Just a month after returning from meeting Arjun, we got crushing news. Nepal’s turmoil had erupted again, with dozens of local skirmishes between the rebels and government forces. There were many casualties and a few incidents of foreigners being kidnapped, beaten, and even killed. Bombs had been detonated around the city, killing scores of people, all attributed to domestic terrorism. The upheaval had been ruining tourism, their country’s primary industry, so in order to appease the rebels, the government invited some Maoist leaders to head a few nonessential governmental ministries. One of these was the Ministry of Women, Children, and Social Welfare. The new Maoist minister had suspended all intercountry adoptions.
The reason behind the shutdown was to stop the child trafficking so prevalent in Nepal. Throughout the upheaval, thousands of rebels were arrested and sent to jail, leaving their children to fend for themselves. Other rebels were killed. Families flooded Kathmandu to escape the violence or to find work. The country faced an epidemic: one of the highest densities of abandoned children in the world.
To respond to the crisis, many homes and orphanages began to spring up, but some were covert trafficking centers. They sold children through criminal networks to countries like India to become domestic servants or, even worse, sex workers. It was just another way to work the corrupt system, to profit from impoverished, desperate families. A few bribes to the right officials squelched any action or debate. Representatives from these orphanages would show up at the jails, telling the parents that they’d feed and educate their child while they served out their time. However, when the parents got out, they’d find their child vanished, sold away to another country.
The problem went even deeper, however. Nepal was a country made up of numerous ethnicities, all with distinct cultures, customs, languages, and most importantly, religions. This could already be a volatile mix, but then it was further combined with a rigid caste system, in large part enforced by the Brahmans who held much of the power and influence. It wasn’t part of accepted practice for a Brahman to adopt a Gurung, a Tamang, or a Sherpa. Conversely, a Tamang, Gurung, or Sherpa wouldn’t adopt a Brahman, so the result was thousands of children on the streets, running around in ragged gangs. The lucky ones might sell pencils, chewing gum, or trinkets in the markets. Or they might sell hashish. Most of the street children sniffed glue to reduce their hunger, and they walked around in a fog. Many were arrested. The less fortunate were sold as prostitutes.
As I read the report, I fumed. I had toured the official governmentally sanctioned orphanage, Bal Mandir, while there on an earlier expedition. When we walked in, the smell of sewage was overpowering, and my climbing partner described the squalid, overpacked room. Many of the kids had “thousand-yard stares,” most likely from a lack of human contact. There were just too many kids and not enough caretakers. I’d read that if children didn’t get love and affection in their formative years, they were damaged goods. They’d have attachment disorders the rest of their lives. Rumors spoke to even more brutal conditions: twenty or more children packed into one small room, infrequent meals, and savage beatings. Caretakers were accused of rape and torture. I’d even read that one guardian was seen dripping hot candle wax onto a little girl as a punishment for wetting her pants.
Born with the right opportunities, a child could fulfill her wildest dreams; but born onto the streets of Kathmandu, or ending up in Bal Mandir, she’d be lucky to make it out alive. Those who survived came into adulthood with glassy eyes and numbed hearts; any light they may have once had was now extinguished. They were a generation of soul-destroyed children, and it didn’t bode well for Nepal’s future.
Outwardly, the new minister looked like he was taking decisive action, but in reality, it was only to save face, and there was almost zero effort to attack the real problems that festered beneath the surface. Now, children like Arjun sat in dirty junkyards waiting for their new mothers and fathers to bring them home. I knew other families had small babies aching to be held, while loving families waited across the ocean, desperate to receive their children. It seemed like everything pure was tainted by politics, self-interest, and human depravity. How long would Arjun, and all the other children, wait? As I finished the article, I slammed my fist down on my desk and yelled, “You’re holding my child hostage!”
* * *
While Ellie and I waited for eight torturous months, I had plenty to keep me busy. I guided our second Leading the Way expedition with twenty blind and sighted teenagers through the Peruvian Andes. In the high village of Chilipaua, we painted a schoolhouse for the locals, and even though we’d partially painted over the blackboard, the locals were thrilled.
We also held another No Barriers Festival, this time in Squaw Valley, California. It was our first in the United States. Major Dave Roselle spoke to our community about losing his leg in Iraq. After being carried off the battlefield, he assumed his military career was over. But after being fitted with a prosthetic leg, he became the first U.S. Army officer with an amputation to lead a platoon in combat since the Civil War. He told a story of his prosthetic breaking off in the midst of a firefight, and, with bullets flying overhead, hiding behind a waist-high wall, taking out his tool kit, and screwing on a new foot.
I met a woman who, after being paralyzed, sit-skied across the Greenland Ice Sheet, and a quadriplegic athlete who learned to surf sitting down with a specialized seat and backrest. Besides the tales of valor and athleticism, there were more down-to-earth stories that seemed just as heroic. A mom from North Carolina, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, still wanted to ride bikes with her kids. One of our engineers fit an electric motor to her bike, and she zoomed around smiling from ear to ear. A veteran who was tired of taking the narcotics prescribed by the VA was searching for alternative ways to manage his chronic pain. Exploring acupuncture and an adaptive yoga class, he found he was more flexible and mobile than he’d been in years. I shook hands with a lady who told me she hadn’t left her house much in the last five years, increasingly consumed by fear and anxiety. Then I listened while she rock climbed on Mark Wellman’s climbing wall and scuba dived in a tank we set up in the plaza. Another guy told us he hadn’t walked down a flight of stairs since his injury. We set him up with special trekking poles, and we trained him to slowly descend without assistance. At the bottom of the stairs, he broke into tears and said, “Today is my Everest.”
