Hogar Rafael Ayau

Hogar Rafael Ayau—or simply the “Hogar” which means “the home” in Spanish—is named after the guardian of orphans, the Angel Raphael. The Hogar is located in the deteriorated old center of Guatemala City, Guatemala. It is a compound of eight buildings covering a full city block and surrounded by an eighteen-foot-high brick wall. It is an oasis of flowers and green, laughter and innocence, faith and prayer, love and hope, just the thickness of a brick away from the desperation of the streets around it.

February 1998

I’ve been sitting on a pretty huge piece of my own news—I’m in the midst of adoption proceedings. I’m adopting from a Russian orphanage, and although I don’t know who my child will be yet, I’m asking for a little girl aged 3–6. Absolutely insane? At my age (my late forties), being single. . . . But I’ve learned (via the Internet) that there are other people in my position who have adopted, and that it is possible. And by their accounts being an “old” and single parent of an adopted child is exhausting overwhelming hard work but utterly unbeatable at the same time. Which is pretty much what I thought.