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By Greg Fields
Part of the MPR project One Family, Two Countries
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August 1996 - After leaving no personal or financial detail untouched, we get a call from the adoption agency that an 18-month-old boy is available in Bulgaria, and they had a video of him available. Wendy and I charge off to the agency to see the video. We see a five-minute video and are provided some sketchy health information.
We have a doctor at the U of M look over the video, and he suggests getting measurements of the child. The measurements take three weeks to receive but, they are O.K. We take the leap of faith and accept the child as the one we would adopt. His name is Tichomir, which means peaceful person. Now the hard waiting begins as the Bulgarian government officially releases Tichomir to us for adoption.
April 25, 1997- After months of waiting, we get a phone call at 1 p.m., that our hoped-for date of May 2nd wouldn't work and we should plan on coming the 9th. A hour later we get another phone call and are told to come May 2nd. The next three days are a blur as we get the final details for the trip in place. We withdraw $2,800 in new bills to carry into Bulgaria since they only want nice, new U.S. dollars.
May 2nd - We leave at 3:10 p.m. for Bulgaria on KLM. This is the first time for both of us to visit Europe. We had always imagined going to Europe, but not Romania and Bulgaria.
Our first taste of Europe was the Amsterdam airport. One of the first things we see is a giant Marlboro cigarette-pack advertisement in the lobby. We then notice that cigarette advertising is everywhere and the airport has two stores devoted to cigs and alcohol. It seems that everyone smokes. There is no such thing as a non-smoking area.
We next board a second flight to go to Bucharest, Romania. We notice that, except for the crew, we are the only ones who are speaking English. We begin to feel different and worry that we look like frightened little rodents.
May 3rd - We land in Bucharest, Romania. The first thing I see is two soldiers with machine guns over their back on the tarmac. Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore! We meet the in-country rep and a woman from Indiana who is adopting an eight-year-old girl. The rep leaves us with a driver who will get us to Bulgaria, two hours away. The driver doesn't speak English and his Romanian is limited. I get a little worried. We drive through Bucharest and notice many more soldiers carry machine guns. Now we definitely look like frightened little rodents.
We get to the Romania, Bulgaria border. First we must get out of Romania. Lots of guns here too. We notice that even though it is in the mid-70s, the guards are all wearing heavy coats. This is something that amazed the two Minnesotans who, at the first rumor that it is going to be 50 degrees, shed their jackets. We see this repeated everywhere we go. Eighty degrees and guys are wearing leather coats. Women are wearing warm-looking jackets on top of their outfits. It's not human!
We get past the Romanian and Bulgaria check points after about an hour. The driver hands out sunflower seed packets to everyone. A way to stay in their good favor, I believe. We arrived in Ruse at the Hotel Splendid. Really, that's the name. We meet our translator who says she will pick us up the next day at 10:30 and that she would leave us to eat in the hotel's restaurant that night. Now looking like tired, frightened rodents, we go to the restaurant not knowing what to expect. Fortunately the menu also has English on it. We have a full-blown, wonderful meal for three adults for $11. After 29 hours of being up, we pass out in bed.
May 4th - The translator arrives and we take a walk down to the Danube River where we have drinks on an old river boat. Then we have lunch at a sidewalk cafe. We feel very European now and our courage soars with our translator at our side. I'm certain we don't look like frightened rodents anymore. Unlike Western Europe, very few people here speak English. We spend the afternoon and evening at our translator's summer house. It's a very nice house that sits on top of a bluff overlooking an old, small village. Our translator and her husband are wonderful hosts. Our translator informs us that even to this day, her phone is bugged by the security forces because she deals so much with foreigners, or dirty capitalists, as they used to call us.
May 5th - The big day! We travel by a van whose driver is Nick, a former MIG pilot. It takes two-and-a-half hours to arrive at Varna, a resort town on the Black Sea. We finally pull into the orphanage driveway. The orphanage is quite large and sits overlooking the Black Sea. The orphanage public areas are quite nice with marble floors and wooden-panel walls. We are told this is the best-looking orphanage in Bulgaria, because a wife of one of the highest Communist officials started it.
