afrolito Posted June 21, 2009 Share Posted June 21, 2009 annoyingly hands on.....wow!.........like the poor and middle class.........right! so if your rich your not to be burden with being hands on?????? it has been 24 hour he not been with the kid in 3 month...........just giving my opinion.............so back off! If you can't handle a simple comment on a message board, how do you survive in the real world? Chill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest joliepast Posted June 21, 2009 Share Posted June 21, 2009 If you can't handle a simple comment on a message board, how do you survive in the real world? Chill. oh give me a break, nothing on this board is piercing, or hitting any nerve. I wrote something, someone wrote back and so on, now moving on please. mercy is even cuter in "person" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOUR2008 Posted June 22, 2009 Author Share Posted June 22, 2009 http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showb...in-London1.html WIDE-eyed Malawian orphan Mercy James gazes at the hustle and bustle of London yesterday — just 48 hours after arriving in Britain as Madonna’s new daughter. In the first photograph of the four-year-old since she was whisked from her African homeland, she appears transfixed as she is held by her nanny. New home ... Mercy, held by nanny, at door of London pad Ray Collins Close pals of MADONNA say the 50-year-old singer will “cocoon” Mercy at her Marylebone townhouse for a week as she adjusts to her new life. To guarantee a little peace and quiet she has sent her three-year-old adopted Malawian son David Banda and son Rocco, eight, to their director dad GUY RITCHIE’s home. Mercy is said to have “slept throughout” the 6,000-mile flight on a private jet from Malawian capital Lilongwe to Heathrow on Friday. Guy ... with pals EROTEME.CO.UK Then, as she was reunited with Madge at her luxury London home, she reduced her to tears by saying: “Moni, moni Mummy” — “Hello, hello Mummy” in her native Chichewa tongue. Her new brothers and sister Lourdes, 12, threw Mercy a short tea party before Madonna, known to pals as Em, took her to a special blessing at a Kabbalah centre. The family friend said: “Em has been waiting for this moment for years, but realises that she shouldn’t over-stimulate Mercy by immediately smothering her with attention and things to do. “After all, she has been in this before when she brought David home from Malawi so she understands how confusing it must be. Advertisement “The next few days are all about cocooning Mercy from the world and getting her used to being around her new family. “Em had hoped to have all the children together for the next few days. “But David couldn’t contain his excitement and was tearing round the house like a runaway horse. He kept shouting, ‘I want to see my sister,” and endlessly hugging and tugging at her. “In the end it was best to pack him off with Rocco to Guy’s place in Wiltshire. Guy has been here to meet Mercy too. Early days ... Madonna with Mercy in Malawi Reuters “Em has a gentle few days planned ahead, with lots of singing and reading to her new daughter. “Mercy has already fallen in love with the £2,000 rocking horse Em has placed in her bedroom. She can’t take her eyes off it.” Madonna had originally planned to fly out to Malawi to collect Mercy herself, but experts advised her to stay in London and let the little girl “acclimatise” before jetting on to her New York home. Mercy was flown out of Malawi in a Cessna jet with her nanny, nurse and Phillip van den Bossche — head of Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity. She was taken through Heathrow flanked by ex-Israeli special forces bodyguards. The Sun revealed back in 2007 that Madonna wanted to adopt Mercy James. We also told exclusively how the singer would win her controversial adoption appeal — with judges officially giving full custody two weeks ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cosmic_system Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 So much bullshit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markm Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Madonna and Mercy: What Really Happened? Showing Monday June 29th on Channel 4 at 8pm Last week Malawi's Supreme Court of Appeal overturned an earlier ruling and granted Madonna's adoption of Mercy James. Ahead of the verdict presenter and journalist Jacques Peretti travelled through Malawi to find out why Madonna's bid to adopt Mercy has polarised opinion both in Malawi and around the world. On 12th June 2009, Madonna's lawyers were successful in their appeal when Malawi's Supreme Court upheld her application for adoption. This documentary looks at the future for Mercy as she prepares to move to New York with the pop star and asks what's best for Mercy? Should she have stayed in her orphanage in Malawi? Prior to the latest ruling Peretti spoke exclusively to Mercy's father, James Kambewa, as well as her grandmother Lucy, who originally opposed the adoption, and her uncles, who signed the legal papers supporting it. Peretti seeks to understand the complexities of this moral minefield and also speaks to the Executive Director of Madonna's charity Raising Malawi, which is based on Madonna's commitment to Kabbalah, and visits the orphanage where Mercy was placed. Peretti follows events across Malawi as they developed, as one child's life hovered between privilege and poverty. http://forums.digiguide.com/topic.asp?id=3...ng+on+Channel+4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreeMySoul Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Fucking