninth Street to a Food Truck Feast, where hundreds of locals were waiting in massive lines to grab lunch off the Korean BBQ truck or the Only Burger truck or one of the other half-dozen trucks and carts that converged on the parking lot of Sam's Quick Shop this afternoon as part of an event that I believe was publicized exclusively over email lists, blogs, and community newspapers.  And I just got back from a neighborhood block party a few blocks away from my house.  It's all been very...Durham.

It's good to be home.  It's great to be back in a place where the people take pride in their city.  But man, it's weird to not be in Nicaragua anymore.

It didn't totally hit me until I said goodbye to Katie in Miami International Airport, when I left her at her Denver gate and I headed off for my flight to Durham.  She was my last anchor to the semester, the last proof I had that my semester in Nicaragua really happened, that it wasn't a crazy dream.  Big American airports all feel the same, and all of a sudden, I felt no different than I would feel connecting in Baltimore to get home after a semester at Brown.  I was alone with nothing but a backpack of snacks and plane entertainment, surrounded by fast food and fast-moving Americans, just as I might be on any other trip.  To make the transition extra bizarre, out of the hundreds of gates at MIA, the gate through which I boarded my flight back to RDU was exactly the same gate through which I boarded my flight to Managua.  As I walked down the same jetbridge I'd walked down 16 weeks earlier, I couldn't help but wonder if I was actually just headed back to my home with Doña Eva in La Máximo.

But I ended up in a different home this time.  

And then headed off with the fam to my cousin's wedding in LA.

And then flew back to Brown to say goodbye to senior friends, work for Reunion Weekend (I got to be flag bearer again!), and furnish our senior year house for our summer subletters while fighting off a fever that got my family panicked about deadly Nicaraguan viruses.

And now I'm sitting on my bed at 2102 Englewood, struggling to come up with some way to close this thing out.  

Let's start with some meta-blogging.  I've never been a big diary person.  I'm not one of those people who write for fun, or to get out angsty feelings, or to express artistic impulses.  Pushing myself to keep a regular blog for four months was a step out of my comfort zone, but it turned out to be one of the best decisions I made during this journey.  I started this blog with the intention of simply getting updates out about my life to those who wanted them, but it turned into something much more important for me.  By forcing myself to take time on my own to process what I was experiencing and write out my thoughts, I believe I gained a deeper appreciation and understanding of everything that was happening to me and around me.  For giving me that opportunity, I'm extremely grateful to all those who encouraged me to start and maintain this thing, and to those whose blogs from semesters past showed me the way.

Back in the States, this blog has saved me a lot of story-telling time.  A surprising number of people have started conversations with me by saying something like, "I read your blog, so I kind of know already, but tell me about..." I never got around to embedding a tracker on this blog, so I didn't realize how many people were reading it.  It was never intended to be private, but still, it's kind of odd when you hear that relatives of your neighbors have been regularly reading about your life.  I even got a message from a total stranger who stumbled across my blog and wants a copy of my ISP once I translate it into English.  I'm famous!

But for those to whom my blog could not speak on my behalf, the question remains: How was my semester?  I spent a good chunk of time my first few days back formulating answers of various depths to that question so I'd be ready for social interactions of any length.  I developed everything from the one-liner, good for those distant family friends who are only asking to be polite, to the 10-minute highlight reel for close friends that includes a description of each homestay, an outline of the seminar, a couple choice adventures, and a rundown of my final project.

The reality is, however, that no social interaction (at least, no enjoyable one) could be long enough for me to fully explain what exactly I experienced in Nicaragua.  But that's OK.  I don't want to attempt to tell it all, and likely, no one really wants to hear it all.  I have to be satisfied with sharing what I can.  What's important is that I remember what happened. That I remember where I went, who I met, and what Nicaragua taught me.   

So to close out this blog, I'm going to indulge myself in some photo-sentimentality, and answer those three questions with some favorite pics from my time as a Nica.  Thanks for reading, folks.  It meant a lot to me to know that so many people cared about what I was up to.  I'm gonna take a break from The Gene Pool now, at least for a little while, so feel free to purge me from your blog readers, un-bookmark me, and/or choose a new homepage.  But who knows?  If I feel like I have something worth writing about again, maybe I'll dive back in.

Abrazos from the Bull City,

Gene

I went...

...to a capital city without a soul.

...to the top of an inactive volcano...

...and an active one.

...to a neighboring country that suffered unthinkable torments.

...to the most beautiful island I've ever seen.

...to gorgeous colonial cities with thriving centers.

...to a community that was torn apart by civil war and then reborn.

...to a region fighting for autonomy and the right to protect its culture.

I met...

...a loving Nicaraguan mom.

...a one-day Caribbean mama.

...a group of incredible students.

...a spunky campesina grandma and her loving family.