There can be up to 300 or more kids in the orphanage at one time, separated into groups of 12. We are asked to supply clothing and a diaper to dress Tichomir. We nervously wait in the lobby when we suddenly see a little guy, walking next to an orphanage worker, come down the hallway. He has that old-man shuffle that toddlers often have when they walk and it is a sight I will never forget!
We nervously hold him for the first time and take him to a play area to get to know him. He is very quiet, just studying the two of us. I nickname him, The Observer. Next we are called into the orphanage director's office where we sign one more piece of paper. Then we are told that we can leave. That's it! We can't take anything that was his from the orphanage or are we told any of his habits by his handlers. We just take him, knowing nothing about him, to start life with us. I now feel a little numb.
Next stop is the kindergarten orphanage where we pick up Martina,8, who the woman from Indiana is adopting, and Elia,4, who is being escorted to the states to meet his adoptive parents. The lasting impression I have from there is that both kids said "ciao" to the orphanage workers and walked right out the door, with no hesitation, from the only place they have ever known.
Now we are to drive six hours to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where the U.S. consulate will issue us a U.S. visa for Tichomir. We have decided to make Tichomir his middle name and Nikolas his first name. The van overheats three times going through the mountains on the way to Sofia. The last time it dies on the final peak before, Sofia so we jump start the van, after it had cooled, by pushing it down the road. We are able to pull into what appears to be an all-night truck stop. From here our translator calls the cab driver who usually drives her and the families around Sofia. She can't call just any old cab company because most would be afraid it would be a trap to go pick someone up outside of town.
Once there, they fear they could be robbed or killed for their vehicle. Finally at 11:40 p.m., we walk into the Hotel Europa. In the confusion to pay the driver, I accidentally leave my wallet in the cab. I realize what I have done after the cab has left, but our translator calls the cab driver at home and, yes, he finds my wallet and returns it to me the next day. Probably the only honest cab driver in all of Sofia.
May 6th - Today we get a medical exam and go to the U.S. consulate to obtain Nikolas' visa. Nikolas starts to open up a bit, actually smiling while playing with me. He doesn't seem to quite know who to play with toys, but enjoys moving them from spot to spot. He also doesn't speak a word, only makes toddler noises. Orphanage kids are usually developmentally delayed, meaning that since they haven't had a mom and dad to dolt over them at all times, they are usually behind in areas from kids their own age.
For lunch and dinner we eat in the fancy hotel dining room. This is something we weren't quite prepared for. Every meal we have with this new two-year-old will be in public where everyone can watch us. We find that some people smile at us but, others glare a hole right through us. It could be because they believe the worldwide rumor that Americans adopt kids for donor parts back in the states. Or maybe they disapprove of Americans adopting their children. And finally, and most probable I believe, is that they can see he is of Gypsy descent. The Gypsies are a disliked minority in Bulgaria. Ironically, a Gypsy child would never get adopted by a native Bulgarian because of this prejudice, but those same people don't approve of us adopting them either.
May 7th - After a nice walking tour of Sofia, we pile into another bigger van for the ride back to, Ruse where we will stay until Saturday. This time the van ride only takes five hours with no breakdowns, but we did have one problem. The windows in back didn't open up and the translator didn't want to turn on the air because Nikolas had a slight cold. So, with the temps near or at 80 degrees outside, we slowly cooked in the van. I think I lost a couple of pounds in sweat that day.
May 8th - Today we saw off Marina, Elia, and the adoptive mother from Indiana since they had a flight to catch out of Bucharest on Friday. We spent the day walking Ruse and enjoying ourselves. We thought it was a wonderful day, but little did we know, it was only the calm before the storm.
Nikolas didn't want to go down for a nap and at about 6:30 we were getting ready for dinner. We hadn't fed Nikolas for almost five hours, strike number two. Strike number three came when we tried to get him into his clothes. We found out that hell hath no furry like a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. This went on for a good 10 minutes or so, but it seemed like an eternity. Terrible thoughts went through my head like, is there something deeply wrong with this child? Have we made a serious mistake with our lives? After things had calmed down, we realized we were to blame for the no nap and no snacks that day.
The temper tantrum now had us living in terror that we would see it repeated on the airplane. Like the whistling of a a fast-approaching bomb, our departing flight drew nearer, and we were at ground zero.
