Never yield

October 29, 2012 by Beth Shepherd

Friday: our fourth trip to Gyumri and final visit with Baby Bird. On this morning, before heading north, the plan was to stop at the Ministry of Justice Office and sign papers to register Baby Bird. Registering signaled our intent to adopt Baby Bird.

Our taxi driver for the day bore an uncanny resemblance to Sean Connery, right down to his square jaw, grizzled complexion, distinctive full mustache, and arched eyebrows. He was the spitting image of the actor save the lack of front teeth which I noticed the minute he lifted his chin toward the rear view mirror and parted his lips.

As we headed up the hill to the ministry office we could see Mt. Ararat, the famous mountain where—according to legend– Noah’s ark landed. In the four trips I’d made to Armenia, I’d never seen this much of the mountain. Ararat is a dead ringer for Mt. Rainier, the mountain I knew and loved in my own home state, right down to its shoulder mountain, Little Ararat. Seeing Ararat beneath clear blue skies in all its glory, reminded me of sunny summer days in Seattle when people say “the mountain is out.”

Squeezing into the pint-sized elevator (barely big enough to hold the three of us: our translator, Big Papa and me), we slowly made our way to the top floor, where we would wait to meet with Mr. Stepanyan, the Deputy Head of the Civil Acts Agency for Armenia. His office acts as the Central Authority for inter-country adoption. From the corner windows outside his office, all of Yerevan was laid out before us with Mt. Ararat floating above a field of gray blocky Soviet-style buildings.

When we entered Mr. Stepanyan’s office, he shook our hands, first Big Papa and then me. I searched for recognition in his eyes. We’d met him on two previous trips. In fact this was my third visit and Big Papa’s second visit to his office.

Our translator spoke to Mr. Stepanyan in Armenian. His eyes faced downward toward his desk, until she said our last name, Shepherd, at which point he looked up, seriousness in his eyes.

“Oh, Shepherd,” he intoned deeply, stretching out the “Oh.” He remembered.

He remembered the suspension of our previous adoption attempt, and he told us how sorry he was for our heartache. I believed him. His eyes looked warm and sincere, his voice was soft.

Mr. Stepanyan motioned for us to sit in the two (now familiar) chairs in front of his desk.

“So, what have you done this week?” he asked. I wanted to laugh because he knew exactly what we’d done.

“We spent the past three days traveling to and from Gyumri where we went each day to visit Baby Bird at the children’s home. We enjoyed our time with her, and we want to adopt her.”

Big Papa shared a few stories from the days we spent getting to know Baby Bird. Then Mr. Stepanyan handed us a piece of paper, with three hand-written lines and two spaces for our signatures. Our translator told us the document stated we had met Baby Bird, and wished to formally accept our referral and express our intent to adopt her.

We signed the paper and shook hands again. That was it. She was registered to us. After all we’d endured over the past few years leading up to this trip, there was only one word to describe this moment: surreal.

We took the rickety elevator back to the first floor and left the building. Sean Connery was waiting for us just outside the gates. After climbing into the taxi, we made our way through Friday morning Yerevan city traffic and headed for the highway. As soon as we were 100 feet clear of the on-ramp, Sean dropped his foot on the gas pedal. He was a solidly built man and I could feel the thud of his foot reverberating in the back seat. For the next two hours, he didn’t let up on the gas, not for a minute. Behind Sean Connery’s toothless smirk lay the heart of James Bond with a hefty dose of Mario Andretti thrown in for good measure. I could see him tuck his chin and narrow his eyelids like a downhill ski racer as we jetted down the open road.

Our two-lane highway became a three-lane highway, if you counted the center line as a lane. We dodged and weaved like nobody’s business, zooming up the white line at the speed of light only to duck, at the last moment, into the infinitesimal space between a petrol truck and a car carrying a full load of flour sacks. I imagined Sean’s completely confident philosophy: Never yield until you see the white of their eyes.

Big Papa and I have been in the back of a lot of taxis. Taxis in Beijing where the traffic was twenty lanes thick and speed limits were the merest of suggestions, taxis on serpentine mountain roads at 16,000 feet of elevation in the Himalayas, speeding blind around corners where the steep drop-off was thousands of feet, passing in a two-lane pitch black tunnel, traveling in the lane of oncoming traffic. But nothing we’d experienced, to date, compared to the taxi rides we took over the four days we spent traveling to and from Gyumri.