Even though we’d done very little marketing, people were showing up from all over the world. They were united by their will to push forward and to find solutions to the barriers that held them back. Our festival was starting to feel less like an event and more like the inkling of a movement.
Throughout the summer, I found myself deep in thought. If a soldier could lead his platoon into battle with a prosthetic leg, if a quadriplegic could learn to surf, if blind kids could paint a schoolhouse, then why couldn’t we figure out a way to bring this little boy home? It sounded crazy, but I wished our situation with Arjun were as concrete as hauling my way across the Greenland Ice Sheet on a sit-ski. Wind, snow, crevasses, sore muscles, and exhaustion—those could all be overcome with preparation and skill, but the obstacles we faced were inscrutable. I felt paralyzed by forces beyond my grasp. Outwardly, I forced myself to stay positive, but I honestly wondered if our dream of a growing family was ending.
Sometimes, though, I’d come in from a day of training to hear Ellie in front of the television watching the four hours of video Rob had shot of my first visits with Arjun: Arjun collapsing my cane, pushing my talking watch, giggling and whipping a pinecone at Uncle Rob’s head, and cracking the ball with his flattened bat. She hadn’t met Arjun in person, yet she’d fallen in love with this little guy. She yearned to buy him clothes, fix up his room, and prepare for his arrival. Like any mother waiting upon the arrival of her child, she held herself in check. What if he never came home? What then? To keep her mind positive, she took an active role by seeking out other families involved in their own waiting game. The Internet chat rooms on Yahoo were filled with stories of hope and of despair. She wrote letters to each of the congressional delegates from Colorado as well as our state senators.
In November, the Yahoo site announced a glimmer of hope. Four hundred adopting families from around the world had completed all their paperwork from the Nepali side and were just waiting for a signature from the minister. Arjun was number 237. The site exploded with chatter as word went around that Nepal might allow these 400 to squeak through. However, with the good news, we discovered our entire file was outdated. Everything from home studies and FBI checks to fingerprints and immigration forms had to be redone.
I didn’t know how long we would have to wait. The progress was still only hearsay and speculation. I’d been contemplating another trip to Nepal to give Losar a second try. “Ellie,” I said, “this is an opportunity for me to go visit Arjun again. I want him to know we’re still here, that we’re not ever going away, that we still love him no matter what.”
So Ellie and Emma packed a suitcase full of presents, and in January 2008, Rob Raker and I were once again pulling up to the Helpless Children Protection Home. It now felt like a familiar place. We got out of our taxi to the sound of exotic chanting. All the children were packed together in the courtyard singing Hindu prayer songs, their sweet, high voices lofting over the narrow street. Then I heard little footsteps pattering toward me.
“There he is,” Rob said. I bent my knees and spread my arms. Maybe, I thought, he’d be so excited, he’d leap into my arms. I readied myself for the catch. But then he stopped just shy of me and backed away laughing. I was confused.
“Dude,” Rob mumbled, “he just took the pile of cash out of your pocket.”
As adeptly as he’d batted the plastic bottle on our first trip, Arjun had just reached into my pocket and pulled out my pile of rupees. He danced around me, just out of reach, holding the money up with a huge grin.
“That’s Daddy’s little pickpocket,” I said.
We spent the next several days together: more baseball behind the Yak & Yeti, hikes in the foothills outside the city, a tour of the famous Swayambhunath Monkey Temple, where Arjun got to feed the monkeys. We visited Bhaktapur, an ancient town and World Heritage Site, where Rob and Arjun dove into a plate of the local specialty, Ju Ju Dhau, a smelly custard-like yogurt, while I only nibbled. We visited a palace painted with dozens of Hindu deities. There we learned the origins of Arjun’s name: Arjuna, who rode on the war chariot next to Krishna. He was an expert archer, known for his loyalty and valor. “Just like you,” I said to Arjun. “Like a Power Ranger,” I added. Arjun beamed.
* * *
One day, we joined Kami and his family for a picnic at the Pharping monastery, just outside the Kathmandu Valley. It was famous for a tall wooden structure with hundreds of khatas hanging from it. The custom was to pay one of the many Nepali kids, who crowded around the base, to climb it and place your scarf. I bought a couple for me and Arjun, leaned my white cane against the structure, and, to the surprise and horror of the locals, climbed twenty-five feet to the top where I hung ours over the pile. When Arjun would get tired, I carried him on my shoulders. We’d play a silly game in which he’d take off his cap and shove it over my eyes. I’d pretend to stumble all around, bending forward and back, left and right, taking him on a wild ride. I’d stomp my feet, snorting and bucking, as he clutched the collar of my shirt and howled with laughter. When it was time to say good-bye, we dropped Arjun off at the orphanage and took turns giving him hugs. Rob and Kami had now become Uncle Rob and Uncle Kami. As he turned away and silently melted into the throngs of children, I wondered what he was thinking, whether he had any idea what an impact he had already made on my life.
