Read Online Children of Dreams, An Adoption Memoir by Lorilyn Roberts - Free Book Online
Authors: Lorilyn Roberts
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It would take a couple of days to process the paperwork. We would have to travel back to the Dolakha District and meet once again with the CDO to have him sign his part of the documents. I was actually looking forward to making the trip again. I could enjoy the scenery even more knowing that everything would be approved. I had not gotten a picture of Mount Everest the previous day. Ankit assured me we would stop and get pictures. Wednesday I would be able to return to the legal office and pick up the paperwork.
When I got back to the hotel, Manisha and her father weren’t there, so I went in search of another place to eat. Ankit thought it would be a good idea for all of us to be at the same place, so he made arrangements for Manisha and her father to relocate.
Later that afternoon, I was able to take Manisha out by myself for the first time. I carried her around on my hip as we walked the streets of Kathmandu looking through shop windows. There were lots of billboard advertisements for safaris through the jungle, elephant rides and plane trips into China, and escorted hiking trips by the Sherpas to Mount Everest.
Nepal has fourteen peaks more than twenty-six thousand feet high. In the Janakpur District alone, in the Mechi Zone of the Himalayas where we were, there were seven peaks more than fourteen thousand feet. The road on which we traveled gave us vistas of some of the highest peaks in the world with Mount Everest at 29,028 feet.
In a different time and place, I would have jumped at the opportunity to go on one of the excursions. I had gone scuba diving all over the world, including diving with hundreds of Barracudas in the Bahamas. I bled blue blood when I was bit by a grouper at eighty feet on the Great Barrier Reef. I was waited on hand and foot and treated to spectacular diving in the Red Sea off the coast of Eilat, Israel, surrounded by poisonous lion fish and garden eel. I traveled to Europe more than once, studied in England and Italy, toured Australia and New Zealand, and chased sharks in the Caribbean.
I was in Jerusalem taking a course in Biblical Studies at the start of the 1991 1992 Gulf War. After being shown how to use a gas mask and self-administer a nerve gas antidote, I paid a hundred shekels in an all-night escape from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. I caught the last plane out to Switzerland and then spent a few days in Engelberg skiing while the world was on the brink of war. I whitewater rafted down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon and trekked through the rain forests of Central America in Belize and Honduras. I lived for myself, until God called me to adopt. Now it was as much fun to look at those advertisements with Manisha as it was to actually have experienced them a few years earlier.
I had become accustomed to the stares of the Nepali men which were more apparent to me now that Manisha was with me. I was stopped on the streets by shopkeepers, who spoke just enough English to sell trinkets to the tourists, “What caste is she?” they would ask, as if the higher the caste, the more value she had.
In Nepali society, the little girls did not have the same “worth” as young boys. Manisha’s father wanted to remarry, which made him anxious to complete the adoption. He could not marry until the adoption was finalized or else Manisha would not meet the United States definition of orphan.
When Raj and his new wife had their own children, Manisha would have come after their children in hierarchy as far as food, clothing, and bare necessities. Her life at best would have been difficult and death was a certainty by the time she was seven.
After being asked several times, I thought I’d better find out. Ankit told me that Manisha was a Chetri, the second highest caste after Brahmin. Her last name in Nepali, Karki, was a common Chetri family name. It bothered me that everyone asked, but it was easier to answer the question than to evade it.
Many also thought Manisha was a boy because
It would take a couple of days to process the paperwork. We would have to travel back to the Dolakha District and meet once again with the CDO to have him sign his part of the documents. I was actually looking forward to making the trip again. I could enjoy the scenery even more knowing that everything would be approved. I had not gotten a picture of Mount Everest the previous day. Ankit assured me we would stop and get pictures. Wednesday I would be able to return to the legal office and pick up the paperwork.
When I got back to the hotel, Manisha and her father weren’t there, so I went in search of another place to eat. Ankit thought it would be a good idea for all of us to be at the same place, so he made arrangements for Manisha and her father to relocate.
Later that afternoon, I was able to take Manisha out by myself for the first time. I carried her around on my hip as we walked the streets of Kathmandu looking through shop windows. There were lots of billboard advertisements for safaris through the jungle, elephant rides and plane trips into China, and escorted hiking trips by the Sherpas to Mount Everest.
Nepal has fourteen peaks more than twenty-six thousand feet high. In the Janakpur District alone, in the Mechi Zone of the Himalayas where we were, there were seven peaks more than fourteen thousand feet. The road on which we traveled gave us vistas of some of the highest peaks in the world with Mount Everest at 29,028 feet.
In a different time and place, I would have jumped at the opportunity to go on one of the excursions. I had gone scuba diving all over the world, including diving with hundreds of Barracudas in the Bahamas. I bled blue blood when I was bit by a grouper at eighty feet on the Great Barrier Reef. I was waited on hand and foot and treated to spectacular diving in the Red Sea off the coast of Eilat, Israel, surrounded by poisonous lion fish and garden eel. I traveled to Europe more than once, studied in England and Italy, toured Australia and New Zealand, and chased sharks in the Caribbean.
I was in Jerusalem taking a course in Biblical Studies at the start of the 1991 1992 Gulf War. After being shown how to use a gas mask and self-administer a nerve gas antidote, I paid a hundred shekels in an all-night escape from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. I caught the last plane out to Switzerland and then spent a few days in Engelberg skiing while the world was on the brink of war. I whitewater rafted down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon and trekked through the rain forests of Central America in Belize and Honduras. I lived for myself, until God called me to adopt. Now it was as much fun to look at those advertisements with Manisha as it was to actually have experienced them a few years earlier.
I had become accustomed to the stares of the Nepali men which were more apparent to me now that Manisha was with me. I was stopped on the streets by shopkeepers, who spoke just enough English to sell trinkets to the tourists, “What caste is she?” they would ask, as if the higher the caste, the more value she had.
In Nepali society, the little girls did not have the same “worth” as young boys. Manisha’s father wanted to remarry, which made him anxious to complete the adoption. He could not marry until the adoption was finalized or else Manisha would not meet the United States definition of orphan.
When Raj and his new wife had their own children, Manisha would have come after their children in hierarchy as far as food, clothing, and bare necessities. Her life at best would have been difficult and death was a certainty by the time she was seven.
After being asked several times, I thought I’d better find out. Ankit told me that Manisha was a Chetri, the second highest caste after Brahmin. Her last name in Nepali, Karki, was a common Chetri family name. It bothered me that everyone asked, but it was easier to answer the question than to evade it.
Many also thought Manisha was a boy because
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