Authors: Conor Grennan
“No wipe off, Brother!” Santosh was standing behind me. “You look very beautiful! And very very lucky!”
“Oh,
please
!”
“True, Brother!”
I turned to face him. He was smiling. He had surprisingly white teeth. “I don’t know why I let you boys do that. I’m going to look ridiculous on the bus.”
“Because we are fun, Brother! You not have much fun in America I think,” said Santosh, admiring the red goop covering my face. “You come back soon to live here with your wife, Liz Sister. You may share a room with us, no problem.”
“I’m not coming back to live, just to visit. But Liz and I will be back in three months, in January. We’ll be here for two weeks,” I told him.
“Much better that you come with your wife, Conor Brother!” Santosh said. “Liz Sister much more beautiful than you! You are a little hard to look at for me.” He grew suddenly mock-thoughtful. “You need more tikka, maybe. . . .”
I put my arm around his shoulder, and we walked back into the living room. The rest of the children were gone—they were now waiting in a long line that stretched from the front door to the blue gate, leading out to the path. Farid was marshaling the affair expertly, joking with them and rearranging them until they were in the right order, youngest to oldest. Each of them was holding white and yellow flowers that they would present to me on my way out. They stood shoulder to shoulder, chatting excitedly as they always did. Somehow they never ran out of things to talk about, even though they had spent virtually every minute together that day and the day before that, stretching back almost five years, not just in this house but in the house of the child trafficker who had first taken them from Humla. Some of them had been together more than half their lives.
I didn’t go out just yet. My arm still slung around Santosh, I walked through the house one last time. Santosh swung his arm around me, and his hand rested on my far shoulder. When I had first met him three years earlier he had been nine years old—he was much smaller then, and his arm had not been nearly long enough to reach all the way up to my shoulder. Suddenly he was unstuck in time, leaping forward from the nine-year-old I had carried through the hospital to become this twelve-year-old boy next to me.
Together, we walked outside, into the sunshine, to the start of the line of children. Santosh rushed off to grab his own flowers and take up his place in line between Dawa and Bikash. Bikash, at the end of the line, was also suddenly a young man, standing a full head taller than the rest of the boys. He was fifteen, old enough in Nepal to be married or a member of the staff. Raju was the first boy on the left, holding his flowers high, head down, singing quietly to himself. The boy who had hung from my neck the first moment I walked in the gate of Little Princes was gone, and I hadn’t noticed until that moment. This boy, this Raju, was seven, maybe even eight years old. His face was thinner, his arms longer, his voice stronger, richer, even in mumbled song.
Nuraj elbowed Raju in the ribs and he jumped, startled, and noticed me there for the first time. “Conor Brother!” he yelled. “Flowers, Conor Brother!”
I took them and continued down the line, accepting flowers from each child and watching them transform before my eyes; I released them from the images I had kept of them as young children, just months after being rescued from Golkka, when they were still undernourished and small. They were not
supposed
to age, because I was not supposed to still be here. It was three years since I first walked through the gate, when they were so completely unknown to me that I could only tell them apart by the clothes on their backs.
I walked out the blue gate, three years older myself, and up the path. The children waved frantically, shouting my name as I walked with an armload of flowers and a face covered in tikka. But they stayed within the walls of the Little Princes, because they still had to get ready to go to the temple, where they would wash their clothes and play in the shallow pool.
F
arid walked me up to the road. He would be staying in Godawari for a few days. Together we waited for the minibus that would take me back to Kathmandu and the airport. We said nothing for a while, just stared up the road in the direction the bus would come from.
“I remember doing this before the revolution, one and a half years ago, standing in this spot,” Farid said finally. “There was the bandha, and no traffic was moving. I had to walk for ten hours, with my bag, to the airport. That big bag I had, you remember it? It was such a bad time—you had just left back to America, I remember. They were fighting in the streets. It was not long after the Maoists had bombed the Ratna Park bus station, and the police had shot people for protesting. It was very violent out on the streets—they were arresting people breaking curfew. I did not know what to do. I had many hours to walk to the airport, and I did not want to be arrested, or to have them think I was some revolutionary and get attacked. So I put a sign on my bag. I made it from an empty page from one of the children’s drawing books. I used the big pen they have, the one they love—what is the name of that?”