After our days together, I found it hard to refocus on the challenge ahead, our second Losar attempt. This time, we added a third climber, Ian Osteyee, a good friend of mine and expert ice specialist. The three of us warmed up by trekking to an isolated valley above the village of Phortse and climbing several frozen waterfalls. As I hung from one of the pillars, I could feel its chill on my face. Solid ice rose up above me and dropped away below me. It was such an improbable medium; to make it possible, humans actually attached daggers to their hands and feet. For me, I had the added bonus of not knowing exactly where to swing my ice tools. Sighted climbers looked up and aimed at the blue healthy ice. They could visually assess whether it was a good stick or whether cracks were spidering outward and the ice was about to splinter. If I were to swing at the wrong section, I could dislodge massive blocks of ice that could crush me or, even worse, my partner below.
But through a lot of patience and struggle, I had found another way forward by sweeping the tip of my ice axe across the surface, searching for the stable sections, for small divots, for the concave dishes above the bulges. When I felt like it was a good place, I’d lightly tap my tool against the ice, listening for the sound and feeling the vibration through the metal pick. When my tool bit in deep, it was a glorious, satisfying thunk, and it was a satisfying rhythm: kick feet, stand up, scan tools, breathe, then thunk, thunk.
Not so long ago, this realm of ice had felt precarious and forbidding, but the all-consuming process of discovering a way upward had given me a glimpse of freedom. As I pulled over the top, hearing the wide valley below me, I realized that my fear had transformed into awareness, beauty, and wonder. The world could feel like a prison, I thought, but could also feel like your own private ice palace.
Standing on top together, Ian said, “You know, Kami says no one’s climbed in this valley before, so I think this is a first ascent. What are you going to name it, Big E?”
The name formed instantly. “Arjun’s Playground,” I said.
A few days later, we were at the base of Losar, precisely where we’d camped one year before. Thankfully, the weather was colder, and the ice conditions were much improved. That night, we lay in our tent when Rob asked, “Big E, why did you want to adopt Arjun? I mean, you don’t see many blind guys bringing a kid home from Nepal.”
“Well, Emma wanted a little brother,” I said, “and Ellie’s also adopted, so she knows what a powerful experience it can be. Ellie also thought it would be good for me to have a little boy, someone to watch Rocky movies with. Emma has no interest.” I paused, trying to organize my thoughts. “But I guess there’s one more thing,” I said. “This may sound cheesy, but you know that scripture from the Old Testament? The one that says an eye for an eye—a tooth for a tooth? It’s sort of like that, but kind of the opposite.”
“I’m not quite following you.” Rob laughed.
“There are a lot of things you can’t do anything about,” I said. “You can’t control getting old or getting cancer. You can’t control being abandoned as a little kid or going blind. But then there are things you can do something about. A life gets taken, and you can’t do a damn thing, but you can decide to do something else, to take on another life.”
“Are you talking about Mark?” Rob asked.
“Yes and no,” I answered. “I think it goes way beyond the death of my brother. I think pushing forward can feel like moving through a war zone. There are so many things that want to knock you down and kill hope. There’s a lot of wreckage and pain along the way. So why not take those burned-out craters and grow love in their place? It winds up being a kind of draw. Maybe, in fact, you come out a little ahead. Maybe your life, and other lives, are even richer for that choice. Does that make any sense?” I asked.
“Strangely, I think it does,” he said.
* * *
At 4:00 A.M., we started up Losar and climbed vertical ice for the next thirteen hours. Exhausted and uncertain of what lay ahead, we found a ledge to rest for the night, just to the side of the ice runnel. A large boulder pinned me to the wall. I curled around it, knowing it lay between me and the bottom of the gorge. The night was freezing cold, with a harsh wind blowing down the cliff. Crammed into my thin sleeping bag, I barely slept. All night long, I had strange half dreams. In one of them, I’d fallen asleep on my living room floor. The front door had swung open, and a raging blizzard was blowing snow on top of me. Somehow, miraculously, Arjun had made it to Colorado. He and Emma were standing together above me. He’s home! I thought. He’s home! Tears rolled down my face.
“Daddy, wake up. You’re dreaming,” they were saying, shaking me. “Go back to bed.” In my frozen, half-dream state, I could hear Rob’s and Ian’s voices too, mixing with Arjun’s and Emma’s; apparently, my gibberish was keeping them awake.
“All right,” I said, racked by cold. Every so often I’d wake up and realize grimly where I was: in a fetal position high up on an ice face with the wind roaring down and frost collecting on the outside of my sleeping bag.
By the next morning, I couldn’t stop shivering as I fought to get my boots and crampons on and get geared up. Above me remained the last five hundred feet and the steepest section of the climb. Near the top, I found myself climbing out of an ice cave and swinging my tools into overhanging globs of ice. As I strained and grunted, trying to make the tips of my tools bite into the irregular ice, I knew that between my back and the Sun Kosi River, raging below through the bottom of the canyon, was over three thousand feet of air.
By noon, the vertical face leveled off, and I slowly crabbed over the top, entering the sun for the first time in three days. I just stood there for a moment, allowing a deep satisfaction to wash over me as the brilliant sun touched my face.
“Happy Tibetan New Year,” Rob said as the three of us hugged.
