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Strange life of the housewife who grew up with monkeys
The extraordinary story of the woman who was kidnapped as a child, left to fend for herself in the Colombian rainforest - and later married a church organist in Yorkshire.
The Telegraph
Philip Sherwell, Cúcuta, Colombia
10/28/2012
Excerpts:
Nancy Forero Eusse’s first memory of the little girl was seeing her perched on top of a mango tree near the canal that ran past their homes in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. “It was such a curious thing,” recalls Miss Forero Eusse, who was about five at the time. “She would hang out in that tree. Not just in the branches, but high up, right at the top.”
The new arrival was as nervous as she was agile, slow to speak, and with a sadness in her eyes. She was a street child, she said, who had been taken in by a local family, only to be forced to work all day and sleep under the stove on the kitchen floor.
Only after she was rescued from her abusers and adopted by the Eusse family did the girl – who thought she was about 10 years old, and asked to be called Luz Marina – begin recounting remarkable snippets about her life.
“She started to talk about what had happened before,” says Miss Forero Eusse, 57. “It was incredible.”
An extraordinary story slowly emerged: Marina had been abducted as a small child, then abandoned in the jungle where she lived alongside colonies of monkeys, foraging for food and sheltering in trees.
Even after she was found by hunters and brought into Cúcuta, her ordeal continued. She initially lived rough in a park with other homeless children. She was then taken in by an abusive family who treated her like a slave.
But her odyssey did not end with her adoption by Nancy’s family. For the little girl up the mango tree is now Marina Chapman, a Yorkshire housewife, married to a church organist, mother and grandmother, volunteer and enthusiastic cook of South American cuisine.
It is an inspiring life-story but one that Mrs Chapman has long been reluctant to share beyond her closest family. She is now, however, going public with a memoir, to be published next year to raise funds for a street-children’s charity, and which has already been sold to seven countries after a scramble by publishers to obtain the rights.
......................................
Luz Marina also had other plans. She had fallen in love with the church organist, John Chapman, a quiet, 28-year-old bacteriologist, even though neither of them spoke the other’s language.
Their wedding in 1979 was an intimate ceremony at the church, though some members of her adoptive family attended. The Chapmans began married life in the sleepy town of Wilsden, where they had their first daughter Joanna in 1980 and their second, Vanessa, three years later.
Marina began slowly learning the language and the culture, but made sure not to forget her own, teaching Spanish to the girls and recounting stories from her childhood. According to her publishers at Mainstream, that included showing them how she could scale trees and catch wild birds and rabbits with her bare hands.
She later worked as a cook at the National Media Museum before making the decision to work with children, in part to make up for missing out on much of her own childhood.
She took a childcare course through the Rathbone charity in Bradford while working part-time at a nursery where her daughter Joanna was manager. She also became heavily involved in fund-raising for her church, and supported the charity, Substitute Families for Abandoned Children.
Rachel Knox, a Rathbone childcare training adviser, remembers Mrs Chapman as a sensitive figure who had a natural affinity with children.
“When I met her I thought she was incredible. I was amazed at what she’d been through, her life story is like a TV drama,” says Miss Knox.
“I couldn’t believe it when she said she’d never been to school. Marina is such an inspiration. She shows what can be achieved with determination and hard work when it seems the odds are stacked against you.” - (bold emphasis added)
Former neighbours meanwhile recounted how she had fitted in to the community, despite her struggles with the language. “It’s hard to reconcile what she must have gone through as a child with the confident woman everyone knew,” said Janet Robson. “She was always the beautiful, exotic-looking woman who brightened up the street. She was a doting mother to her two baby girls and would always be cooking for everyone, which made her very popular.”
.........................................
View the complete article, including video, at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...h-monkeys.html
The extraordinary story of the woman who was kidnapped as a child, left to fend for herself in the Colombian rainforest - and later married a church organist in Yorkshire.
The Telegraph
Philip Sherwell, Cúcuta, Colombia
10/28/2012
Excerpts:
Nancy Forero Eusse’s first memory of the little girl was seeing her perched on top of a mango tree near the canal that ran past their homes in the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. “It was such a curious thing,” recalls Miss Forero Eusse, who was about five at the time. “She would hang out in that tree. Not just in the branches, but high up, right at the top.”
The new arrival was as nervous as she was agile, slow to speak, and with a sadness in her eyes. She was a street child, she said, who had been taken in by a local family, only to be forced to work all day and sleep under the stove on the kitchen floor.
Only after she was rescued from her abusers and adopted by the Eusse family did the girl – who thought she was about 10 years old, and asked to be called Luz Marina – begin recounting remarkable snippets about her life.
“She started to talk about what had happened before,” says Miss Forero Eusse, 57. “It was incredible.”
An extraordinary story slowly emerged: Marina had been abducted as a small child, then abandoned in the jungle where she lived alongside colonies of monkeys, foraging for food and sheltering in trees.
Even after she was found by hunters and brought into Cúcuta, her ordeal continued. She initially lived rough in a park with other homeless children. She was then taken in by an abusive family who treated her like a slave.
But her odyssey did not end with her adoption by Nancy’s family. For the little girl up the mango tree is now Marina Chapman, a Yorkshire housewife, married to a church organist, mother and grandmother, volunteer and enthusiastic cook of South American cuisine.
It is an inspiring life-story but one that Mrs Chapman has long been reluctant to share beyond her closest family. She is now, however, going public with a memoir, to be published next year to raise funds for a street-children’s charity, and which has already been sold to seven countries after a scramble by publishers to obtain the rights.
......................................
Luz Marina also had other plans. She had fallen in love with the church organist, John Chapman, a quiet, 28-year-old bacteriologist, even though neither of them spoke the other’s language.
Their wedding in 1979 was an intimate ceremony at the church, though some members of her adoptive family attended. The Chapmans began married life in the sleepy town of Wilsden, where they had their first daughter Joanna in 1980 and their second, Vanessa, three years later.
Marina began slowly learning the language and the culture, but made sure not to forget her own, teaching Spanish to the girls and recounting stories from her childhood. According to her publishers at Mainstream, that included showing them how she could scale trees and catch wild birds and rabbits with her bare hands.
She later worked as a cook at the National Media Museum before making the decision to work with children, in part to make up for missing out on much of her own childhood.
She took a childcare course through the Rathbone charity in Bradford while working part-time at a nursery where her daughter Joanna was manager. She also became heavily involved in fund-raising for her church, and supported the charity, Substitute Families for Abandoned Children.
Rachel Knox, a Rathbone childcare training adviser, remembers Mrs Chapman as a sensitive figure who had a natural affinity with children.
“When I met her I thought she was incredible. I was amazed at what she’d been through, her life story is like a TV drama,” says Miss Knox.
“I couldn’t believe it when she said she’d never been to school. Marina is such an inspiration. She shows what can be achieved with determination and hard work when it seems the odds are stacked against you.” - (bold emphasis added)
Former neighbours meanwhile recounted how she had fitted in to the community, despite her struggles with the language. “It’s hard to reconcile what she must have gone through as a child with the confident woman everyone knew,” said Janet Robson. “She was always the beautiful, exotic-looking woman who brightened up the street. She was a doting mother to her two baby girls and would always be cooking for everyone, which made her very popular.”
.........................................
View the complete article, including video, at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...h-monkeys.html