I closed my eyes again and again, wincing. Please let us get to Gyumri in one piece. Occasionally I looked at Big Papa whose expression alternated between deer-in-the-headlights shock to utter amusement.

We arrived in at the blue gates of the children’s home with all our limbs attached, fully awake, blood pumping ferociously through our veins. Considering our taxi rides over the previous three days, this ride was a veritable taxi success. I flung the door of the taxi open, leapt from my seat and practically ran toward the greeter dog.

Shadows from places I’ve been

October 26, 2012 by Beth Shepherd

Keep your face always toward the sunshine

–and shadows will fall behind you.

~Walt Whitman

Yerevan, Armenia

Gyumri shadows on winter bridge, Armenia

Gyumri, Armenia

Baja Mexico desert

Kelsey Creek shadows, Bellevue, Washington

Kelsey Creek Park, Bellevue Washington

Want more shadows and light? Check out Delicious Baby Photo Friday!

Running on fumes

October 23, 2012 by Beth Shepherd

Day three: on the road to Gyumri. We had a different translator than we had on days one and two. She was a quintessential Armenian beauty with dark brown hair blown-dry straight, large luminous brown eyes, always dressed to the nines, model-thin body. We’d had her translate for us before and on several occasions also experienced some interesting taxi conversations. I remember one ride that ended with some yelling, then a bit of disdainful laughing, followed by throwing money at the driver and, finally, slamming the door of the taxi shut. She told us the driver proposed to her during the ride.

Our driver for day three was young, handsome, and a big smoker. Smoking is very common in Armenia and many of the cab drivers smoke. Usually our translator asked them not to, and since we were hiring them by the day, they usually comply (although I’m sure they light up the second we leave the taxi). I smelled cigarettes hanging in the air of the cab and my eyes began to sting after a few minutes in the cab.

Our translator and the driver talked amiably. A beautiful girl and captive audience—I got the impression the drivers liked her as much as a full day’s wage.

As we made our way to Gyumri, the sky was dark and ominous looking clouds loomed overhead. About an hour into the drive, I happened to notice that the gas meter hand appeared to be millimeters away from empty.

The highway to Gyumri had several filling stations for the natural gas most of the taxis used, but the distance between one station and the next was many kilometers. The process of refueling was unlike anything I’d seen in the U.S. When we had to stop and refill the tank, we were asked to exit the cab and stand a safe distance away in a small way-station for this very purpose.

I whispered to Big Papa, “Does it look like the meter is on empty to you? Should I say something?”

Big Papa looked over the cab driver’s shoulder.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Um, hey…” I say tapping our translator on the shoulder.

“I’m a little worried that we are running very low on fuel.”

The words were barely out of my mouth when the taxi began to slow. Then it started sputtering.

I moaned to Big Papa “Can you believe this–another taxi fiasco, three days running. Oh man, I really do not want to run out of gas in the middle of rural Armenia.”

“No kidding” he replied with an edgy nervousness in his voice.

Oddly enough, the driver didn’t seem the least bit concerned. Slower and slower, we inched along with the cab lurching and spitting. We rounded the bend, and there, like an oasis in the middle of a desert, was a gas station.

Big Papa, our translator and I let out a collective sigh of relief. We pulled into the station and the three of us got out and waited at the station house while the driver filled up. I should add that by now it was raining like nobody’s business.

Getting back into the cab, we didn’t talk much the rest of the way, but all I could think about was how lucky we were the gas station was there when we needed it. Maybe the driver knew the station was right around the corner or maybe he hedged his bets that he could make it, but all I know is we drove the last several hundred meters on fumes.

When the blue gates of the children’s home finally came into view, I couldn’t have been happier. As per usual, the greeter dog was there to meet us. And I, for one, was over-the-moon to see him.

Ticket to ride

October 16, 2012 by Beth Shepherd

Big Papa and I made three more visits to the children’s home in Gyumri to visit Baby Bird. On day two, as our taxi pulled up to the apartment where we were staying, I paused, remembering the lack of shock absorbers…and the flat tire, from the day before. As soon as we climbed into the taxi, it was pretty obvious this particular driver was an extremely loquacious fellow. He started talking the second we pulled away from the curb. And he didn’t stop talking until we arrived in Gyumri, except once. That was when he got pulled over for speeding.

I wish I’d been looking at the speedometer when the whirling red lights appeared in our rear view window, just to see the number. I can only imagine how fast we were going. Most of the taxis drivers drive well over the speed limit. Because of this, I was a bit surprised that the officer even bothered to pull us over.