I knew that in front of me were more forests and high pastures before the dramatic mass of Kongde Ri rose far above. As if to remind me, the warmth of the sun quickly shrank away, retreating behind spiny ridges. Where the sun had been there was now a void, and I thought about Arjun. The journey had already been formidable, and I knew there was still a long way to go. “Somehow we’ll bring you home,” I said to myself. I clipped my ice tools to the back of my pack and prepared for the twelve-hour rappel back to camp.
In Namche Bazaar again, I called Ellie from a satellite phone from our teahouse. Through the broken connection, I heard Ellie’s distant voice yelling all the way from Colorado: “We’re only five numbers away from being approved. Don’t ask me how or why, but the minister has been flying through applications, and I think it’ll be very soon.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” I shouted with joy. “Get over here as quick as you can.”
“We’ve already got tickets!” she yelled back.
Like a mother entering her last weeks of pregnancy, Ellie raced around frantically, buying Arjun new clothes, toothbrushes, and a bedspread with baseballs and basketballs on it. She ordered a huge Nepali flag to hang on the wall. She told the neighbors the news, and they started painting Emma and Arjun’s room blue. Emma got to keep her pink curtains!
What she didn’t tell me was the very important fact that she wasn’t supposed to travel until she had all the appropriate documents, including an immigration form signed by a bureaucrat at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Denver. Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to get an appointment. Online, she’d learned the office was backed up and wasn’t taking appointments. Finally, she got through to a receptionist who told her the next opening wasn’t for another ten days. The flight she’d just booked took off in three.
I don’t fully understand how Ellie managed to get on that plane with an impossible-to-acquire document signed. She showed up at the immigration office as soon as it opened, determined to do what it took to get that form. She told me later it involved a half dozen governmental officials, each listening intently to her story about a little boy in Nepal. It was like a scavenger hunt; one after another, the person behind the desk would report, “I can’t help you”—and then more softly—“but I may know somebody who can.”
Their clues led her down a trail of bread crumbs to small offices buried in obscure, poorly marked buildings. The final man stated, “I can’t help you. The information officer who signs off on this is booked all week with interviews.” But then he glanced again at the picture of Arjun wearing his overgrown pumpkin jacket and said softly, “What’s your e-mail address?” When Ellie got home, the document was approved and waiting for her in her inbox.
When Ellie called the head of our Boulder agency to tell her what had happened, Nina was furious. “It’s not done like this. You should have gone through the Adoption Alliance, which then faxes our office, and then we send it on to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. You bypassed the system. The ministry in Nepal still needs two more documents, the police approval, and a letter of concern from the orphanage, so you’re still not officially approved. You can’t fly over there until this is all done properly. I’m strongly recommending you cancel that flight.”
Ellie called me that night and told me Nina’s advice.
“You’re getting in position,” I said. “It’s one of the first rules of mountaineering. Remember my first climb of Aconcagua? We weren’t at high camp when the good weather happened. So we missed the window and didn’t summit. But my next try, we pushed as hard and fast as we could, got to high camp, and waited. There were two clear days that season, and we stood on top during one of them—all because we got in position.”
Ellie, along with Emma—who was just seven years old—flew out the next evening. After their long flight, I met them at the airport with Kami, and we rushed to the orphanage. When Arjun emerged chameleonlike from the crowd of children, Ellie stared at his face, flooded by a mix of complex emotions. While pregnant with Emma, the stages were clearly defined: celebration, healthy eating, wearing those horrible maternity clothes with expanding waistbands. Then there were all the hours spent reading pregnancy books and setting up the crib. Finally, came the labor, filled with screaming, pushing, and electrifying pain. But when she looked at Emma and held her, a wave of love washed over all the blood and agony. The bond was instantaneous.
Seeing Arjun for the first time, the feeling was the same, but the timing was all off-kilter. She had thought about him constantly for the last year, and the uncertainty and shattering setbacks had felt like the physical pain of labor. She looked at his hands covered in dirt, the dark circles under his eyes, his runny nose, his shabby clothes, his untied shoes, and knew he was as vulnerable as a newborn. She reached out and hugged him, but he stared back at her as a stranger. He’d survived without her for five long years, and there was so much history and personality already formed. What was it that made him laugh, that brought him joy? What secrets were inside him waiting to be revealed? There was so much lost time, so much to make up for—numbers, colors, alphabet, and nursery rhymes. Each day ahead would be an uncharted journey to comingle their worlds until their memories were shared. She was ready.
After that, we went to work. There was an amazingly long list of reports, documents, and authorizations to be completed, translated, and distributed to the various ministries, as well as the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu. Ellie wrote out the long list of steps on a sheet of paper in her notebook and began checking them off one by one. At night, we’d regroup and strategize for the day ahead. The process was so convoluted it made me feel stupid. I couldn’t decipher how the steps and materials all fit together.
“So wait,” I said to Ellie, “the 1600 and the I-600A get sent from the USCAS to the NVC, and that turns into an I171F?”
“That’s correct,” Ellie replied.
“And the Application for Advance Processing of an Orphan Petition—is that the same thing as the DS-230 Forms Part I & II?”
“No,” Ellie replied. “They’re completely separate.”
“And does the NVC also send the I-797C?”
“No, the I-797C is sent by the Department of Homeland Security. Remember? That was the one they sent to Nebraska and got lost for a few weeks?”