Angelina Jolie adopts a fucking army and nobody bats an eyelash, Madonna adopts 2 fucking orphans and its an international crisis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannylex Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Fucking Angelina Jolie adopts a fucking army and nobody bats an eyelash, Madonna adopts 2 fucking orphans and its an international crisis. true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neutrocks Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 This is not what "really happened". This is journalist Jacques Peretti's version of what HE THINKS happened. And here is an article which is supposedly a fair representation of the reaction of Madonna's adoption and involvement in Malawi and condemns Peretti's journalism tactics by Malawian broadcast journalist, Victor Kaongam working with an international Christian radio network: Malawi: Reactions to Madonna's adoption of Chifundo http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/06/23/m...on-of-chifundo/ For some who never knew Malawi, they have gotten to hear about the country in Africa purely because of Madonna whose full name is not known to many. It appears that the generally many Malawians are happy that the Madonna is able to adopt needy children from Malawi in spite of the fears of what this trend may create. When she first appeared in Malawi to adopt David Banda in 2006, there were mixed reactions. When the debate over her adoption finally died down, rumors started appearing that the pop star was actually dating Malawi to pick another child: this time a girl Chifundo (Mercy) James. Blogger Rex Chikoko reported that however the journey seemed a bit tough this time as the High Court Judge Esme Chombo said that according to Malawi's intercountry adoption laws, Madonna could not take the child as she had resided in Malawi for about 18 months. However, an appeal to Supreme Court saw Chifundo get mercy on the basis that residence in modern day world can be anywhere and someone can have more than one residence. Reactions have been many and many continue debating and discussing what will become of Malawi with such a Supreme Court ruling. Meanwhile Chifundo has arrived in London. Madonna's new daughter has flown out of her native Malawi on a private jet headed for London, an airport employee and a person familiar with Madonna's adoption proceedings in this southern African country said Saturday. The airport employee, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, said 3-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James left late Friday headed to London, with a stop in neighboring South Africa. The girl, the second child Madonna has adopted from Malawi, was reportedly accompanied on the flight by a nanny, a child nurse and a third aide. A jounalist and regular blogger Kondwani Munthali while writing about the Madonna, was angered by an article in The Gurdian by one Jacques Peretti , which mocks Malawi and another in the Mirror which claims Madonna bribed Malawians with US$19 million to get the child. Sick and very sick reports. Mr. Peretti when he comes back to Malawi we will take him back to our schools of Journalism that he can learn to report “facts” and not his own creations as he has done. He claims there is a mass grave in Malawi which we bury three babies everyday, my foot. Munthali says that he wrote his post merely to put the record straight about Madonna's latest adoption. Given the context of the debate, another blogger, Ndagha stated that he could not understand why Madonna was granted the second child. Some Malawians have equate Madonna to ‘Ma Donor' meaning she is a donor of funds to the Malawian people especially the lucky few children are under her Malawi Raising Project. It has to be pointed out that there are more reactions that are not documented in Malawi on Madonna's adoption of children. While reactions are many, what remains in the mind of Malawians is whether Madonna or other celebrities will not get to Malawi to adopt more children based on the precedent set by the Supreme Court of Malawi ruling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest joliepast Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Madonna and Mercy: What Really Happened? Showing Monday June 29th on Channel 4 at 8pm Last week Malawi's Supreme Court of Appeal overturned an earlier ruling and granted Madonna's adoption of Mercy James. Ahead of the verdict presenter and journalist Jacques Peretti travelled through Malawi to find out why Madonna's bid to adopt Mercy has polarised opinion both in Malawi and around the world. On 12th June 2009, Madonna's lawyers were successful in their appeal when Malawi's Supreme Court upheld her application for adoption. This documentary looks at the future for Mercy as she prepares to move to New York with the pop star and asks what's best for Mercy? Should she have stayed in her orphanage in Malawi? Prior to the latest ruling Peretti spoke exclusively to Mercy's father, James Kambewa, as well as her grandmother Lucy, who originally opposed the adoption, and her uncles, who signed the legal papers supporting it. Peretti seeks to understand the complexities of this moral minefield and also speaks to the Executive Director of Madonna's charity Raising Malawi, which is based on Madonna's commitment to Kabbalah, and visits the orphanage where Mercy was placed. Peretti follows events across Malawi as they developed, as one child's life hovered between privilege and poverty. http://forums.digiguide.com/topic.asp?id=3...ng+on+Channel+4[/uri is that the US or UK? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ursaminorjim Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 The UK, I'm sure. It's hardly news at all over here. The extent of the coverage her adoption has recieved in the States is nothing more than some short congratulations from the morning news shows on the day it went through. As it should be, really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest joliepast Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 here is the link for mercy and me promo/trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYjjgq9pZ3o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lymon Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Fucking Angelina Jolie adopts a fucking army and nobody bats an eyelash, Madonna adopts 2 fucking orphans and its an international crisis. Exactly! People think Madonna is just "copying Angelina". That's just a really disgusting thing to say. Madonna isn't following a trend by adopting, she's giving this girl(and David before her) a better life. And Madonna has set many more trends then Angelina could even think of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest joliepast Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 ANGELINA HOlie does not have the copy write to adoption! she is no different then Josephine, mia, etc............... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Not4Pussies Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 at least madonna has gone back to malawi every year i havent seen angelina go back to the countries where her kids are from she just goes to certain countries and poses like she cares and is concerned... and then she leaves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest joliepast Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 (edited) Look at this old interview of Madonna talking about adoption very interesting, right. look at the 6:43 mark! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jffxLzW-vYo watch the whole thing actually she talks about her mom, cries, wow! Edited June 24, 2009 by joliepast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magom Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Look at this old interview of Madonna talking about adoption very interesting, right. look at the 6:43 mark! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jffxLzW-vYo watch the whole thing actually she talks about her mom, cries, wow! Plus: She looks beautiful here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOUR2008 Posted June 28, 2009 Author Share Posted June 28, 2009 Madonna's adopted daughter Mercy was to be returned to family, grandmother claims Mercy, the Malawian child adopted by Madonna, was to be returned to her family from the orphanage she was living in, her grandmother has claimed. By Ben Leach Published: 8:10AM BST 28 Jun 2009 Madonna adopted Mercy after a court in Malawi ruled she could adopt the four year old Photo: REUTERS Lucy Chekechiwa, the maternal grandmother of Chifundo "Mercy" James, said that the family never agreed to put the four-year-old up for adoption on a permanent basis. She said she had long fought to keep Mercy, whom the southern African country's highest court ruled that Madonna could adopt earlier this month, and that she had only recently given up her long battle to keep her. Related Articles Madonna starts life with new daughter Mercy Madonna adoption: singer 'donated £12m to Malawi' Madonna's plans to adopt a second Malawi orphan blocked by angry grandmother Madonna allowed to adopt Mercy by Malawi court Madonna allowed to adopt second child Mercy from Malawi Madonna keeps fighting for MercyShe said: "The initial agreement was that Mercy was to be kept in the orphanage for six years. After six years Mercy was supposed to be brought back here and then I would have taken care of her. "At first I didn't want her to go but as a family we had to sit down and reach an agreement and we agreed that Mercy should go. "The men insisted that Mercy be adopted and I won't resist anymore. I still love Mercy. She is my dearest." Speaking in a Channel 4 documentary – Madonna and Mercy: What Really Happened – to be broadcast on Monday, Miss Chekechiwa added that she had fought against the adoption for three years but had finally agreed to let Mercy go. She said that Madonna came across Mercy at an orphanage during her first visit to Malawi in 2006 with her then husband, Guy Ritchie, and decided that Mercy was "the one". However, Miss Chekechiwa refused to let the little girl go at that stage, so Madonna instead returned home with David Banda, whose family had not raised such strong objections. Miss Chekechiwa's daughter, Mwandida, was Mercy's mother. She fell pregnant aged 14 to an older student at school, but died from complications of childbirth days after Mercy was born. Mercy's father, James Kambewa, claims he was told that Mercy too had died and only learned the truth after being tracked down by journalists in April. He now says he wants his daughter back. He told Channel 4: "I am not supporting the adoption because I am still alive. I don't see any justification why the girl should be adopted. "But on the other hand when I learnt that my daughter is still alive I was very happy and I think I still need to raise her. "It's true that a child needs both parents but that doesn't stop me from taking care of Mercy. I know I'm capable. I can do that." The programme also investigates the links between the adoption and the Kabbalah-sponsored Raising Malawi charity, whose co-founder