Our driver slowed. He was angry and a torrent of muttering erupted from his mouth. We pulled over to the side of the road, he rolled down his window and, for a moment, stopped talking. The police officer stepped up to the door of our taxi, and our driver got out and headed back towards the police car. I’m not sure what the protocol for traffic stops is in Armenia, but it’s definitely different from U.S.

When the driver came back, he was grousing as he gave our translator an earful. She seemed more amused than anything else. I imagine she was thinking: what did you expect? The ticket fiasco added twenty minutes to our ride and, from what our translator told us, cost the driver about $40. He continued to grumble, and I’m sure he was pretty unhappy about the ticket, but I figured—given how fast we zipped along that highway—this was not his first time.

I don’t think we were back on the road for more than a couple minutes before he lead-footed the pedal and off we sailed at lightning speed. Not even a ticket was going to slow this guy down.

When we arrived in Gyumri, our driver headed straight for the children’s home, no directions needed. We flew around the corner, practically on two wheels, the taxi bobbing and popping over potholes. Thankfully this cab had better shocks than the taxi we took the day before. As we careened toward the gates at the children’s home, dust billowed out from underneath the tires. We stopped, suddenly, and I could feel my head lurch forward. Then the ride was over, and it was very, very quiet.

The greeter dog raised his head from where he lay on the front steps of the children’s home, and trotted down the steps to meet us. I pictured him saying: Welcome back.

It’s hard to describe the feelings that went through my head each day we spent time with Baby Bird. On the one hand, I wanted to drink in every moment, memorize the hue of her eyes, her scent and the sound of her cooing. But I was also well aware that she was not our child until we attended court, some five to six months down the road. And because we’d already had one adoption fail mere days before we were going to bring a baby home, I felt cautious with my heart and I know Big Papa felt the same way. I remembered all too well how slowly the months passed the last time we were in this place and how painful it was to raise my hopes up so high, only to have them fall to the greatest depths of sadness.

Despite our apprehension, we enjoyed our time with Baby Bird immensely. She was a very animated baby, eager to interact, make eye contact and imitate anyone around her. On several occasions one of us made a sound, and she replicated it to a “t.” We would say to each other “Did you see how she just…” When she did the same thing with our translator, who said the exact same thing we’d been saying, I thought to myself: This kiddo is on the ball. I loved her inquisitive nature: her fascination with the raindrops trailing down the window as well as the babushkas toddling along outside the window. I also admired her drive, like the way she gathered her strength and tried with all her might to sit upright on the couch, even as her tiny body listed port and starboard.

My head told me: Shield your heart. But I could feel myself soften when I held her in my arms.

The day we met our daughter

October 11, 2012 by Beth Shepherd

Big Papa and I exited the taxi, a bit shaken from the long, wild ride and woozy with anticipation. Oh baby, here we are!

We walked up the stairs to the second floor of the children’s home. Light streamed through the large front window, decorated with brightly colored flowers, butterflies and birds, most likely the handiwork of children who lived here. There were many green plants on the window ledge and lining the stairway and the walls were hand-painted with wonderful whimsical pictures.

After a brief conversation with, we presumed an administrator from the children’s home, our translator motioned to a door on the left side of the hallway and we followed her into the room. This is where our first meeting would take place, in the office of the children’s home doctor, Dr. M, a lovely woman with welcoming eyes and a kind smile.

Following a shake of hands and a warm, but cursory greeting, Dr. M left us alone in the tiny room, waiting with our translator. The room was spare. An old wood desk stood in one corner of the room, by the window. Atop the desk was a coffee mug with a chip on the edge. Vertical blinds parted to reveal a nearly vacant street, where we’d occasionally see women passing by on their way home from the market, on the windowsill stood a forlorn plant in a plastic bucket. Beneath the sill a radiator hissed. Someone’s beige, broken-in moccasins were tucked underneath the radiator, on the floor.

We were seated on a couch with springy cushions, a couch that had undoubtedly seen many years. It was covered by a crocheted white popcorn throw with fringe. Across from the couch was a lone lacquered burgundy chair beneath a small bookshelf filled with medical books and a few children’s toys. Beside it stood another small wood end table with a phone and a colorful crocheted tablecloth. Adjacent to the couch was a wood table that appeared to serve as an examining table. It too, had a crocheted blanket on top. And in the opposing corner to the desk, an imposing two door locker-style closet loomed, its lower two doors ajar revealing a plaid coat, the upper two doors, also open and hinged at odd kittywampus angles.