“So the NVC sends all this material to the U.S. Embassy? And how does it turn into a cable 37?”
“I have no idea,” Ellie replied with a sigh.
“Makes me wish I was back shivering on Losar,” I said.
As we sorted it all out, one thing was for sure. The illusive cable 37 hadn’t arrived yet. It was supposed to be sent from the immigration office in Denver to the National Visa Center somewhere in New Hampshire. I pictured a vaulted fortress, like Fort Knox, protected by electric fences and attack dogs hidden in the north woods of New England.
It was against some regulation to send the document first-class mail, so there was no way to track it. Its ultimate destination was the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, but when we stopped by, an official told us it hadn’t arrived. Without it, there’d be no visa authorization for Arjun to enter the United States. The National Visa Center website had an 800 number that we’d tried dozens of times from our mobile phones, but it rang and rang. Ellie wrote an e-mail to Nina, with growing panic, but Nina’s note seemed more a lecture than help.
“I advised you not to go to Nepal until everything was approved,” she wrote. “I fear you’re juggling chain saws here and I only hope you don’t get hurt.”
Nina’s words made little sense. Yes, Ellie had left for Nepal before we were officially approved. However, hundreds of adopting families had been here for months waiting for their numbers to be called. Besides, at this point, we needed to be in-country anyway in order to meet the embassy senior officer, and Nina had assured us for several weeks that our file was totally complete and en route to Nepal. The close of Nina’s note was the strangest part: “Do you know what you are doing to me?” It seemed oddly self-absorbed, especially in the midst of our problem.
With no help coming from Nina, we wrote my dad a frantic e-mail asking him to step in. He was finally able to get through to the National Visa Center, and although the receptionist was friendly, even getting a manager involved, they had no record of our file. Apparently, it had completely vanished.
Each night, Ellie laid all the compiling documents over the bed and scrutinized them meticulously. She was finding plenty of mistakes, like Arjun’s police report that had said he was abandoned on the street. This was an essential document, but after having it translated into English, Ellie noticed that the report had described Arjun as a girl, and they’d gotten his age wrong.
So she made an urgent appointment at the central police station. When we arrived, the building was dark. Kathmandu experienced regular blackouts. The power supply couldn’t keep up with the skyrocketing population. Many people still burned wood, or even garbage, which accounted for the thick gray smog that blocked the sun. Some Western hotels had generators that kicked in, but the government offices were often left dark. When we entered the cinder block building, we walked right past the jail cell, about the size of a shed with one small window. Ellie could barely make them out, but a half dozen sets of eyeballs were staring silently at us. The office was bare—just a desk, a chair, and one old 1970s typewriter that an officer used to retype the report. Standing in the dark, spare room with the sound of the typewriter plunking away, listening to a clerk rewriting Arjun’s documents, I almost laughed. It was preposterous, yet it accentuated the way business got done in Nepal.
The next day, Sabitri set up an appointment with a doctor. Arjun tested positive to a variety of parasites and worms. He also took the test for tuberculosis. The doctor pricked his arm, and if he was clear, his skin wasn’t supposed to react. But a large purple lump formed on Arjun’s arm. Kami spoke Nepali with the doctor and the one nurse. I knew 50 percent of the world had latent TB. It could lay dormant under the surface for a lifetime, not ever affecting the person, but there was a chance of it manifesting and leading to a life-threatening illness. To kill it totally, it required six months of an intensive cocktail of antibiotics. We waited and worried what the doctor would do, but an hour later, the clean health certificate was signed, and we left scratching our heads.
“Okay.” I turned to Ellie in the taxi. “I thought the police visit was weird, but that just beat it.”
“From all I’ve read, that test isn’t even reliable,” Ellie explained, checking it off her list. “It often gives a false positive. The kids in Nepal all have had inoculations against the worst kinds of TB, and Arjun has a scar on his arm to prove it. Just be happy he signed the form.”
Next, Sabitri accompanied us to the passport office. As always, a long line snaked out the door. However, Sabitri walked right through the line, parting the sea of people, and pushed directly to the front. Within minutes, Arjun’s passport was completed. It was all such a murky process, I thought. You could wait in line for an entire day only to hear the official say, “Not possible today,” but with the right influence, you marched right to the front, and the passport simply appeared. Walking out of the building, I said quietly, “We couldn’t make this stuff up.”
“Yes,” Ellie agreed, “but let’s just get through this.” Stepping into the small taxi, she pulled Arjun onto her lap and wiped his nose with a Kleenex. Turning to me, she whispered, “We’ll fix the system later.”
For the next document, the required official had recently left on a vacation, and no one knew when he’d be returning. So instead of waiting around for him, I convinced Ellie and Emma to fly up into the Khumbu. I wanted them to see the Himalayas and maybe catch a glimpse of Mount Everest. Kami joined us, and we flew a helicopter out of the city, over the foothills, and into the high mountains that dwarfed our tiny flying bubble. We passed near the jagged ridges of Kongde Ri, with Losar dropping away into the clouds. In the past, I’d always flown on clear days, but, on this one, menacing black storm clouds surrounded the peaks like angry deities. Our helicopter swooped and veered to avoid the storm. Several times, we hit thunder cells like walls, and our helicopter was buffeted left or right or dropped what felt like a hundred feet.
