Monday, November 5, 2007

Bright Pink -- Final

“Don’t look, don’t look,” I chant to myself. “Don’t look suspicious. No sudden moves. Oh my God, those men have submachine guns.”
It is dark when we get off the plane, a sticky heat radiating from the tarmac even though it is 11 o’clock at night in late November. Lights resembling garage floodlights give an eerie glow to the soldiers, standing with submachine guns cocked nonchalantly on hips.
I shake my head.
Don’t be ridiculous. I’m legally in Ecuador. It is 1998. I have a passport. I have American money. No reason to be frightened.
We hustle with the rest of the departing passengers, almost running in the rush to get to customs first. Too late; we’re in a long line. It seems like a dream. People stand close together in two long lines – another plane has landed at the same time as ours. It’s eerily quiet; no one talks loudly, no one pushes. The guards with the guns are inside the airport terminal, too.
A man with bright blue eyes with crinkles in the corners walks by our line twice. He’s staring. He approaches. “Are you a teacher? Here to adopt a baby?” We both nod in shock. “I’m George. You know. From Florida. We’ve talked to you on the phone. We’re here to adopt our son.”
Relief. Someone we know – or at least kind of know. He speaks Spanish. He’s been here before – lots of times with family and with friends he’s made over the years. He knows what to do. We wave wildly to his wife, standing in the second customs line 10 feet away from us. She grins, waving just as enthusiastically back. I wonder how they knew who we were in this crowd of people, most of us obviously foreigners. Maybe the red Elmo I have clutched to my chest is a clue.
The line seems to move faster after we meet George. We join George and Michelle after customs, searching in the quiet for our bags on a long table in the middle of a deserted concourse.
This is nothing like an American airport. No people scurrying. No intercom calling flight numbers. No carts with piercing beeps carrying the old or sick back and forth between flights.
We grab our bags, making our way out of the double doors. Then the noise hits. The steamy heat again, and this time soldiers standing casually at the doors while what seems like hordes of people press against each other, waving arms, calling names. Taxi drivers yell frantically trying to get the attention of just one person to snag a fare. George and Michelle’s friend Roberto is waiting to drive them to the orphanage; they want us to ride with them. But we feel guilty, unsure of what to do. We know the orphanage is sending someone to pick us up. We don’t want to leave him without explanation after the trouble he will have gone to. Then we see one lone white sign with WATKINS printed carefully on it. The man holding it is in jeans, a blue and gray striped shirt. Somehow he seems to know we’re the right ones when he sees us. He gestures; we follow.
As we go to his taxi, three or four people trail after us, trying to carry our suitcases to the car. A thin boy – maybe 10 years old -- walks closely behind me, but I clutch my fannypack -- turned backwards to guard my wallet from pickpockets -- closer to my body. He calls “por favor, por favor” over and over. I look, even though adoption agency employees have told us not to. One eye pleads sadly; one eye stares off into space at a 90-degree angle. I am so shocked that I immediately give him the two dollars I have tucked in my side pocket. An older man follows him; I don’t know what he’s saying, but his voice sounds like he’s scolding. In my mind, he’s saying, “Ask for more, ask for more.” The taxi driver is rough with the boy, forcing him away as he opens the door to the car. We get into the backseat, but the boy pecks persistently on the window – “por favor, por favor.” I turn my head.
The trip to the orphanage is breathtakingly fast – and not because it’s close by the airport. Lights flash by. I see there are no lines on the paved roads except for the center one that separates the onrushing cars. I hold my husband’s hand.
When we pull up outside of the gates, the driver honks the horn. Michelle and George are in a car behind us. The gates swing open into the white-washed, cement compound walls. The next few minutes are a blur, as a man holding a sawed-off shotgun opens our car door. I’ve never seen a sawed-off shotgun before, but there is no doubt in my mind exactly what it is. I am shocked. One more thing that surprises, startles, frightens, confounds me.
We are bundled into our waiting apartment by two young women, both speaking Spanish rapidly. George is talking to them; I find my high school and college Spanish years have truly been wasted. We look around the sparsely-furnished apartment – tiny kitchen with a sink and a miniature fridge, but no stove. Two striped sofas with a long wooden table in the living area. Three doors leading to separate bedrooms. We don’t know until an hour later that another couple and their two children – from Norway – are asleep in the third bedroom. Their journey here started two weeks earlier. They will leave for home in two days.
This part of our journey, however, is just beginning. The journey for our daughter, a sister for Connor, a granddaughter for our parents, the journey that has lasted our entire married lives -- and at times what seemed like a lifetime -- although it’s only really been five months since it started. Julie Maria Nicole. I want to see her now. Others who have traveled here before us have told us that the babies are brought right to their new mothers.
This time, things are different. We are late, after midnight. The ladies shake their heads that it’s not possible to see the children. The babies are asleep, they pantomine. See them in the morning. It will be better. Michelle is my alter-ego at this moment; we are determined. We will not wait until morning. We just want to look. We have traveled far.
They finally consent after much gesturing on our part and rapid speech by George, and we move across the quiet, well-groomed courtyard. We don’t know it then, but one of the younger men working in the orphanage sits on the tiny lawn and cuts the grass with a pair of scissors during the afternoons. There is a round fountain that serves as a tiny swimming pool in the middle, but only the visiting parents and their new children can use it. The other children will watch carefully to see how to act when their parents arrive.
We cross rapidly into the main building. The outer room is painted a vivid green and orange – garish colors that would normally clash but somehow seem fitting in this exotic setting. Michelle and George are led down the hall to the big kids’ bedroom, where Cristian sleeps in a big boy bed. We go into the baby nursery.
She is the closest to the door, the sheet on her bed a bright blue and our family pictures – Jeff and I, Connor, the dog Annie, even our swingset in the backyard -- hanging in their plastic sleeves from the white, flaking bar around the top of the crib. She has staked out her position as “head baby,” I think to myself. She’s not really a baby, she’s 19 months old, but she’s tiny as she lays on her tummy, her butt raised up in the air with her legs curled under her. She looks so much smaller than her pictures; her personality is quiet now instead of the commanding, mischievous persona we have seen in the photographs – the one where she pretends to talk on a plastic phone to her “mama,” the one where she carefully guards the books we’ve sent her from other children crowding round, the one where she stands proudly holding out her arms as if she’s waiting for us to pick her up. Her hair curls in tiny ringlets around her face, wet with perspiration even though the air conditioner is running. She has on a pink sleeper, clean but well-worn with tiny little balls of cloth covering it. I put my hand softly on her back. I have to touch her.
She has on pink. She is our daughter. She is a sister for Connor. Even so far away, we are finally home.

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