The Unrecognized Father (I)

I met Nuha last night in Zurich, and one of the issues in my "unrecognized" series came back into my mind.
    Nuha is one of three adopted daughters of mine, did you know that? Not really formally adopted as such, but very much part of the family. She was, in 1999 and 2000, one of the most enthusiastic students at Salaam School, when we lived in Malé (Maldives), a dancer. Not the most talented I would say, but the most persevering and determined. She became one of the four members of Salaam Dance Company (which is another story) and finally assistant teacher for Nicole Müller and then Deborah, the dance teachers from Switzerland.
    When we closed Salaam School and I left for Colombo with my "real" children, she kept on bugging us and pressing us to help her fulfill her dream of becoming a dancer. This resulted in quite some efforts to raise funds for her education, to find a place for her to study and get her career going. Hmmm, but we did not serve it to her on a silver platter: she had to go herself and do the presentations with sponsors in Malé, and some of them said yes!
    As a first step, she came to Sri Lanka while the fundraising drive was under way, and started several parallel dance courses: one at Deanna's ballet school, one with Sujeeva (yet another story!) in Latin and Freestyle, and the most intensive one with the famous Khema de Costa, in Kandian Dance, the classical traditional Sri Lankan upcountry school. After some frustration, Nuha left Deanna and took private classes with Mrs. Galina, a russian ballet teacher at the Russian Centre in Colombo. This went on for almost 9 months - you could say it was a pregnancy - until finally the funding and sponsoring came together.
    My very good Swiss friend and dance pioneer Malou Leclerc, was willing to take a risk with Nuha, and she allowed her to join the Performance Year in Switzerland, a class of actually completed young professional dancers from all over the world, whom she exposes to a severe training and individual coaching before sending them off to the reputed stages. A family in Neuhausen was hosting Nuha, Balair (now Belair) sponsored her ticket, and the school fees were donated by Maldivian sponsors.
    Long story short: Nuha ended up staying for two years. She then realized how tough dancing is as a profession, and went back to Maldives as the first ever professionally trained dancer of her country! She has since performed on stage numerous times in Maldives and abroad (e.g. in Berlin for the Tourism fair!), and is currently teaching hip hop and modern dance at the National Centre for the Arts in Malé. She has kept contact with many of her friends in Switzerland (most among them my son Andreas, her "brother"), and is visiting them regularly, sometimes combining it with workshop visits.
    Last autumn, she was invited by Elisabeth Moir International School in Colombo to choreograph the show "Breaking Bars", with my second son Nathan as director. I look forward to many more stints with her, and Nuha seems eager to take another look around in Colombo. She does not know yet that she is invited to be with us for the coming Christmas/New Year season, where she will finally meet one of her other "sisters" for the first time... (and that's another story as well!).