“Is it always like this?” Ellie asked, grabbing my hand.
“Totally. No problem,” I lied, sweating and squeezing her hand just as hard. Emma fell asleep, her fear turning into a self-induced coma.
This time, we landed right outside of Namche Bazaar, in a little clearing near the school, and we got out to the sound of kids playing. It was cold and snowing, with a ferocious howling wind, so we hung out playing board games at the same teahouse where I’d called Ellie after Losar. That night, we visited the home of Mingma Sherpa, a kitchen boy on my Mount Everest climb. In the Tibetan tradition, his mother had two husbands who both greeted us at the door with gracious hugs. Mingma told me that his situation was nothing compared to a family he’d known from Tibet in which one woman had seven husbands—all brothers.
“One for each day of the week,” I replied, laughing.
Kami, Ellie, Emma, and I ate dal bhat, a spicy lentil and rice dish, and Mingma’s parents waited on us, continually filling our cups with slightly rancid nak butter tea. As soon as we’d choked them down an inch, our hosts would be right there to fill our cups to the top again. Their Tibet-style house had two floors, with the living quarters at the top and heated by a yak-dung fire. When Ellie asked where the bathroom was, they pointed toward the poorly lit stairway. I escorted her down, but at the bottom, there was no bathroom. There was, however, a door into a dark room, the floor covered with hay.
“They mean for you to go in the hay,” I said.
“I’m not going in there,” Ellie protested, laughing nervously.
“It’s the custom,” I insisted, holding the door open.
As she squatted in the darkness, however, she screamed and leaped forward as a large wet nose nuzzled her neck, followed by a snort and grunt.
“I forgot to tell you,” I said, “you’re sharing the facilities with Mingma’s yaks.”
* * *
By January 18, we were finally approved by the Nepali Ministry of Women, Children, and Social Welfare, but there was still plenty to do. There were appointments with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, more doctors’ approvals, and more documents to be translated. Arjun’s pending adoption also needed to be posted in a local newspaper to give his natural parents a chance to reclaim him. Lastly, there were several meetings at the U.S. Embassy—culminating with the all-important interview with an embassy senior officer to review every step, every document, and give the final thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
It crushed me, but the next week, I had to leave. A year earlier, before we’d anticipated any delays in the adoption process, I’d committed to leading another No Barriers expedition. I deeply regretted it now. It was tragic and unfair leaving Ellie and Emma to fend for themselves, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I’d made a commitment, and as painful as it was, I had to stand by my promise to a group of blind kids who had trained for a year to trek in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney, Australia. I took solace in the fact that I knew Ellie could handle it. Although I wouldn’t have wished the hardship on anyone, I felt like Ellie was actually in her element. She had taken this process that felt amorphous and overwhelming, had broken it down, and attacked each impediment with clarity and purpose. The results were starting to show. I also took solace in the fact that Ellie and Emma were in good hands with Kami. I knew he would be right by their side.
The day after my departure, Ellie had an important appointment at the foreign ministry. She was in the lobby ready to leave when Kami rushed in.
“The government raised the price of oil yesterday, and there are now big protests on the streets.”
Kathmandu was always crazy with congested narrow streets with no sidewalks. Tuk-tuk drivers and mopeds flew through the tight alleys, honking and bumping people out of their way. I once had my leg burned by a hot engine. Little Emma was at first shocked by the visceral sights and strong smells, like a hog’s head lying on a market shelf with eyes staring dully and a halo of flies swarming. Walking the day before, she bumped into someone and politely said, “Excuse me.” When she looked up, she was staring into the eyes of a goat. In fact, it was a herd of goats blocking the road.
But this day was even crazier. She glanced at the Kathmandu newspaper, and the headlines read: PETROL PRICE HIKE FUELS NATIONWIDE STRIKES. TRANSPORT FARES INCREASED BY 25%. LIFE IN CITY PARALYZED. PROTESTERS INJURED IN CLASH WITH POLICE.
Ellie then looked at the U.S. Embassy website, and it read,
Travel Warning: Nepal continues to experience sporadic incidents of terrorism and politically-motivated violence in major urban areas. Given the nature, intensity and unpredictability of disturbances, American citizens are urged to exercise special caution during times when demonstrations are announced, avoid areas where demonstrations are occurring or crowds are forming. Avoid road travel, and maintain a low profile.
“Do you think we have to cancel?” Ellie asked, disappointed.
“It is impossible to get a taxi,” Kami said. “But it is no problem. We will walk to the office—only one hour.”
So Ellie found herself walking with Emma through throngs of people, elbows jabbing, sweaty bodies pushing, with Kami leading the way. The mobs marched, yelling and chanting slogans. Tires flamed and smoldered in the streets. Thick plumes of poisonous black smoke rose into the air as the three weaved and maneuvered toward their appointment.
It was like an episode of The Amazing Race, except it was a spin-off called The Torturous Race, and the grand prize was a little Nepali boy instead of a million bucks. “Get through this mob and these burning tires, and this boy can be yours!” the announcer in her head proclaimed.