“A marker.”
“Yes, a marker. I took the blue marker, and I wrote my big sign, and I attached it with a pin to my bag so everyone—the police and the Maoists—could see it, and see who I was. To see
what
I was,” he said. “Then I walked, for hours. I thought I would never get home. But I did, and somehow I was back in France. I thought I would not come back here for a long time.”
He was looking down the road now, seeing it as he did almost two years earlier, with no cars and the airport impossibly far away. He must have thought he was going home for good, that both of us were finished with Nepal. Then there was a revolution in the streets and seven children had disappeared, and our lives were suddenly tangled up with this mountain kingdom.
The white minibus came around the corner. Farid held out his arm to stop it for me. The squeal of the brakes started immediately, we could hear it all the way down the road as the bus gradually slowed. I slung my backpack onto my back. Farid held out his hand, I took him in a hug, clapping his back. Farid never liked good-byes. The bus puttered to a rolling stop in front of me.
“What did your sign say?” I asked him. “The one you pinned to your bag?”
He smiled. “It said
TOURIST
.”
I
got an e-mail from Farid in the fall of 2008.
“We are bringing the Little Princes back to Humla,” he told me.
This had been our dream for four years. The trip would only be a visit and would only be for nine children, a test to see how they would adapt after so many years of living in a harsh urban landscape, cut off from their families. But Humla was now safe, and the children had a two-week break from school.
T
he children were anxious as their small prop plane set down on the dirt landing strip in the village of Simikot. Almost all of them had spent more than half their young lives far away from here. But after just a few hours of trekking slowly south along the Karnali River toward their villages, they transformed into Humli children. They ate berries and cracked open fallen walnuts on nearby rocks and ran off the trail and into the fields, fueled by an extraordinary excitement. A day later, they spotted the village of Ripa in the distance, small mud huts built on steep terraces, and memories came flooding back. They giggled madly at the surprise in store for their families, who had no idea that their prodigal children were just a few hours away.
The village erupted at the sight of them. The older children saw parents and old friends, and there were many tears. The younger ones were shy—they had stopped giggling. They wanted to remember these people who were crying over them, speaking a dialect they no longer understood, touching their faces and clothes, but they were little more than toddlers when they were taken from this place. Their families were strangers to them.
But the bonds ran deep. By the end of their first day home, all the children, young and old, were village children again. They followed their mothers and fathers across the barren winter fields, where the crops would be planted in the spring, and into the forest where they would search for herbs. Their hands may have been softer than those of their brothers and sisters, but they stood taller and stronger than even their eldest siblings, who had lived through years of drought. They slept that night not on the mattresses of the Little Princes Children’s Home but on the floors of mud huts, wrapped in homemade blankets, huddled next to their mothers. There were no light switches to turn off now, nobody to shush them if they continued to chatter. When the fire died, they slept.
At the end of the two weeks, not a single child from the Little Princes wanted to leave Humla. And though they had to return to Kathmandu for now, they were changed children. They were more purposeful now; they worked even harder in school. They no longer spoke of becoming astronauts or football players, but of becoming doctors and teachers in their villages. Their destiny had been set in motion, and it was back in Humla, working the land, marrying, starting families, rebuilding their villages, and carrying on traditions that stretch back centuries, long before the Maoist rebels took over the country.
Farid paused at the end of his story, letting it sink in. I hadn’t said a word in the last twenty minutes. It was March 2009; we were speaking on the phone for the first time in months. I had read his account of it at the time, months earlier, but hearing him tell it, with that familiar French accent, brought it to life.
“It’s incredible, Farid. I’m stunned. I wish I could have been there to see all that,” I said finally.
“Yes, you would have liked it very much, Conor. . . . Oh, and we must speak about something. I know we are already talking about moving the children’s home to Simikot, so that they can be in Humla. We must do that. But after this trip, I also believe that some of the children can perhaps return home, can live with their families,” he said, his voice accelerating with excitement. “Can you imagine, Conor? Imagine what it would be like, for these parents to have their children back, living with them? Becoming one family again?”
