Back to the Origin: The Woman Helping Adopted People Find Their Birth Parents

For more than two years, Raquel Rueda Pinilla has spent almost all of her time searching for the biological mothers and fathers of Colombians given up for adoption at home and abroad, without receiving anything in return. Together with a colleague in the United States, they have solved more than 90 cases and have more than 100 pending.

“Good morning, my name is Raquel Rueda Pinilla and I do social work. I help people given up for adoption to find their biological families ... Are you ...? There is a person who wants to know about you ”, is what Raquel always says.

The person on the other end of the line may say “no, she is wrong” or “yes, my name is that, but I have not given up adoption” or there may simply be a silence of several seconds, even minutes, that makes Raquel feel that this time it can be.

After endless calls, days or months of investigation and sleepless nights, because she does not take cases lightly but feels them more her own than if they were, the possibility of finally having hit the mark returns "that something" that he loses when he cannot find the way.

At 63 years old, who wears gracefully and proudly just as she wears her reddish freckles, she works more than many in her 30s and rests less than those her age. All day, every day for two and a half years, she has dedicated herself to helping people find their origin, their beginning, their roots, without trying to profit from it.

Raquel has helped Colombians adopted in Greenland, Denmark, the United States, England, the Netherlands and Australia meet and reunite with their biological family. (Photo: César Flórez / VANGUARDIA LIBERAL)

A mission

“You have to be very subtle, right? Write from your heart, what you feel ... Everything will be fine ... But you have to be sure that they deliver the letter, because well ... What a regret that you cannot deliver it yourself, but I know that everything It will turn out well ”, Raquel reassures the woman with whom she talks on the cell phone, who after 15 years of searching finally found her mother thanks to her help, but the meeting could not take place personally due to resistance from the family of Mother.

Raquel says goodbye, but not before telling her that she is calling her again to help her with the letter.

Then a call comes in from her partner, probably to tell her that there is a new case to be solved, but she does not answer and begins to tell how she decided to dedicate herself to helping Colombians who were adopted, at home or abroad, to find her biological family, after so many years.

In the best style of the detectives of the 50s, she takes out one of the four notebooks where she has annotated the information of each case, the advances, setbacks and new clues.

Every two pages, sometimes three or more, the notebook tells a different story and she wants to tell them all, always making a preamble with phrases like: "How do you think what I'm going to tell you?" In there is evidence of happy, sad and unfinished endings. Those last ones are the ones that keep you awake.

He says that it all started two and a half years ago when a nephew who lives in Holland told them that a friend he had in that country wanted to find her biological mother, who apparently lived in Colombia. The friend had some documents and Raquel, who has been retired for 8 years, told her nephew that she would take care of it. After three months of searching, hours spent doing it, and frustration at not seeing results, he succeeded.

- “She knew, from the information the ICBF had given her, that her mother lived in San Alberto and I started looking there, but nothing. Not even the priest gave reason. Then I got the ID number and looked even in the Sisbén records. I found her in Girón, in a neighborhood going to Zapatoca, I contacted her, I visited her and well, the rest is a happy ending. The girl came to Bucaramanga and they saw each other and shared several days, ”she says.

After that and seeing the happiness that comes from finding what has always been believed to be lost, Raquel decided to dedicate herself to looking for the missing pieces of the puzzle that life means to many. He made that his mission.

Raquel and her partner do not know each other. Her name is María Ángeles Rogles, she is 72 years old, lives in Jacksonville, United States, and in the midst of countless and unsuccessful attempts to find the biological mother of the child she adopted more than 40 years ago, she became a support for those who like your child want to know the story of your life.

Together they have helped 90 people to reconcile with a past that they had denied until they came of age, at which time, with or without the help of their adoptive family, they can ask for all the information there is about their adoption.

Most of the cases, Raquel says, are from Colombians who were adopted abroad and that is why they have made a great team with María Ángeles, who is fluent in English.

Raquel "does not understand a word" of that language, but it has never been a problem. María understands with foreigners and she with families who one day decided to leave them in other hands for one reason or another.

When the reunions happen and Raquel can be present, she always brings her bedside translators: two nephews, who have even traveled to other cities in Colombia just to serve as interpreters.

“Like the day I went to Popayán to help reunite two twins who were given up for adoption in Australia. Pay attention to it: the mother already had a child and she left home for a while to work and left him to the grandmother. At that time she became pregnant with twins and could not return home with them and gave them up for adoption. They contacted me, I found her right there in Popayán and they came. A nephew accompanied me there, without charging anything and he was translating for about four days, ”he remembers.

Both Raquel and María are already all experts. The first, in exhaustive searches, thanks to the experience acquired during more than 30 years of work in bank portfolio collection, which strengthened their abilities to search and track historical information and addresses from the ID. The second, on issues of adoptions, DNA banks, connections and more.

Through a Facebook page they receive cases daily, which they study and analyze before starting to investigate. Raquel looks for names, numbers, addresses, calls, discards, if there is no identification, she finds it, if there is no place, she tracks it through its affiliation to health or Sisbén and thus any indication.

They have around 120 pending cases and are working on more than 30. There are some easy ones, others not so much and some almost impossible, but none of them rule it out. They keep hope because that is how they make those who help, also do it.

At 7:30 pm Raquel receives a message from her partner. New case. The information that the adoptee has is not much: the mother's name, an identity card and that's it.

Unsolved cases

These are some of the most difficult cases Raquel is working on. All were born in Bucaramanga, were given up for adoption in the country or abroad and today they are looking for their biological mother.

- Claudia Patricia Hernández Anaya, born in the González Valencia hospital between April 8 and 10, 1989.

- Willian Ortiz Niño, born in Bucaramanga on February 22, 1976.

- Silvia Juliana Cubides, born in Bucaramanga on May 22, 1976.

- Bernardo and Ricardo Rodríguez Castro, born in 1979 and 1980 and left by their mother in Lebrija Santander.

- Juan Luis Jesús Jiménez, born in Bucaramanga. Born on November 25, 1980