Ellie made it through the flaming gauntlet to the initial meeting that day, but her amazing race was just getting started. The next two weeks were a flurry of activity. Ellie’s journal was smattered with notes, some showing that her communication with Arjun remained largely nonverbal:
Breakfast today, Emma and Arjun drew pictures of houses. Emma’s house contained a dog, a cat, windows and a door. Arjun’s Nepal-style house—a thatched roof and a stone entranceway. So much to learn and share.
Dinner at the hotel buffet and Arjun ate and ate until he had tears in his eyes. Had to make him stop before he threw up.
First time-out today. Arjun wouldn’t stop sawing on the table with his knife.
Took his first bath tonight. Emma got in first and encouraged him by splashing around. He eventually got in and played for an hour. When he came out, Emma cried, “Mom, look. He’s three shades lighter.”
Slept over tonight. Wet the bed–Talked in his sleep and twisted around like he was living through a nightmare.
Broke lampshade tonight. Even though I saw through bathroom mirror, he denied it. Pointed at Emma. Emma cried. They fought over remote control. Arjun wanted to watch Power Rangers. Emma wanted to watch Dora the Explorer.
I’m feeling nauseous. Think I have Giardia. Emma’s scratching a lot. Think Arjun gave us lice.
Kids had extra energy tonight. Held races down the hallways. Other adopted kids joined in. I said ‘Ready, set, go!’ Arjun kept repeating ‘Ready, settee, go.’ Emma and I cracked up.
Emma and Arjun wild tonight-jumping and screaming on couch outside elevators. Elevator door opened with Japanese tourists gazing in shock. I looked away and pretended they weren’t mine.
Gave Arjun a handkerchief for his runny nose but he keeps losing it. After dinner, I gestured with my hands, ‘Where’s your handkerchief.’ Arjun shrugged his shoulders, so I went to go find it, but Emma shouted, ‘look.’ I turned around and he was holding out his baseball cap with the handkerchief slyly tucked inside. Arjun was smiling and dancing.
Ellie and the kids were now stopping by the U.S. Embassy every day. The administrators were getting familiar with the Weihenmayer family. “No cable 37 yet,” the secretary would repeat. Ellie knew her final meeting was fast approaching. The secretary called the visa office in New Hampshire and got the same story, as my father had—no record of it ever arriving.
Ellie wrote another note to Nina.
We walked over an hour to the ministry the other day because the streets were all on fire due to a strike. It was worth it. We are officially approved, but I am pleading for your help. The embassy has been kind to give me an appointment. However, they do not have my file from the National Visa Center. I told them, according to you, it should have arrived.
Nina’s note back read as follows:
The paperwork went to the NVC and will be forwarded, which is what the embassy needs to complete the process. NVC has stated they will update them next week. According to you, I guess the embassy is getting a different story. I realize you are used to people asking how high when you say jump, and that you expect everyone to change their normal processes to fit your schedule. You are leaving a scorched trail. It is the clients’ lack of patience and inability to respect personal boundaries that has led us to the decision to close the agency.
Ellie was crushed. Nina had hosted our family for dinner. Ellie and Nina had even gone to lunch a couple of times, so where was all this anger coming from? However, as Ellie perused the Yahoo site that night, the big picture became shockingly clear. The site read, “It’s likely that Nina Rosen, founder of Claar Foundation, will be indicted in the next month for defrauding families.” Ellie read further, and the accusation was that she was using money from one adoption to pay for another, like a Ponzi scheme. She had a tangle of nonprofit and for-profit organizations and was shifting money around from one to another in a desperate effort to stay ahead, but the game had finally caught up to her when she didn’t have the funds to complete an adoption. The family had pressed charges. Nina was in the midst of going bankrupt, most likely losing her law license if convicted of a felony and looking at jail time. Nepal had been an incomprehensible place, and it was easy to write it off as a corrupt system, but now Ellie felt off balance. She had chosen Nina’s agency through careful research, and it gave every appearance of being a highly rated and professional organization. America was supposed to be a place of clear rules and intentions, but now Ellie didn’t know what to think. She had just learned our U.S.-based adoption agency was the sketchiest of them all. Our biggest advocate had turned out to be the biggest crook.
Ellie’s next journal read:
Kami took us to Boudhanath Monastery to have us blessed by the lama. Another day of protests and burning tires. After the blessing, we looked up into the smog and saw a large jetliner. I’ll take it as a sign.
Ellie could now sense the finish line. She was finally done with all the paperwork from the Nepal side and now awaited her exit appointment at the U.S. Embassy scheduled in two days. For the fifth time, she stopped by to inquire about the paperwork and got the same response. This time the secretary said there was a chance the files may be lost permanently. Ellie watched her through the glass window typing on her computer in a last-ditch effort to track the file, when Ellie noticed another woman standing in the background, making frantic hand gestures. She was smiling. In one of her hands was a package. “Your cable 37 just arrived this morning,” she said, slapping it on the desk.
The day of Ellie’s appointment, however, she learned that all interviews were canceled due to the unexpected death of an American citizen. The next night, Ellie wrote in her journal:
Got our interview rescheduled. 10:00 AM interview—4:00 PM flight. Going to be tight. Kami spoke to Arjun in Nepalese. Told him he was getting on an airplane tomorrow and asked if he had any questions. Arjun only wanted to know if there was a place to pee. But later, out of nowhere, he broke into an inconsolable wail. It was mournful and seemed to come from a deep place. This boy has a story.
