The Girl With No Name: The Incredible Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys

by Marina Chapman

  the girl

  with no name

  THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF A CHILD RAISED BY MONKEYS

  marina chapman

  with Vanessa James and

  Lynne Barrett-Lee

  PEGASUS BOOKS

  NEW YORK LONDON

  Contents

  Foreword

  Prologue

  PART 1

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  PART 2

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  A note by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  Organisations of interest

  This book is dedicated to Maria Nelly & Amadeo (Forero)

  And in memory of loving Maruja

  Foreword

  ‘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 giv
ing 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

  Prologue

  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.

  I also remember a sewing machine. It was black with gold squiggles on the side and beside it there was a chair, on which would often be piles of fabric. Were they unfinished dresses? Perhaps my mother liked sewing? I will never know. What I do know is that my home was a humble one — our toilet was a hole in the ground. I also have a strong sense of activity going on. Of there always being lots of people around. Of the village being alive with the constant noise of children.

  I recall the outside of my small world rather better. A redbrick path is very clear. I remember it ran from the house into a garden, and then on to a kind of allotment, where I am sure I spent many hours picking vegetables. I remember that place well, and alongside that memory there’s one of being called for, of being shouted at by someone to come back, to return home. Which I would mostly disobey. When this memory comes to me, it’s as if I am on the point of remembering my real name, as of course that’s what they would have been shouting. It tantalises me, remaining just outside my reach.

  And what else? What other things are still clear to me? There’s an image of adults walking down a long winding hill and then toiling back up again, carrying containers full of water. I remember cars. They were very rare. No more than three or four a day came. Today, when I see mountains, something stirs in me, so I have the feeling I might have lived up in the mountains.

  And that’s all I can tell you, for I know nothing more. Because one day everything changed for ever.

  PART 1

  1

  There was something about pea pods that mesmerised me. I didn’t know why, but there was something magical about the way the bloated pods burst so cleanly in my hand when I squeezed them. So the corner of the allotment where the peas grew was special, and I would spend hours there, engrossed in my own little world.

  The vegetable patch was a piece of land at the end of our garden. On that day, as with many others when there was nothing else happening, I had sneaked off down the brick path that led from our back doorstep, down the garden and through the back gate. I was aware of other children being around. I could hear them but had no desire to find out the cause of their excited chatter. I just wanted to sit in the cool, leafy shade, cocooned from the glare of the sunlight.

  I was four, almost five — I recall waiting impatiently for my fifth birthday — and from my diminutive vantage point, the vegetable plants were like giants. They grew in raised beds, forming bushy green bowers as well as tall vines that seemed to clamber across the fence. First there was the cabbage patch and lettuces, then the ranks of tall, straggly runner beans, then the place where the peas grew, the plants dense and bushy, a mass of tendrils and leaves and heavy pods.

  I knelt down and plucked the nearest pod, marvelling at the satisfying crack! it made as I burst it open between my fingers. Inside the fat jacket were the glossy emerald globes I was after, and I popped the tiny sweet ones into my mouth.

  Very soon I had a small pile of spent pods all around me and a growing pile of discarded peas neatly heaped by my side. Lost in my activity, I was oblivious to the fact that I was not the only person in the allotment that day.

  It happened so quickly, it’s only a brief snippet of a memory. One minute I was squatting on the bare earth, preoccupied. The next, I saw the flash of a black hand and white cloth, and before I even had a chance to cry out it had sailed towards my face and completely covered it.

  I think I probably tried to scream. It would have been instinctive to do so. Perhaps I even managed to. But away in my special place, who would have heard me? And as I jerked in surprise and terror, there was the sharp smell of some sort of chemical that had already shot into my lungs. The hand was huge and rough around my face, and the strength of whoever held me was overpowering. My last thought as I began to slip into unconsciousness was
a simple one: I was obviously going to die.

  *

  I had no idea of how much time had passed when I slowly began to rouse from my drug-induced slumber, but I was aware that everything felt strange. I started to tune in to faint noises around me, willing my ears to catch something that might reassure me. Where was I? What had happened?

  I tried pulling my body out from its intense sleep, but my eyelids felt too heavy. I couldn’t muster the strength to open them to see, so I continued to listen and try to make sense of things, attempting to paint a picture in my mind.

  Soon, I was able to identify the sounds of farm animals — I was sure I could hear hens. Pigs too, perhaps. Ducks. I could also hear another sound I thought I recognised. It was an engine. And soon after came the realisation that the noise of the engine was all around me and that I was jerking in time to its tune. The noise rose and fell and juddered, and I juddered with it. I was in a car! Or — no, that might be it! — a truck.

  What was definite was that we were travelling over an uneven, rocky surface — a fact confirmed when I finally managed to find the strength to open my eyes. Bright daylight almost blinded me, and colours blurred into stripes as they rushed past me. I had no idea where I was, much less where I was being taken, but the vehicle I was in seemed to be travelling at great speed and I kept sliding around.

  Next, I realised I wasn’t alone in the back of the truck. Though I couldn’t focus my vision on the other passengers around me, I could hear crying and whimpering and anguished sobs of ‘Let me go!’ There were other children in the truck — terrified children, just like me.

  I don’t know if it was the fear, or just the effect of whatever they’d given me, but the voices and images then began to fade into a blur of sound and colour, and I drifted once again into unconsciousness.

  *

  When I woke next, once again I had no sense of how much time might have passed. I was focused on just one thing: the slap of irregular wet splashes to my face. The ground around me seemed to be shaking, and I realised I was being carried by an adult. My body was being thrown around in time with hurried footsteps, and I was facing the moving earth, my hair swinging over my eyes. I was getting tangled and slapped with leaves and twigs as I travelled. Thorns snagged my legs and feet, tearing my skin painfully.