is Michael Berg, the co-director of the Kabbalah Centre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOUR2008 Posted June 28, 2009 Author Share Posted June 28, 2009 Madonna's adopted daughter Mercy was to be returned to family, grandmother claims Mercy, the Malawian child adopted by Madonna, was to be returned to her family from the orphanage she was living in, her grandmother has claimed. By Ben Leach Published: 8:10AM BST 28 Jun 2009 Madonna adopted Mercy after a court in Malawi ruled she could adopt the four year old Photo: REUTERS Lucy Chekechiwa, the maternal grandmother of Chifundo "Mercy" James, said that the family never agreed to put the four-year-old up for adoption on a permanent basis. She said she had long fought to keep Mercy, whom the southern African country's highest court ruled that Madonna could adopt earlier this month, and that she had only recently given up her long battle to keep her. Related Articles Madonna starts life with new daughter Mercy Madonna adoption: singer 'donated £12m to Malawi' Madonna's plans to adopt a second Malawi orphan blocked by angry grandmother Madonna allowed to adopt Mercy by Malawi court Madonna allowed to adopt second child Mercy from Malawi Madonna keeps fighting for MercyShe said: "The initial agreement was that Mercy was to be kept in the orphanage for six years. After six years Mercy was supposed to be brought back here and then I would have taken care of her. "At first I didn't want her to go but as a family we had to sit down and reach an agreement and we agreed that Mercy should go. "The men insisted that Mercy be adopted and I won't resist anymore. I still love Mercy. She is my dearest." Speaking in a Channel 4 documentary – Madonna and Mercy: What Really Happened – to be broadcast on Monday, Miss Chekechiwa added that she had fought against the adoption for three years but had finally agreed to let Mercy go. She said that Madonna came across Mercy at an orphanage during her first visit to Malawi in 2006 with her then husband, Guy Ritchie, and decided that Mercy was "the one". However, Miss Chekechiwa refused to let the little girl go at that stage, so Madonna instead returned home with David Banda, whose family had not raised such strong objections. Miss Chekechiwa's daughter, Mwandida, was Mercy's mother. She fell pregnant aged 14 to an older student at school, but died from complications of childbirth days after Mercy was born. Mercy's father, James Kambewa, claims he was told that Mercy too had died and only learned the truth after being tracked down by journalists in April. He now says he wants his daughter back. He told Channel 4: "I am not supporting the adoption because I am still alive. I don't see any justification why the girl should be adopted. "But on the other hand when I learnt that my daughter is still alive I was very happy and I think I still need to raise her. "It's true that a child needs both parents but that doesn't stop me from taking care of Mercy. I know I'm capable. I can do that." The programme also investigates the links between the adoption and the Kabbalah-sponsored Raising Malawi charity, whose co-founder is Michael Berg, the co-director of the Kabbalah Centre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOUR2008 Posted June 28, 2009 Author Share Posted June 28, 2009 Madonna and Mercy: What Really Happened - C4, 8pm By Jane Simon 29/06/2009 If ever two people were less destined to meet, it’s Madonna and Mercy James. So says reporter Jacques Peretti as he attempts to unravel the tangle of secrecy and red Kabbalah string surrounding Mercy’s adoption by (as he puts it) this “50-year-old single mother”. Travelling to Africa four weeks before the Supreme Court of Malawi finally rubber-stamped the adoption earlier this month, Jacques arrives with a suitcase full of good questions. For starters, is taking a young girl away from her family, culture and a country where the life expectancy is 48, and subjecting her to a life of extraordinary wealth, privilege and media scrutiny a superb act of generosity, or merely the height of celebrity selfishness? Mercy’s grandmother and real father both briefly attempted to stand in the way of the unstoppable juggernaut that is Madonna, and Jacques meets both of them. Advertisement - article continues below » But he’s also worried that Madonna and her Kabbalah cronies with their Spirituality For Kids organisation are secretly hijacking the whole country for their “loony religion” by chucking money at schools and orphanages. Does this make them any better or worse than the Christian missionaries who turned up, brandishing bibles, 150 years ago? An attempt to talk to Spirituality For Kids’ director Philippe van den Bossche is met with a force-field of cotton-wool non-answers and Malawi’s government spokesman for adoption chuckles his way through an interview. Happily, unlike just about everyone else involved, Jacques doesn’t seem to have a hidden agenda, making his film entertaining as well as illuminating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest joliepast Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Madge snubbed 12 Malawi kids for Mercy 28 Jun 2009, 1650 hrs IST, ANI Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text: Just a little more than two weeks after being granted the right to take home Mercy James, Madonna has come under fire for ignoring 12 needy Madonna Madonna(AP Photo)More Pics orphans so that she could adopt two Malawian kids she really wanted. Apparently, the 50-year-old - now mum to David Banda, three, and four-year-old Mercy James - was asked to chose from a dozen children who had been chosen for her by the Malawian government. However, a Channel 4 documentary has claimed that she chose David and Mercy instead despite them having families, reports The News of the World. Meanwhile, according to reports, the pop diva has got Mercy converted to Kabbalah. She was able to adopt Mercy earlier this month after successfully appealing a court ruling which refused her bid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Queen Bitch Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Saw a clip of this and it looks like it's going to be SCATHING - they said she chose both of them from a video line-up and that Mercy's father and grandmother didn't want her to go to Madonna. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOUR2008 Posted June 29, 2009 Author Share Posted June 29, 2009 The documentary - on Madonna / Mercy - by the controversial journalist (liar?), Jacques Peretti, is on tonight: Channel 4 8pm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOUR2008 Posted June 29, 2009 Author Share Posted June 29, 2009 Results 1 - 10 of about 15,700 for Jacques Peretti liar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOUR2008 Posted June 29, 2009 Author Share Posted June 29, 2009 Madonna, Mercy and Malawi: her fight to adopt a second African childThree years ago a storm of protest blew up when Madonna adopted David Banda from a Malawian orphanage. Today the country's highest court is due to decide whether she can now adopt four-year-old Mercy James. Jacques Peretti tracks down the girl's family and asks: what's best for Mercy? Buzz up! Digg it Jacques Peretti The Guardian, Friday 12 June 2009 Article history Pop star Madonna holds the child named Mercy, whom she hopes to adopt, in an undated sepia publicity photo taken in Malawi. Photograph: Publicity handout/Reuters Outside the dusty court in Blantyre, southern Malawi, there is a piece of paper pinned to the noticeboard with a list of the day's cases. This is Malawi's highest court, and on the list is a dispute over a boundary fence, the theft of a moped and, halfway down, in Court 2, an appeal to adopt a four-year-old girl called Chifundo "Mercy" James by an unnamed 50-year-old single mother from New York. Across Malawi, Madonna is described as "the rich white woman". Her name, totally unknown to people here before this case, has been passed by word of mouth from market to market, and village to village, and, in the process, has mutated into "Ma Donor": the Giver. I am in Malawi to make a documentary for Channel 4 about the real story behind Madonna's plans to adopt a second child from Malawi. I arrive in May, just after the rains, and within a mile of the airport see coffins being made on the side of the road. This is Malawi's only growth industry. There are up to a million Aids orphans here in this tiny country - I see some by the side of the road, playing under the coffins. Life expectancy here is 40; half the population are under 14. In the first village I visit - a place where Madonna is planning to invest in a new school and orphanage - the chief tells me that a child dies every three days. They bury them in a big pit. Is it any surprise that people here tell me it is God's will that Madonna chose Malawi, one of the poorest countries on Earth, to save from poverty? It is not Mercy she is adopting, they say, it is the whole of Malawi. Blantyre owes its name to the small South Lanarkshire town that the 19th-century Scottish missionary David Livingstone came from. Crosses greet you everywhere you go, and in this predominantly Christian country Madonna is nothing short of a holy figure. Mercy is their conduit to salvation. When I use Madonna's name out loud in one village, I am told to hush. Using Madonna's name in vain could frighten her (and her cash) away forever. Given all of the above, how could anyone in the west disagree with what Madonna's doing? The fact is that we do. Madonna is portrayed as a baby-grabbing gorgon, lambasted by everyone from Saturday Night Live to Graham Norton. I never bought this Madonna bashing. I thought the issue was simple: she adopts orphan, child better off, end of story. But is this really the deal with Mercy, the little girl she is now fighting to adopt despite the controversy over her adoption of another Malawian child, David? Well, firstly, Mercy is not an orphan without a family, just as David was not an orphan. Mercy has a family, and they live in a village called Zaone - a collection of huts about an hour's drive off the main (and only) asphalt road in the country. The track to Zaone winds down through high reeds and across river beds. My translator, Vitima Ndovi, tells me, as we are lurching about, that we are in the same jeep Madonna hired when she came to Malawi. Eventually the track opens out to reveal Mercy's village in a clearing, a view stretching out across a vast plain. It is beautiful. Idyllic, even. We are greeted by the chief, and his brothers, and their friends, and their brothers, and then taken to meet Lucy Chekechiwa, Mercy's grandmother, who is sitting on some earth outside her hut, waiting for me. She is as still as a rock, and for the hour or so I talk to her, does not move or stop staring far off into the distance as she recounts Mercy's story. Lucy brought Mercy into this world. She delivered the baby yards from where we sit. Days later, Mercy's mother Mwandida Maunde, Lucy's daughter, died, bleeding out from complications after the birth. The villagers believed it was proof of what they already knew: Mwandida was cursed. She