Amarillo College Ranger

Issue date: 11/13/08 Section: Front Page

Media Credit: Josh Godsey Svetlana Bowman walks from the College Union Building cafeteria Tuesday afternoon. She was adopted from Russia in 2004. She's now pursuing a physical therapy degree.

"I said no, I didn't want to be adopted. I was really scared. I love Russia; it's my home. I'm an orphan, that's who I am."

Twenty-year-old Svetlana Bowman, a physical therapy major at Amarillo College, recounts her reaction to the news that she would be moving to the United States. Potentially the tallest barrier she ever would have to climb, Bowman's trek to America was nothing short of extraordinary.

"She couldn't even speak English," said Deborah Tracy, Svetlana's adopted mother. "To watch her learn, it was just amazing. She has the most incredible ability. She's a joy in the midst of coming to a place where the culture is so different."

Born three months premature and weighing a mere three pounds, Bowman's survival was in question from the beginning. "Getting surgery in Russia is a big deal, especially for an orphan," Bowman said. "I remember one man. He was the director of my orphanage when I was 3. I loved him, and he loved me. He worked very hard to make good things happen for me. I would always crawl to him and try to get in his lap. I would always play with the buttons on his shirt. He really cared for me."

Despite severe disabilities that made walking and even the ability to wear shoes impossible, she carried on. Amid a hundred other disabled orphans, Svetlana grew to love poetry, origami and singing. Needless to say, never seeing her family made life difficult. "The hardest thing for me was not being with my brothers. I would even dream about them when I was little," she said. "I still don't understand why they didn't try to find me. Even though they abandoned me, I wanted to have a relationship. They don't have to take care of me. I just wanted to talk."

At age 14, Bowman made the effort to contact her family members, who had all but erased her from their memory. "I wrote them a letter. I was so nervous. They sent me a reply letter, but my caregiver at the orphanage told me it would be too hurtful to hear. They wanted nothing to do with me."

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