Children of Dreams, An Adoption Memoir (9 page)

Even though I knew I was in God’s will, it didn’t mean things would be easy. The hardest, most painful part of Manisha’s adoption was I couldn’t take away her loss. I had also suffered the same thirty six years earlier, but in His Word, God promised to take care of orphans and widows (Jas 1:27). I clung to that knowing someday God would receive the “weight of glory.”

Chapter Thirteen

…Am I My Brother’s Keeper

Genesis 4:19

Fortunately in life there can only be one first. The first night Manisha spent with me away from her father was the hardest. The next day was chalked full of things to do, including a check-up at the doctor’s, a T.B test, and an American Visa to allow Manisha to come to America. Ankit accompanied me on all of these errands because I had no idea where to go.

In the afternoon after running errands, we would return to the Bleu for a few hours to give Manisha a short nap. It wasn’t so much I wanted her to nap as I wanted to rid her of those nasty nose and ear rings.

For three days when she was fast asleep, beginning with the nose ring, I cut the string and yanked it out. I felt like a fisherman with a catch ensnared by a lure. Each time she woke up screaming knowing something had happened but not knowing what. By the fourth day she refused to take the nap, but the Hindu symbols were gone and she looked like an American girl.

I had not found a decent place to eat so I decided to go upscale to the Mount Everest Hotel. I was still thinking about a salad with ranch dressing. The Mount Everest was a Five-Star Western Hotel and I was pleasantly surprised to find beef on the menu. I ordered my salad and got Manisha the biggest hamburger I had ever seen.

We were seated in a lavishly decorated dining room and treated to superb service that made me feel important. I lamented how I wished I could afford to stay there. My fourth floor flat at the Bleu, with no air-conditioning in the hot, humid Nepali air, was a far cry from this place. I wasn’t sure if it was the beauty that made it so appealing or the familiarity with Western cuisine. By this time I was having pangs of homesickness and it looked like “home.”

After eating we went to check out the swimming pool and I imagined how much fun it would be for the two of us. Manisha’s eyes bulged as she stared at the water. We would later return for a visit to the “bathtub” when we had more time.

The next day on Friday, we needed to go back to the legal secretary’s office to pick up the signed paperwork. When we arrived, however, much to my chagrin, nothing had been done. The legal secretary was playing games with me. He kept telling me that I would not be able to adopt Manisha because there was a problem with my paperwork.

However, when I refused to “buy” into his version of things, his demeanor abruptly changed.

“Here is my phone, call me,” and the legal secretary put a small piece of paper in my hand and clasped my fingers over it. He either wanted money or sexual favors. I wasn’t sure which.

I sat there for hours with Manisha, bored, watching other adoptive couples pass through while he refused to process us. A Japanese couple came in with a little boy in a knapsack on the back of his mother.

He said, “Their baby is going to grow up Japanese. Your baby is going to grow up American.”

I sometimes think about the little boy with his new Japanese mother and father. We were like ships in the night passing each other—two children from a poor country adopted into different cultures presented before a man who thought more of himself than he ought. I have wondered, though saved from a life of poverty and hopelessness, if he would ever come to know the real Hope Giver.

The legal secretary said to me, “Your paperwork won’t be ready until tomorrow.” It was difficult for me not to be angry. I gathered Manisha and my things and left.

Later that afternoon I took Manisha back to the Everest Hotel to go swimming, but she was fearful of the water. Only the tops of her feet made it in the cold, spring-like pool. She wouldn’t let me swim either. I had to settle for enjoying the pool from a distance.

We spent a couple of quiet, peaceful hours relaxing. Manisha thought my purse was full of interesting things and loved dumping out the contents. She drew doodles in a little book of quotes for new mothers I had stashed away. Her little scribbles I later called my first “love notes.”

My daughter now had a mother as a role model and she wasted no time in learning all about “girlie” things. When she discovered my makeup, she insisted on trying it out. She smacked the lip gloss on her lips, but found it more fun to smear it on her cheeks. The eyeliner gave her a “black eye,” but she fluttered her eyes anyway as if she were beautiful. She also tried out my sunglasses, taking them off of me, putting them on herself, and then putting them back on me.

The noisy environment of Kathmandu faded into the distance as I enjoyed the peacefulness of the Everest Hotel. The Bleu was located in the heart of downtown Kathmandu. It was a maze of people, bikes, motorcycles, cows, and taxies. I had seen more dung than anyone would care to see in a lifetime. One little dog sitting in the street covered with fleas and mange reminded me of my dog Gypsy. He was pathetic and sad. I wished I could have helped him.

On one occasion I got lost in the wrong place, ending up at the local meat market. Before I could turn away to avoid the gore, I saw bodies of dogs sliced in half dangling from ropes waiting to be sold for food. Goat heads stared back at me. The stench was nauseatingly gruesome with bright red blood covering the street. I tripped over people trying to avoid stepping in it. I supposed the trash trucks came by sometimes but not often enough.

At the Everest Hotel, I tried to put things I didn’t want to remember in the back of my mind. Manisha and I could be alone without reminders of her father, particularly the door to his motel room that continued to cause anxiety.

I wanted to escape from the culture around me but I couldn’t. In America I could change the television dial if something made me uncomfortable. I could ignore the starving children, the murders, and the rapes.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain asked God.

I can hear the indifference to God about his brother in Cain’s reply. I didn’t want to be like Cain, but Nepal forced me to confront what was in my heart and I didn’t like what I saw.

Friday night, as I put Manisha to bed, we looked through a magazine that I had brought from the States. It had lots of pictures of dogs and cats, and I pointed to a cat and went “meow,” as I had done all week. She was intrigued with the kittens and said her first
American word that wasn’t just imitating my English sounds, but where she knew what it meant—an almost perfect “meow.”