had been bewitched, falling pregnant with Mercy when just 14. This was not what they had hoped for; the village had clubbed together to pay for Mwandida to go to school; she was very bright and the great hope of Zaone. One day, she would return as a doctor, Lucy told me. But she didn't. She returned pregnant. She returned bewitched. Mwandida, they tell me, had met an 18-year-old student called James Kambewa. They met secretly at his sister's flat. Mwandida's friends at school warned her it would end terribly, but she ignored them. She was in love. And so of course it ended with Mwandida dying in childbirth. The baby was called Mercy, as if asking forgiveness from God for the shame Mercy's mother had brought on the village. I sit with Lucy and the villagers into the night, with a vast wood fire the only light for 20 miles. They ask me if I have spoken to Mercy's father. Kambewa had disappeared after Mwandida's death, and was told that Mercy had died too. But I have no idea where Kambewa is. However, later in my trip to Malawi, Kambewa suddenly appears out of nowhere (well, not exactly - he has been tracked down working as a night guard in Blantyre by a British tabloid). He is now in hiding in a shanty town. But Ndovi promises to help me track him down. The following night, we are standing beside a tin hut in the poorest part of a very poor town. Kambewa appears out of the dark and takes us into the hut to talk. He tells me that he opposes Madonna's adoption. He has a little English: "She is my daughter, my blood," he says. Why did he disappear? "I was frightened. I was just 18 and my family disowned me." So why has he appeared now? "The newspapers found me, I didn't find them. I thought Mercy was dead. Mwandida was my only love. I have not been with a woman since Mwandida." So does he have a chance of keeping Mercy in the country? Madonna is very powerful. "I will win somehow," he says. The dogs outside start howling and Kambewa lapses into silence. What I do not understand is that if everyone loves Mercy so much, how did Mercy ever come to be up for adoption by Madonna? I drive back north to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, to meet Mabvuto Banda, a Reuters journalist who has been following Madonna's Malawian journey since 2006. Banda says that in order to understand the adoption, you need to understand what an orphan in Malawi is. "When children like Mercy are left in orphanages by families, it is often because the families simply can't cope for a period of time. The understanding of the families is that they will take the kids back into the family, usually after six years." Whether they can manage to do that is another matter, but the hope is always there. So it all depends on what you mean by orphan. There are plenty of HIV babies left by the side of the road who go into orphanages, Banda says. These are pure orphans. Babies who have no traceable family whatsoever. But Mercy was not one of these kids. Madonna has gone for a child with legal complications. So how did this all start? Spool backwards three years, Banda tells me, and Guy Ritchie, Madonna's husband, is on a tight schedule, videoing the most doe-eyed children he can find in seven orphanages across Malawi. The tape is being made for his wife, Madonna, who has decided she wants to adopt from Africa (the baby markets in Vietnam and China having closed down). From the video, she chooses one. It's a girl, and her name is Mercy. Then Madonna flies to Malawi on a "humanitarian mission". Prior to the visit, there is no mention of adoption, but, at least according to Banda, the fact is that she has already chosen a child from Ritchie's line-up and is now here to collect. Banda is scathing. "It's like slavery - 'I like this one, no maybe this one,'" he says. "But the fact is, they all need a home." Seventeen days later, a child leaves the country on a private jet bound for Madonna's home in London. But there is a twist. It is not Mercy on board; it is a boy called David. So what happened? The story locally is that Lucy, the grandmother who sits as still as a rock in the dust of Zaone, refused to let Mercy be adopted by Madonna. And for three years - from that day in 2006 until about four weeks ago - Lucy remained implacable, resisting approaches from priests, people from the orphanage and other people she had never seen before, to persuade her to let Mercy go. So what about David, the boy who did leave on the private jet to a new life with Madonna? Like Mercy, he had a family too. But unlike Mercy's grandmother, David's father Yohane agreed to a fast adoption, believing - according to Banda - that the arrangement was temporary; that it was the same as leaving him in an orphanage. Yohane has now gone on record saying he regrets the adoption because he did not know what he was getting into. Banda says he had to explain the adoption papers to Yohane because he couldn't read them. Madonna was interviewed on Newsnight by Kirsty Wark at the time, and said she was never told that David had a father, and I am inclined to believe her. After all, these were more complications that she didn't need. So it was David who got the golden ticket and jetted out of the country. There followed controversy inside and outside of Malawi, but in the end the adoption was allowed to happen. Sensitive to the world's low opinion of this first adoption, however, Madonna recently brought David back for a reunion with his father. But it was reported that David did not recognise his father any more. When I ask Lucy about this, she says she knows nothing of David's