...an unbelievably dedicated and wise staff.

...some Nicaraguan college friends.

...and a best friend from home.

I learned...

...the chaotic history of a beautiful country.

...how to (kind of) speak a second language.

...that the chasm between the rich and poor is truly enormous.

...that piglets are the cutest animals in the world.

...what it means to have your entire livelihood depend on a single natural resource.

...that citizens deserve safe public spaces outside of malls.

...about the value of a loving community.

...about the power of communication.

...that it takes a lot of work to earn an Organic mark on your coffee beans.

...that hipsters exist in Managua.

...that you can fit more people in a brightly-painted ex-American school bus than you could possibly imagine.

...what it means to be truly isolated.

...how powerful propaganda can be.

...how to let yourself go and enjoy the moment.

...that corruption is harder to fight than you might think.

...that America's influence over Central America is staggering.

...that economics is way complicated.

...that ex-guerrilla tai-chi instructors can still get down at a disco.

...that a lot can change in 15 years.

...that Nicaraguans make excellent Chinese food.

...what poverty is.

...that I can conduct a serious research project in Spanish and be proud of the results.

...from whence my friends draw their strength.

...that Nicas don't stop going out to party just because they get older.

...that running water is a blessing.

...that children need to be loved.

Ummm...bye then?

I'm sitting in front of the exact same computer on which I wrote my very first blog post from Nicaragua.  16 weeks later, we're back at the Casa San Juan, where it all started.  We've spent a surreal weekend doing "evaluations," but mainly just struggling with what it means that we're about to be ejected out of the country that has become our home for the past 3.5 months and inserted back into our own culture.  All our host moms came to the hotel tonight for a farewell dinner and our feeble attempt at a talent show, but they just boarded our faithful microbus with Don Pablo to head back to La Máximo and their newly gringo-less lives. *tear*

I'm not really worried about being shocked by America.  I'm usually pretty good at adapting to new surroundings quickly.  It's not what I'm heading back to that I'm scared of, but rather what I'm leaving behind.  I think I'm gonna have a rough time dealing with the fact that tomorrow I'm going to be hundreds of miles away from the 15 students with whom I have spent the past 109 days and that we're leaving the staff and our nica families behind.

So yeah.  7 am tomorrow: MGA-->MIA-->RDU-->2102 Englewood Ave.  And then two days later, off to my cousin Meri's LA wedding!  And then off to Providence to work for Commencement Week and turn 21 and hug all my senior friends before they head off into the real world!  And then...who knows.  I totally failed at obtaining summer employment from a distance.  Have a few interviews, but otherwise I'm unemployed and homeless as of June 1st.  Should be an interesting transition.  When I get a chance, I hope to collect myself and write one final post with lots of pretty pictures and deep thoughts.

But in the meantime: Cuidate, Nicaragua.  It's been unbelievable.  But it's time to go home, and I couldn't be more excited.  I've missed you guys.

I love you, mata-g / let's hear it for the girls

Well there it is.  A month entirely dedicated to one single academic pursuit (well, with a few necessary weekend trips, but you know...) reduced to 41 pages of processed tree pulp, bound with a tacky yellow plastic cover.  I am incredibly thankful to the oodles of people who helped me along the way, and I am rather proud of it.  [If you're interested, it's available here.  I'm gonna work on an English version in the next few weeks hopefully.]

I'm also grateful to La Buena Onda, the bangin' hostal I stayed at in Matagalpa while I was writing.  If you're ever in a situation where you have to perform a large amount of academic grunt work in Nicaragua, I highly recommend you check 'em out.  For $8/night, I got a bed, a host of beautiful patio writing locations, unlimited coffee (we're talking real coffee, not the instant kind that is ironically incredibly popular here, seeing as Nicaraguan coffee is considered extremely high quality and exported all over the world), and an extremely friendly group of employees and guests to distract me (Jenni and Tricia came up to work too later on which was great).  Also, Matagalpa is just a marvelous city.  Well, I don't know if it's actually that great, but the fact that it was not 100 degrees, soulless, and filled with trash made it seem like heaven.  The five days I spent just writing, relaxing, and socializing with the locals were among the best I've spent here.

The afternoon receptionist, Scarlette, invited me to be show-and-tell in the 11th grade English class she teaches one day, which was a blast.  The main activity consisted of me talking about myself very slowly while the one kid who had decent English skills loudly whispered a Spanish translation to the rest.  Then we played a game that involved shouting the names of various obscure professions in English (which I doubt they understood) and running around the room.  And then they were fluent.  Just kidding!  Man, was it perversely satisfying to be on the other end of poor-second-language skills. 

