Word: madonna
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...biological father of 13-month-old Malawian boy David says he did not know that American pop star Madonna would be taking his son "for good" when she came to adopt him earlier this month (a claim government officials dispute). But Yohane Banda tells TIME that his son is now better off and he would be "killing" David's future to insist his son returns...
...wife Malita Lungu, a Zambian who gave birth to David across the border in her native country, died just a week after David was born, Banda struggled to raise his son with the help of relatives and friends. But a month later he sent David to the orphanage where Madonna would later find him. TIME reporter Peter Kumwenda interviewed Banda in his modest home this week...
...Madonna's disciples have their work cut out for them as they set out to defend her. No, the adoption was not illegal, they insist, she had not pulled strings, "bought" a baby; no, he was not just her latest accessory, this was not Western imperialism run amok, she would honor his heritage. Yes, it is true that as Madonna's child he will never have a normal life, but then his life was all too perfectly normal where he came from; a mother dead soon after childbirth, two brothers lost to malaria, a majority of the population living...
...piece of the story. David was not an orphan. His father, a potato farmer named Yohane, brought him to the orphanage after losing his wife and two other sons, and was too poor, too broken to take care of David anymore. "They are a lovely couple," Yohane said of Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie. "She asked me many questions. She and her husband seem happy with David. Madonna promised me that as the child grows she will bring him back to visit...
...There are surely many millions of children who do not even have what Baby David had, one loving, living parent close by. Their lives are in the hands of fate: the same fate that allowed David to catch Madonna's eye, when the orphanage emailed her pictures, when she came down to play, and decided she wanted to bring him home...