On the big day, Ellie, Arjun, and Emma sat in the waiting room with a number of other families. As she was called into the office, Emma and Arjun began arguing over a ball.
“It’s mine!” Emma cried.
“My ball!” Arjun yelled back.
“Give it to me!” Emma screamed and reached out for the ball. Arjun danced away. The embassy representative sat silently, witnessing the ruckus in the cramped room.
“How’s your day going?” the lady asked.
Before Ellie could answer, Emma yelled, “Mom, he’s got it in his pocket, and it’s my ball!”
Arjun stuffed the ball down in his deep pockets and yelled even louder, “My ball!”
Ellie glared sideways at the two of them and screamed silently, “Don’t you want to go home?”
Arjun patted the ball tucked down in his deep pockets, repeating, “My ball.”
“He’s lying!” Emma screamed.
This is it, Ellie thought. It had all come down to this interview. After a hundred excruciating steps, after lice and giardia, after fighting through burning streets, riots, and documents lost and miraculously appearing, now the lady was about to give the final verdict: whether Ellie was a fit mother or not, whether we were a happy, loving family, and whether we could leave this country together. So close, and it was all about to fall apart. Emma began crying. Arjun sat on his chair, clutching the ball through his pocket with an angry scowl.
“How is your day going?” the representative repeated.
Ellie forced her gentlest smile. “Fine,” she replied. “Everything is going well.”
And after a short conversation, they were approved. Just like that, Ellie and the kids were racing back to the hotel, running around thanking all the people who had been so helpful along the way, especially Kami Sherpa. Nina had been right. It had been a roller coaster, but Kami had stuck by her every step of the way. He had been a faithful guide for me on Mount Everest, and now he had navigated Ellie through another, even trickier challenge. Then they were fighting through traffic and blaring horns, arriving at the airport five minutes before the cutoff. As Ellie and the kids sprinted in, some other adopting parents cheered.
On the plane, Ellie was so exhausted she fell asleep before the flight even took off, but she had a fuzzy recollection of her eyes briefly opening as the plane taxied down the runway and seeing Arjun out of his seat, standing way down the aisle, pulling magazines out of a magazine rack. When her eyes blinked open again, Arjun was back in his seat smiling and insistently pushing the flight attendant call button with Emma explaining, “Sorry. He’s never been on a plane before.”
When she woke up the third time, Arjun was watching the movie Toy Story.
“He’s watched it four times now,” Emma said.
When she finally woke up for good, Arjun was watching the TV screen. Instead of Toy Story, he was examining their plane, a tiny glowing dot against a world map, the dot almost imperceptibly creeping over the vast Pacific Ocean.
A half an hour before touch down in L.A., Ellie nervously reviewed all the documents one last time. She had an official, sealed envelope from the U.S. Embassy and Arjun’s newly acquired passport stamped with his entry visa. Gazing down on the stamp, Ellie’s eyes bulged. She read it a few more times, not believing what she was seeing. The stamp was correctly dated January, but not 2008. Instead, it read, “2009.” Technically, Arjun couldn’t enter the country for another whole year. But by now, Ellie was an old pro. She could hear the announcers voice revving up in another episode of The Torturous Race: “Figure out how to get this boy through U.S. customs without a valid passport, and he could be yours.”
Ellie shoved back the flash of panic collecting in the pit of her stomach and began formulating a plan. In the seats in front of her sat another family who Ellie had gotten to know over the last month. They had a son, and they were bringing home a little Nepali girl. Ellie brought them into the plan, and they whispered together as fellow conspirators.
Near customs, Ellie and the other family were brought over to a special line, and instead of approaching the officer separately, they all bunched in together, beginning to pile passports on the desk in one stack.
“Hold on now,” the officer cautioned. “Whose are whose?”
“Where’s Cooper’s?” the other mom said. “I just had it a second ago.”
The ladies started separating and handing passports back and forth. “That’s yours. Whose is this? I think that’s mine there.”
“Do you know if there’s a bathroom nearby?” Ellie asked as the officer sorted through the stacks. “My son is looking pretty uncomfortable, hopping up and down like he has to go.”
“Right around the corner.” He pointed with his thumb. “This should just take a minute.”
As he opened each passport and checked them against a computer screen, the ladies pleasantly chatted.
“Mohini loved that LEGO movie,” said the other mom.
“Arjun watched Toy Story four times,” Ellie said as the officer stamped a passport. “And when I woke up during takeoff, he was up front checking out the magazine display. So much for the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign.”
The officer chuckled as he stamped another.
“During dinner, Mohini must not have liked her butter,” the other mom said, “considering she chucked it at the people sitting across the aisle.”
Another chuckle—another stamp, stamp.
“Is this Arjun?” the officer asked.
“Yes,” Ellie answered. “Arjun Lama Weihenmayer,” she said. “Has quite a ring to it. Don’t you think?”
The officer looked at Ellie and then down at Arjun for an uncomfortable amount of time. Then he stamped his passport. Ellie quickly gathered up the stack of documents and took a step toward the exit.
“Ma’am,” the officer called out.
Oh God, Ellie thought, her heart feeling like it was about to explode. She should have known this amateur game of smoke and mirrors could never work. She swallowed, looked back at the officer, and waited for the axe to drop.
“Welcome to America,” he said, smiling.