story, nor the fact that Yohane, his father, has already been down the road she is about to embark on. However tough Lucy has been in resisting Madonna, Madonna has been tougher. She never gave up on adopting Mercy - not least because no one tells Madonna she cannot have what she wants. And now, after years of being told that adoption was the right thing for Mercy, Lucy caved in. In Malawi, she is an old woman and she had had enough. Once the Mercy adoption was back on the cards, Esme Chombo, a provincial judge, ruled that the adoption was unlawful because Madonna was not a resident of Malawi. Chombo was scornful of western attitudes towards Malawian poverty, talking in her summing up about "the so-called poor children of Malawi" and even quoting GK Chesterton in defence of the existing law, protecting these children from trafficking: "Don't take a fence down until you know why it was put up in the first place." David's adoption had been rushed through because a court had granted an interim order. Judge Chombo said that it had been over-hasty and the same thing would not happen with Mercy. Due process needed to be followed. Now the adoption has reached Malawi's highest court, however, and Chombo may be overturned. A final decision on whether Madonna will get Mercy could be made as early as this morning. I decide to interview the spokesman for the ministry responsible for adoptions so that he can explain to me exactly how, if Malawian law states that you must be resident in Malawi for 18 months before adopting, Madonna managed it with David in less than 18 days. And why she now seems able to do it again. Silas Jeke, a huge man wearing a suit on a very warm day, sits before me in a plush garden in Blantyre and laughs. That's not really my area, he says. That's one for the judiciary. Perhaps he can explain how Madonna came to be assessed as a prospective parent by flying (at Madonna's expense) a social worker to London to view her home and interview her? Jeke laughs again. "I believe the appropriate procedures were followed." Talking - or not talking - with Jeke, I get the impression the government are as much bystanders in the Mercy story as the child's family. Or David's father was in David's story. There is a juggernaut at work here, it seems, and that is Madonna. In spite of everything I had been told, however, I still cannot decide if this juggernaut is a good or a bad thing, or, indeed, where it is really heading. One thing is for sure - the woman is putting a hell of a lot of time and money into the country. She has a charity here called Raising Malawi. It is investing in orphanages and even has an educational and moral programme called Spirituality For Kids (SFK) that it wants to roll out across Malawi. Banda tells me that SFK is a Kabbalah programme. Madonna explains in her own promotional film about her work in Malawi that SFK is about karma and getting back from God from what you put out there in the world. I wonder, however, how karma will play to a million children, orphaned by Aids? Was that God's will too? Another interpretation of this - widely held by many of the educated, urban Malawians I speak to, but certainly not by rural people who revere Madonna - is that Raising Malawi, even the Mercy adoption, is a Trojan horse for the Kabbalah takeover of a poor African state. And that if she doesn't get Mercy, she will simply move on to a more pliant poor country. Surely this a conspiracy too far? There are certainly battle lines already drawn between the urban and the rural populations over Madonna and her plans. Mercy's uncle, Peter, who agreed to and signed the papers on the Mercy adoption on behalf of Lucy, tells me that the townspeople who are against Madonna are not going to benefit from her investment, so they can afford to criticise it. They treat villagers as stupid, and he makes a gesture grinding his thumb in the dirt. "This is where they want us to stay," he says. I wonder if this aspiration for escape - the aspiration that drove them to send Mwandida to school - has now propelled Mercy into Madonna's arms. People in the poor rural markets say again and again to me that Mercy could be like Barack Obama - she could leave a poor African state and end up president of the United States. As for the Kabbalah movement, if it is planning a takeover of the Malawian orphanages, is that really such a bad thing? The Kabbalah-sponsored Raising Malawi charity is run by Philippe Van Den Bossche. Very little is known about him and he does not seem to like interviews. On his Facebook site, it mentions only that one of his best friends is Philip Berg, the founder of Kabbalah in the US. When I spy Van Der Bossche hanging around in sunglasses looking slightly shifty outside the court in Blantyre on the day of a hearing into Mercy's case, I am intrigued by what he is doing, and sidle up to him in an apologetic British way. "Excuse me, are you Mr Van Der Bossche? I wonder if you would mind telling me what you are doing here?" I ask. "I was just admiring what a beautiful sunny day it is here in Malawi." "It is indeed. But I'd like to talk to you about what Raising Malawi is really up to here." "And I'd rather talk about what a beautiful sunny day it is." As I sit down next to him, Van Der Bossche is besieged by other journalists from CBS, the Daily Mail and various South African papers. He smiles benignly throughout, repeating again and again what a sunny day it is. The next day, I decide to go to Mercy's orphanage, to see for myself what Madonna's money is doing here. (The orphanage is run by Christians, but Madonna's