I scooted beside her in bed as she looked at me with her big brown eyes. I had no idea what she was thinking, but I could tell she was thinking pretty deep thoughts. Spontaneously she let out a big smile that melted my heart and I gave her a huge bear hug.

Love has a way of conquering all. My worries for today, my fears for tomorrow, any mistakes I’d made in the past, and my sinfulness that would scar the image of God within me if it were possible—swallowed up in victory. God’s redemptive love turned my tears into joy. I couldn’t wait until we were “home.”

Chapter Fourteen

…when I am weak, then I am strong

II Corinthians 12:10

Saturday arrived making it one week I had been in Nepal. Today would be the first time we went to church together.

A taxi dropped us off nearby, but I had forgotten where the building was. After much walking around in circles, somebody noticed us.

“Are you looking for something?” A man asked.

“I am looking for the Christian Church,” I told him.

He showed me where it was and I thanked him. Could he have been an angel in disguise? I was surprised he spoke English.

After leaving our shoes at the door, Manisha and I walked in and sat down on the floor among the women.

“Namaste,” I greeted them with, the traditional hello in Nepali. Several ladies smiled at me and spoke to Manisha in her language. I had looked forward to the sermon but today it was delivered in Nepali so I didn’t understand the message. I bided the time keeping Manisha quiet, which wasn’t hard to do. Uncharacteristically, I felt tired.

We had been invited for lunch after the service by the Reeses, so we hitched a ride on the back of the bikes of their children. As we were riding over to their home, Manisha told Doug Reese about her new shoes. Everyone she met got an earful about them as she was not shy.

After stepping through their front door I felt like I had been transported back to America. A taste of familiarity to a homesick traveler is like sweet apple pie and vanilla ice cream to a starving soul. Their home seemed like a palace compared to what I had seen of Nepal. Debby Reese kept busy as a doctor and Doug was active working with the students at the University of Kathmandu. They were affiliated with one of the organizations on campus and had been in Nepal for several years.

A wonderfully delicious lunch was prepared that hit my sweet spot. Earlier in the week I had been craving a nice cold glass of milk. Ice trucks would make a daily appearance in front of the Bleu, loaded with milk and other things I didn’t recognize. One day I purchased a small carton, and after swallowing several gulps, I realized the milk had already soured. I gagged and held my nose to keep from throwing up. Even orange juice did not taste like orange juice. The bananas appeared oddly too small—only eggs seemed to look like eggs. I supposed chickens were the same everywhere.

The Reeses had done what they had promised—treated me to a real American meal. We had ice tea, salad, chicken, beans and dessert that resembled ordinary food back home.

For the first time in a week I was able to enjoy speaking English, at least using a few more words than dirty, cookie, and meow.

When I asked to use their facilities, they hollered to me as I walked down the hall, “There is toilet paper.”

I laughed. Ankit must have told them some things when I left the table.

I enjoyed the lunch except I felt very tired. We left about 4:00 in the afternoon and headed back. A short time later I began to feel worse. After putting Manisha down early,
I went to bed about 10:00 feeling like I had just come off the scream machine at Six Flags Over Georgia.

I started thinking back to what I had eaten. Maybe it was the salad at the Everest Hotel. Could it have been the rice I ate on the way to Janakpur? How about rat feces?

Manisha had chronic diarrhea so I thought I may have caught something from her. Every day I awakened to the ritual of people making unspeakable noises in the early morning hours. I tried not to be so loud.

After several hours of misery, I called down to the lobby and asked if I could have a doctor come see me. The night attendant had someone sent up to my room. Manisha was still asleep.

“You…stay in bed…take…pills … I write prescriptions,” he said.

He handed me several pieces of paper containing illegible writing. Speaking in broken English, I didn’t understand half of what he said, and I did not know where to obtain the pills. I called down to the lobby again.

“I send runner out in morning when it’s light to get pills,” the man said.

A while later an errand boy knocked on my door. I gave him a tip but apparently it wasn’t enough. He didn’t seem happy but I was too sick to try to find more in my disorderly purse.

Manisha was awake and I wondered how I would take care of her. She called for her father since I did not respond as usual. For the next couple of hours I got lots of exercise running back and forth between the bed and the toilet.

I needed a better plan. I phoned the Reeses to see if they could take care of Manisha while I went to the legal office to check on my paperwork. I didn’t have enough strength to take her with me, and I needed to get the paperwork completed because it was delaying everything else.

I had no plans to spend the day staring at the ceiling or reading on the throne. I threw the pills away so Manisha wouldn’t find them. The Reeses were happy to take Manisha. We made a plan that seemed simple enough, but then nothing in Nepal was simple. I would take a taxi to a school, call them from the school, and they would pick her up. The taxi would take me to the legal office.

The front desk called a cab. Since the driver spoke no English, the clerk told him where I wanted to go, but he didn’t explain everything to him.

He needed to wait for me in front of the school while I made the phone call. After Manisha was picked up, he would take me to the legal office. To make sure I wasn’t stranded, I didn’t pay him. I could hear him yelling loudly at me as I exited the taxi and briskly walked up to the school with Manisha in tow.

I asked if I could use their phone but the woman said, “No, you can’t use the phone.”

Why not? Nobody was talking on it. I felt too sick to argue with the woman.

I walked out of the door in tears, crying to God, “Please help me.”

I could hear her locking the door behind me.

About that time, another lady walked up and asked in English, “What is wrong?”

“I need to use the phone but the woman inside won’t let me.”

“Come in and I’ll let you use it,” she said kindly. She unlocked the door and let me in. She took us over to the phone and handed it to me. I called the Reeses.