Extreme heat warning in effect through Sunday

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Ania McNamara clutched a napkin bearing a
hand-drawn map as she walked down a barren street in Chotomow,
Poland. She came to the spot the store clerk had marked and looked
up at the building. It was the same green gate from her memories.


      The sign read, "Dom Dziecka," the House of Children.


      A few kids ran through the yard as McNamara made her way up the
path. "Where are the sisters?" she asked in Polish. One pointed
toward the house. McNamara made her way to the door and knocked.

      "Can I speak to the sisters?" she asked the little girl who
opened the door. The child disappeared into the orphanage and soon
returned with an old nun.

      In broken Polish, McNamara tried to explain who she was. But she
didn't need to. Sister Elizabeth knew.


      "The eyes of little Ania," Sister Elizabeth exclaimed.


      McNamara, a 20-year-old student at Saint Mary's University in
Winona, returned in April to the orphanage where she and her three
sisters were adopted 16 years ago. In Europe studying for a
semester, McNamara had become haunted by the fact that her
birthplace was so nearby. Her friends had already flown home, but
she decided to stay, to find her birthplace and the nuns who raised
her.

      Standing in the doorway to the orphanage, McNamara didn't
recognize Sister Elizabeth. But the nun hadn't forgotten McNamara's
striking blue eyes. Sister Elizabeth left and returned with a photo
pressed to her chest. She turned it around for McNamara to see. It
was McNamara and her three sisters with their adoptive mom 16 years
ago.

      "I just started crying," McNamara said. "It was equivalent to
meeting my real parents."


      For the next four hours, the nuns talked with McNamara through a
translator - a teacher from nearby who knew English. She asked
questions about the orphanage and the children there. She saw her
old room again. And the same 16 narrow stair steps she used to run
up and down.

      The orphanage hadn't changed much. Photos of past popes hung in
the doorway. Children still prayed in the pews of the orphanage
chapel and made mud pies in the sandbox. The nuns still wore black
habits.

      But there were differences, too. The older children no longer
all sleep in one large room. And the orphanage has computers now.

      McNamara has little chance of ever finding her birth parents.
The orphanage has no records, and most of what McNamara knows about
her parents has come from the memories of the nuns who raised her.


      They say McNamara and her sisters were left to them after her
mother abandoned the family. Her father cared for the girls for a
while, but eventually left them at the orphanage when he could no
longer keep up. He visited infrequently, then stopped coming
altogether.

      McNamara isn't bothered not knowing her father and mother, and
she doesn't blame her father for leaving her. He did the
responsible thing, she says.


      Back at the orphanage, McNamara's visit was coming to an end.
She had a plane to catch. She said her goodbyes to the nuns and
promised to stay in touch.


      "I got back on the bus and wanted to tell everyone," she said,
"but no one would understand me."


      When McNamara got back to Winona in April, she told her friends
about the visit. She could hardly believe it herself. But the more
she told her story, the more the children and nuns seemed to
consume her thoughts. She knew she had to help them out somehow.


      "The journey back to Poland changed me," she said. "I just
wanted to do something for someone else."


      So McNamara spent the next couple of months gathering cards,
toys and blankets to send to the children for Christmas. She knows
what it's like to have to share gifts with 30 other kids.


      Her past few weekends have been consumed in preparation. She and
her friends made blankets. They wrapped the presents. They put
bells on the packages. And some of the friends even wrote
personalized cards for each child and nun - in Polish.


      Nikki Kolupailo, McNamara's 21-year-old roommate, paced around a
classroom on the SMU campus last week making sure everything was in
order. She was one of the first people to hear McNamara's story.
And she has been by her side ever since.


      "She seemed whole when she got back," Kolupailo said. "She's
just happier. It's like there's a glow to her."


      Kolupailo handed off a package to Bailey England, 21, another
volunteer and friend of McNamara's.


      "Ania has a drive that's so rare in someone her age," England
said. "She inspires me every day."


      The next step is sending off the packages, which McNamara
expects will cost more than $1,000.


      "It takes a second to change a kid's life," she said. "And a
few dollars out of pocket. But it is worth it. We should all be
helping others."


      McNamara is the first of her three sisters to go back to Poland
since the adoption. They plan to all return together someday.


      But for now, McNamara wants to concentrate on finishing her
marketing and entrepreneur majors at SMU, though, of course, she
plans to stay in touch with the nuns and children. The questions about her past that haunted her for years have
mostly been answered.


      "I feel that everything I really wanted to know, the orphanage
answered it for me," she said. "And now I want to provide those
kids with the comfort I have."
      

Gallery

Ania McNamara, a 20-year-old student at Saint Mary's University in
Winona, returned in April to the orphanage where she and her three
sisters were adopted 16 years ago.

Minnesota student returns home to Polish orphanage

Go Deeper.

Like this?