charity is a donor.) Down a long dusty road, the Kondanani Children's Village appears out of nowhere. There is an electric fence round the collection of brightly painted Nissen huts to keep out wild dogs and journalists. But weirdly, instead of being turned away, I am allowed in by an Australian missionary called Cherie. As far as I know, since the Madonna story blew up, no western journalist has ever been allowed in Mercy's orphanage; I guess I am lucky (or they don't want to be accused of secrecy any more). Inside, I am taken to Mercy's large communal nursery room, freshly painted and hanging with kids' pictures and messages about God's love. Children run hysterically up to the white westerner, and I find myself subconsciously deciding which would be cutest to adopt. The kids are instinctively aware that this whole process is Darwinian - it is a show - and it is survival of the cutest. I am directed round the immaculate dormitories and play areas and dining hall and creche, walking down pristine paths bordered with stones and flowers and intermittently nodding to enthusiastic, sandal-wearing volunteers. It is all absolutely and undeniably fantastic. It looks like a 19th-century public school in a British colony in Africa - which is pretty much what it is. Everywhere across Malawi, children sit quietly by the roadside, waiting for life to do something terrible to them. Here, they run up to you speaking perfect English, each more impossibly charming and clever and funny and take-home-able than the last. It has an air of John Wyndham about it - there is something a little unnerving about the manic positivity and the mindbending contrast between this and the utter desolation of life the other side of the electric fence. It is too much. I ask a group of children a little older than Mercy where she is. "She's gone," a little boy in glasses says. "We are sad, because she was our friend." (I later hear that Mercy has been taken by a nanny to a secret location in the north, ready for the adoption.) Would these children also like to be adopted? "We would like to leave and come back as a nurse," they say (sounding a little rehearsed, perhaps). One girl says she would like to be TV presenter "on God TV". I leave the orphanage thinking that if Madonna could roll this out across Africa, even if it involved lots of people signing up to Kabbalah, how could that not be a good thing? David Livingstone came to this country with a Bible in his hand; Madonna comes wearing Kabbalah wristbands. What is for sure is that colonialism is not a thing of the past. In Malawi, it's still alive and well, and it's just got a whole lot more showbiz. • Jacques Peretti's documentary Madonna and Child will be on Channel 4 later this month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkydita Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Ouch, I've just seen it and it's pretty scathing. Lots of references to the government being "in bed with Madonna" (which certainly seems the case) and comparing Raising Malawi to 19th Century missionaries ("rich white missionary teaching a new religion"). The (inappropriately giggly) spokesperson for the Children's department doesn't help by saying the difference between the missionaries from 150 years ago and Raising Malawi is that the missionaries walked around with bibles, declaring their faith and intention. The government are clearly very impressed by Madonna (and grateful for the millions donated), maybe a little too impressed which, in turn, damages Raising Malawi / Kabbalah. There's also a bizarre "interview" with Philippe van den Bossche who comes off as being a little shady. The last part is a little more positive when he visits the orphanage and sees the great work they do. However at the end he still finds it comparable to 19th century colonialism and ends with "Madonna's not just a woman who's adopted a child, maybe she believes she's the Messiah, if not the Messiah, the saviour of a future generation of the children of a nation." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Queen Bitch Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 Only good thing is that I doubt anyone really watches channel 4 before 9.00 pm these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest joliepast Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 can someone download it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Braby Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 I agree about no one watching it because of the time slot. But yes it will be scathing. That Jacqui guy always interviews complete whack jobs. I remember his documentary about Michael Jackson last year where some bird said she knew a cleaner at a Las Vegas hotel. When she was changing the bed, she said MJ and the young boys who were staying with him had written messages in their own faeces all over the sheets. This is journalism of the lowest form, expect a number of outrageous claims. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horn Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 here is the link for mercy and me promo/trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYjjgq9pZ3o TRAILER?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
funkydita Posted June 29, 2009 Share Posted June 29, 2009 I agree about no one watching it because of the time slot. I'm guessing 800k - 1m for it. Last week's Dispatches on gang rape (nice) did approximately 900k and Dispatches prior to that did around 500k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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