Around the World in 180 Days

Part 1: Odyssey 2001 Wendy Thompson is following her passion: in 2001, she embarked on a journey that took her around the world in pursuit of the stories of adoption and the people who tell them.

Photo used with permission

More of this Feature •Part 1: Odyssey 2001 •Part 2: Stories to Tell •Part 3: An Act of Faith

Carrying an oversized backpack, laptop, and video equipment - and checking through a suitcase carefully selected to meet the airlines' maximum size - Wendy Thompson left Brisbane Airport on Saturday, February 17th, for a six-month trip around the world. She visited 29 cities in Europe, Canada, and the US, and interviewed more than twice that number of people of all ages, from teenagers to great-grandparents - adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents.

Wendy and her husband are parents to three grown children: Martha, Scott, and Amy. Martha, their first child, was placed for adoption shortly after birth, while Wendy and her husband-then-boyfriend were in their teens. "I'm a reunited Australian birthmum" Wendy says when asked about her connection to adoption, adding, with a grin, that while some think the term 'birthmum' is outdated, she's quite comfortable with it.

Tonight, as we sit in my home in northeastern Greece, thousands of miles away from her Queensland home, we both laugh as she describes herself as a "homebody." Looking very young and chic in jeans, a turtleneck sweater, and leather boots, surrounded by filming equipment, notebooks, maps, and copies of her itinerary, she appears totally at ease traveling on her own to places she's never been, to talk to people she's never met in person, and she sounds like a veteran filmmaker as she describes her project.

"After 30 years of healing, a very special friend helped me over the largest hurdle, to recapture my self-esteem to the point of passion. When I was able to lift the lid off that passion, I knew I wanted to work with the adoption community... to tell the stories... to show the face of adoption to the general public... to give back some of what had been given to me by people who helped release the final vestiges of pain in my own life."

Wendy's experience with filming and photography offered the perfect medium, and she set out to make a documentary film.

Next page > Stories to Tell > Page 1, 2, 3

© Nancy S Ashe

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