May 9th - Having learned from yesterday, we made sure Nikolas was well-fed and well-rested. Friday evening found the town square bustling with people. A display of folk music and dancing was being held in front of the government building. We had our last dinner in the fancy hotel restaurant. We swore it would be our last period with our two year old.
May 10th - Back to Bucharest! Our Bulgarian driver picked us up at 10 a.m. Before we left the very friendly hotel, staff shook our hands and hugged Nikolas good-bye. We found the Bulgarians, for the most part, to be a warm people and their wishes of good luck were from the heart. Now back across the border with the sunflower seeds.
The Romanian customs people looked through all our bags, undoing Wendy's careful work. When one of the armed Romanian border cards handed me back our passports, he asked if the child was ours and where were we going? I said "yes," and we were going back home to Minnesota. He smiled and said with genuine warmth, "good luck to you." Another unforgettable moment. We arrived in downtown Bucharest where we switched cars. Now we were going with the Romanian driver, whose apartment we would stay in.
In the Communist days, many people were housed in tall government-supplied apartment buildings. You see these all over Bulgaria and Romania in the bigger towns. We pulled up to some run-down-looking apartments, row after row of them. The driver had us wait in the dimly lit front hallway while he ran upstairs to bring down the intermittently working elevator. We stood there certainly looking like frightened little rodents while the locals eyed us up as they walked by. A little afraid of what kind of apartment we would find, we cautiously entered the their apartment on the fifth floor.
Much to our surprise, the apartment was gorgeous, with lots of lightly-colored tile and wood floors. Turns out the driver bought this apartment and fixed it up to rent to Americans adopting children from Romania and Bulgaria. The driver had a wife and three kids, the oldest in 9th grade and able to speak perfect English. They fed us a incredible multiple-course lunch, we thought the food would never stop coming! Then the driver took me sight seeing while Wendy put Nikolas to bed for a nap. After my three-and-a-half hour tour, I returned to the apartment for some quiet family time with Wendy and Nikolas. We were still full from lunch but, at 8 the door opened and the driver's wife again brought plate after plate up for us to eat. We fell asleep amazed at their hospitality and warmth.
May 11th- D-Day. At 4 a.m., we got up to get ready to leave. Again the driver's wife came up with a breakfast. At 4:50 Wendy picked Nikolas out of bed and whisked him down to the waiting car. Our hearts beat faster as we anticipated the first explosion. Surprisingly, he never really did explode. He cried a little at the airport, cries of complaint, but nothing as bad as tantrum earlier in the week. Then we boarded our first plane for Amsterdam. Again, he did pretty well on this leg of the trip too.
Next, we boarded the flight to Minneapolis, a large 747. With two-and-a-half hours left in the trip, I was beginning to think we could be home free They say you never hear the sound of the bomb coming that actually gets you. After a little walk around the plane, Wendy tried to get Nikolas to get back into the seats. He screamed his objections. Wendy continued to walk him around for another half hour and each time we tried to get him back into the seat, he screamed. With two hours remaining in the flight, I knew we couldn't continue to let him have his way. It was time for a showdown.
We each took a deep breath and laid him on his back in the seat between us. The explosion occurred. There was lots of collateral damage. I looked up to see at least half-a-dozen pair of eyes glaring at us as he kicked and screamed. I'm certain the pilot heard us, maybe even those 33,000 feet below us felt something too. After what felt like a thousand lifetimes, he finally quieted down and was happy again. As we touched down, we were close to celebration. Eleven hours of flying and only one temper tantrum. When the plane stopped and everyone stood up, I was close to tears of joy. But, nothing was happening. No doors were opening to exit through. The pilot came on and said they were having problems with the door and it could be 10 minutes. Wendy and I looked at each other wide-eyed, like trapped animals knowing that death is imminent. We were certain that Nikolas would greet this delay with another explosion, one possibly felt as far away as Wisconsin.
I fell to my knees trembling, incoherent, a shadow of the man I once was. Wendy took less-dramatic action by standing Nikolas up on her chair. He was content just to watch everyone watch him. The doors opened and disaster was avoided. We were greeted by a large, happy contingent of family and friends who cheered us as we walked out of customs. We were home as a family, finally.
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