The floors were well worn, cement that had, at one time, been painted brick red; dings and scrapes adorned dingy cream-colored walls. Behind the couch a few print-outs were tacked to the wall, along with a couple posters that appeared to have information about child development.

I kept watch on the clock in one corner of the room, while Big Papa hung his head, pensively, and checked his watch, again and again. Time crawled.

Seeing your child for the first time, whether your family is formed through birth or adoption is an occasion like few others in this life. And though we’d waited years for this very moment, it was impossible to forget this wasn’t the first time we’d waited to greet a baby in Armenia. Because of that, and because of all that had transpired over the past few years, the tension in the room was palpable.

At one point, a woman poked her head into the room and spoke with our translator. Apparently there had been some confusion over which baby we were intended to meet. I felt my chest tighten and my heart pound, loudly enough for me to imagine that anyone in the room could hear it. “When,” I thought to myself.

Our translator interpreted, “Soon.”

Nearly 45 minutes passed, as we sat nervously, waiting. And then she appeared.

Carried by one of her nannies, one pint-sized baby girl appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in a pink and white striped cotton jumpsuit with a long-sleeved onesie underneath. On her head was a white cotton cap festooned with a miniature blue bow. Just the tiniest fringe of auburn hair peeked out from under her cap.

The nanny handed her to me and I held her, facing me, as we sat together on the couch and took each other in. She grinned at me and I grinned back at her. Green eyes twinkled with the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen.

I turned her around so her back was to me and held her against my chest. She felt warm and light. At five months she weighed around ten pounds, about the size of Maggie, our cat.

Then I handed her to Big Papa and they also sat, face to face, checking each other out, lips parted slightly, mirroring the expression on each other’s face. Big Papa exhaled, and so did I. “She’s pretty darn cute,” we both said, almost in unison.

We ooh’d. She drooled. We ahh’d. She sighed. And that is how the three of us spent our first minutes together, in Gyumri, Armenia, on October 11, one year ago today.

Going to Gyumri

October 8, 2012 by Beth Shepherd

It didn’t take very long to realize there’s something about hurtling down a patched and bumpy highway in a taxi, at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour, in the middle of rural Armenia, that lets you know you are really going somewhere. Because, in fact, we were.

Side-by-side in the backseat of the cab, Big Papa and I were headed to meet the baby girl we hoped to adopt. A taxi ride doesn’t get much more potent than that.

In Armenia, taxi cabs never have seat belts, so we carefully positioned ourselves as securely as we could, and toughed it out. Our translator sat in the front passenger seat. As she chatted amiably, in Armenian, with the driver, Big Papa and I looked out the window and watched the autumn scenery pass: 13,419 foot Mount Aragats loomed to the east, snow already coating its steep slopes, brown hills as far as the eyes could see, a smattering of trees with leaves turned shades of gold and rust, acres of wheat fields, crops spent for the season, the occasional sheep or cow herder waving a stick at his flock.

Our driver appeared to be in his forties. He was slim and dark haired with an aquiline nose and a pleasant, unassuming face. I got the sense he’d been driving a taxi as long as he was old enough for his legs to reach the pedals.

We sped along toward Gyumri as Yerevan rapidly disappeared behind us. It was a two hour drive from Yerevan, the capitol of Armenia, to Gyumri in the north. As the crow flies, the distance is roughly 75 miles, but because of the twists and turns in the roads and the potholes—despite the speed we were traveling—we were told the journey would take us just under two hours.

This particular cab had seen better days, much better days in fact, which was the case for most of the taxis in Armenia. Absence of seatbelts aside, our taxi on this fine October day was also lacking shocks. Each bump in the road sent our stomach to our throats, and we literally found ourselves airborne. Repeatedly.

“Ow. Ow.” Big Papa moaned as his head made a loud thunk on the interior roof of the cab.

“I think my spine just got two inches shorter.”

I tried to stifle a laugh as I felt myself levitate a good six inches off my seat. It was like riding the mechanical bull at the county fare. My neck was already sore and we were only a half-hour out of the gate.

Two adoptive moms, who had also received referrals from the same orphanage in Gyumri, had warned me about the condition of the roads.

“Be thankful you’re not traveling in winter,” one of them wrote in an email shortly before our trip.

“To say the roads are icy and slippery is an understatement.”