And now we're all back.  Even though it was only a month, in this study abroad time frame, it was a long time apart, and it's so nice to see everyone again.  Tonight is my last night with my family here.  I'm gonna write that again because it hasn't really sunk in.  Tonight is my last night with my family here.  Which means I'm about to go eat my last authentic home-cooked Nicaraguan dinner, watch my last Canal 2 telenovela, wash my last batch of clothes by hand, listen to my last snow jokes from Tío Alan...  It took us a little while to get close, but man, I'm gonna miss Mama Eva and co.  Tomorrow we move back into the hotel we stayed in for orientation, which should be surreal.  A dis-orientation, if you will.

There's one not-so-sweet thing I've been meaning to write about, something that hasn't affected me directly but deserves mentioning.  And that's the crap that the girls on this program have had to put up with over the last 15 weeks from the males in this country.  The worst we guys have had to deal with is the occasional hoot while running shirtless in the morning, and so I'm just starting to notice exactly how bad the constant barrage of whistles, derisive comments, sexual innuendo, uninvited advances, and general ungentlemanly behavior that my female friends have had to deal with is.  In some of the more abhorrent cases, guys have tried to jump into girls' beds in hostals, stalked them threateningly in the street, and touched them inappropriately and repeatedly.  There's just a different culture here about how you're allowed to treat people you consider to be sexual objects here, and it's not acceptable.  So here's to the girls of SIT: Nicaragua - Spring 2010.  Y'all had to deal with one of the grosser sides of this country, and you managed to make it through with dignity.

Ba dah!!!!

Just finished a draft of my ISP.  It's not formatted right, and it's probably chock-full of awful grammar errors, but it's 30 pages, it's in Spanish, and it even has a bibliography.  And that, dear readers, is very very much good enough for me right now.  Happy Saturday, y'all.

The beginning of the beginning of the end

Starting to feel the end of my time here in Nicaragua creeping up on me.  Two weeks to go, which sounds like nothing, but the monstrous mountain of incomplete items on my pre-departure to-do list is preventing me from processing my feelings about this.  But yeah, theoretically in two weeks, I will deplane at RDU.  So for now, I'll just say: that's weird.

One of those monstrous incomplete items would be the 30-page Spanish research paper I have to write by Sunday.  I'm not particularly worried about being able to crank out that much language in 5 days, but I am worried about being able to make it AWESOME.  I've never poured this much energy into a single academic project before, and as I'm not planning on writing a senior thesis, I feel like this is my big chance to prove my academic mettle.  So tomorrow morning [make that yesterday...ran out of time writing this], I'm leaving Managua one last time, heading off for Matagalpa to write my paper in a cooler, less trash-ridden city in a hostal that offers unlimited free coffee, 24 hours a day.

In other news, I have a new Nica friend!  Her name is Yazka, and she's a 31-year-old arquitecture student at the UNI, the engineering university in Managua.  I met her in an Urbanism class (which I was personally invited to by the Strategic Planning Director of the Municipal Government...oooo...), and she's taken a personal interest in the success of my project for some reason, directing me to various government departments and sharing her perspective on Managua's craziness.  I thought she was interested in me in a more-than-friendly way until last Friday, when she invited me out for drinks...with her boyfriend and her 24-year-old sister which she DEFINITELY was trying to set me up with.  It was a surprisingly unawkward evening, and I was immensely proud of myself for meeting my goal of befriending at least one Nica that wasn't in some way tied to SIT.  I will prize this Gchat forever: "aparte de todo me caistes muy buena onda, super un chico relax, amable si sencillo, no como otros norteamericanos que he conocido todos arrogantes."  Roughly: "Aside from everything else, I get good vibes from you, you're a super relaxed guy, friendly if simple, not like the other Americans I've met that are all arrogant."  Awww...

In other ISP news, I finally was able to take pictures of the current state of the abandoned historic center of the city.  My camera and I had to go accompanied, because otherwise the ladrones would get me.  So Tío Alan (of snow joke fame) and I set off on a photo documentary adventure.  Downtown Managua cooperated, and looked extra deserted and depressing.  A sample:

 La Plaza de la Revolución (or Plaza de la República, depending on your political taste).  Just off the left of the frame is the Old Cathedral, Kilometer Zero of Nicaragua.  We're talking dead center of the city.  And there's just nobody.

This plaza/park right across from the National Theater is used by driving schools, because the roads are always empty.

Compare with:

Sad, right?

The big disappointment of the week was that I wasn't able to get nearly enough survey responses about Managuan perspectives on their center-less-ness, so had to scrap it, after dedicating most of last week towards designing, planning, and attempting to realize it.  I got kicked out of a mall and turned down by so many people that it honestly hurt a little.  Oh well.  On the plus side, cutting that part out of my research meant I had time to head to Estelí for a Pacific Coast ISP reunion/Cassie's 21st Bday party last weekend.  So much fun.

(Courtesy of Tricia)

And now, back to my coffee drip.