Feature: Fostering Cinnamon’s Freedom
ALBERT EINSTEIN. I had just given my 16-year-old foster kid, Cinnamon (not her real name), a personality test and I was thrilled. It said she had the same personality as Albert Einstein—a deep thinker, able to solve complex problems. I felt like I had discovered a golden nugget everyone else had overlooked. My mind went into overdrive: booking a tutor, finding out about early college admittance, giving her her own room to have space to quantify the universe. Cinnamon regarded the personality test with much less enthusiasm, then asked if we could go to McDonald’s.
Fostering
Cinnamon’s FREEDOM By Muyoka Mwarabu
Photos: Left/top: The author, her daughter, and Cinnamon at Union Street Bridge in Salem. Right/bottom: The author and Cinnamon making chapatis, an African food, on New Year’s Eve. Photos courtesy of the author
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After a summer of changing diapers, I had asked the Department of Child and Family Services for a 16-year-old girl. I had made a master plan. For the next two years, I would teach her everything I had learned in corporate America and help her get to college. In exchange, I would get more help around the house with cleaning and cooking. The department flooded my inbox, and I painstakingly read through each profile. I picked Cinnamon because of her story. She should have entered foster care three years earlier, when her sister did, but she had stayed loyal to her sick mom. She had been left behind to endure more, and then entered into a system that highly favored younger children. When I called to speak with her on the phone, she said, “I don’t eat that much, so if you let me come to your house, you won’t have to buy that much more.” I called her social worker and said yes. A week later a 5’4” bundle was dropped at my door. I had read books on teenagers and the social worker had given me
Vancouver Family Magazine • www.vancouverfamilymagazine.com • May 2021
pamphlets, but the real thing was different. At the park, Cinnamon didn’t play on the structures with the other kids. Instead, she would sit next to me and tell me stories about her life. She was easy to talk to, humble and absolutely hilarious. Her life had not been easy, but she had this inner strength and beautiful personality that had withstood a harsh environment. She was beautiful on the outside too. Strangers frequently stopped us to tell her how beautiful she was. So it didn’t take long for the boys to come calling. One day she told me she had met a guy on the internet and wanted to meet him in person. Rico Suave had offered to take her to a Ramen restaurant after hearing that I forbid Top Ramen in my house. I saw his game from a mile away and wanted to lock her in her room till she was 18. But, locking a kid in their room until 18 was apparently against DCYF protocol, so I compromised. I needed his home address, parent’s phone number and high school transcript. Rico Suave showed up with my requests and flowers. Letting her go was nerve racking. I sat on the couch for the next three hours completely restless. She was supposed to be home by 8 p.m. When the clock hit continued on page 22