For a moment I let my mind wander. Wouldn’t that take the prize? Our driver underestimates a turn a we find ourselves in a ditch. Fear fueled a burst of adrenaline in my body but I snapped into focus just in time to notice a high pitched whine coming from the rear of the car. In moments the sound of thwakety-thwak followed and the car veered to port.

Our translator anxiously questioned the driver. The driver nervously looked right and then left before pulling the car off to the side of the road. Cars flew by us as he stepped out.

“What’s going on?” I ask her.

“I don’t know. Something’s wrong with the car.”

Big Papa retorts, “You think?”

We both snicker as we turn our heads and see the driver shaking his. He opens the door and says something to our translator.

“Flat tire. We need to get out of the taxi so he can change the tire,” she tells us.

Great. Just great. I can feel a big cloud creep into my psyche as I mentally calculate the time we’re about to lose. We’ve already missed a day of visitation waiting to get permission from the Ministry of Justice Office and now, here we are, stuck roadside.

“Does he have a spare?” I ask standing inches from the ditch by the road, gazing off across the fields towards the eastern hills. The sky is gray and threatens rain.

“A spare that is road-worthy enough to get us the rest of the way to Gyumri?”

Meanwhile Big Papa has maneuvered himself toward the back of the taxi, to help hold the trunk open as the driver assesses the spare, and makes his preparations to fix the flat. I imagine Big Papa’s dilemma: he doesn’t drive, he’s in a foreign country on a highway in the middle of no-where, he’s wondering what his role in this situation is and he’s fully aware of male dominated bias of the culture particularly where it applies to men and cars.

I snap a picture.

“Don’t.” Big Papa admonishes, but I see the hint of a smile.

“I’m not sure I want this moment in history recorded for all perpetuity.”

I chuckle.

Soon it’s apparent that our taxi driver knows exactly what he’s doing. Not more than fifteen minutes pass standing in this wind-swept valley before he nods, smiles, and then motions us back into the taxi, thanking Big Papa profusely as Big Papa sheepishly shakes his head.

“It’s not like I did anything except stand there and be supportive with my hand on the lid of the trunk.”

We continue on our way and another hour passes uneventfully before we reach the outskirts of Gyumri. I’m relieved. I’d rather be stuck here, near the orphanage, than sticking out my thumb trying to hitch a ride in the middle of the Shirak province.

Gyumri, like the rest of the region, is still reeling—now 23 years later—following the devastating 1988 Spitak earthquake. At least 25,000 people were killed in that disaster, and the ridiculously protracted reconstruction of the Shirak region translates into its people continuing to stumble in the aftermath. Because the earthquake destroyed the economy along with the cities, the poverty rate in the northern part of Armenia is higher than the national average, nearly fifty percent, making it the poorest region in the country. I’d read that people were still living in metal cattle cars, set up as temporary housing over two decades ago.

Pulling into town, our driver is awestruck. He hasn’t been to Gyumri in years, our translator tells us, and is surprised at how much improved the city looks. It becomes quickly obvious to us that it has indeed been many years since he’s been here as we pull over to ask first one, then two, and then several people directions to the orphanage. Even the police officer at stop number three has a blank look on his face when our translator tells him the name of the orphanage. As we weave our way through town I recognize the statue of the woman who stands at attention, with her arms in arabesque, we’ve passed by her two or three times as we’ve made our aimless circles.

Finally we arrive at a corner the translator recognizes. Our driver gingerly edges our taxi over and around several crater-sized potholes, pulls over beside a stone wall with fading children’s paintings of mountains and people etched on its face like graffiti. There is an turquoise blue fence sandwiched in the middle. A scraggly tan and white dog , small with strikingly large ears, who appears to be a cross between a terrier and a corgi, saunters up to greet us. We’ve arrived.

Gutter art: the ornamental downspouts of Gyumri, Armenia

May 18, 2012 by Beth Shepherd

Gyumri is a place of unexpected beauty. The Kumayri historic district in the center of the city has more than one thousand 18th and 19th century buildings, and is also one of the few places in the Republic of Armenia with remnants of authentic historical Armenian urban architecture. Nearly all the buildings in the Kumayri district have survived two major earthquakes, in 1926 and 1988.

Almost every morning during our week-long stay in Gyumri, we took walks up and down the streets, and discovered wondrous details—my favorite being the intricate designs of the gutters and downspouts. They were simply breathtaking. Bird and flower cutouts perched and carved out of simple sheet metal. An art form like I’d never seen before.