I looked across the living room at Liz. She sat in a wide armchair in our apartment in New York City, legs slung over one arm of the chair, her head resting on the other, watching me with a drowsy smile on her face. On her chest lay our three-week-old son, Finn, curled up against her shoulder like he would never let her go.
“Yeah, I think I can.”
T
his book
exists because a group of children in Nepal welcomed me into their world. They
were my wards, my friends, my translators, my teachers, and often my lone source
of entertainment when I lived in Nepal. They remain, today, my brothers and
sisters, and I will be forever indebted to them. Farid Ait-Mansour was an equal
(if not greater) partner in this adventure. I have never met a man with a
stronger desire to do what was right for those less fortunate. He is my
hero.
I want to thank the team at William Morrow for
their passion, enthusiasm, and hard work in bringing this book to life. I
especially want to thank my editor, Laurie Chittenden, for seeing into the heart
of the story and bringing out the very best in it and in me.
Trena Keating, my agent, has been a phenomenal
advocate, editor, and friend from the very beginning, and reassured me every
step of the way that yes, really, honestly, there
would
be people who would want to read this book.
My mother, along with the rest of my family, was
always incredibly generous, loaning me money so that I could remain in Nepal
even when my savings had expired. During the writing process, my father, the
poet Eamon Grennan, worked his magic during the editing process, while my
stepmother, Rachel Kitzinger, an accomplished writer in her own right, lent me
her apartment so I could have a quiet space to work. Itay Banayan and my other
classmates at the world’s greatest business school, NYU Stern, helped me through
the most intense classes each semester, knowing that I was working on this
manuscript.
Last, I simply could not have written this book
without the enduring love, support, and editorial assistance of my wife, Liz.
May every author be so blessed to have such a companion.
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
abuse: of children, 266
Adil (orphan), 240, 241
Agrim (orphan), 268
Agulla, Charlie, 62, 159, 245
Ait-Mansour, Farid
appearance of, 18, 64
Bahadur’s meeting with Conor and, 90–91
bandha
explanation of, 31
and bedtime at Little Princes, 35
and Bishnu’s search and rescue, 241, 254, 257
as Buddhist, 243–44, 246–47, 248, 263, 266
children’s relationship with, 68–69, 79, 81, 141, 244, 245, 273
and Conor learning Nepali, 22–23
in Conor’s apartment, 243
and Conor’s arrival at Little Princes, 18
and Conor’s departure from Dhaulagiri House, 273
and Conor’s departure from Nepal, 274–75
Conor’s first meeting with, 18
and Conor’s Humla trip, 151, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 208
and Conor’s leaving Little Princes, 53, 55, 93–94
and Conor’s Nuwakot trip, 262–63
and Conor’s promise to return to Little Princes, 55
and Conor’s questions about food, 65–66
Conor’s relationship with, 72–74, 102–4
and Conor’s return from Humla, 219, 225, 226
and Conor’s return to Little Princes, 64
and Conor’s return to the United States, 263
decision to open children’s home by, 109
decision to return to Nepal of, 102, 103–4
as Dhaulagiri House manager, 155
and disappearance of seven children, 102, 103
e-mails between Conor and, 99, 100, 108–9, 135–36, 137
and families’ visits to Umbrella homes, 240–41
and finding NGN home, 140
and finding of seven children, 135, 137, 138
food interests of, 73, 74
and garbage can incident, 20
and Golkka’s visit to Little Princes, 39, 41
at Hindu festival, 65–66
and hospital visit, 36–37
and Howe as NGN replacement for Conor, 269–71
and impact of civil war on Little Princes, 70, 71
and Jablo incident, 141–42
and Karya, 109
Khumbu region trip of, 267–68
and Kumar’s father’s telephone call, 241
and launching of NGN, 105, 106, 108–9
and Leena, 229, 244, 245, 261
Little Princes visits of, 156, 158
and Liz-Conor relationship, 263, 265–66
and Liz’s visits to Nepal, 160, 243, 261
and Maoist rebels interest in Little Princes, 71–72
and Maoist rebels kidnapping of children, 71
and memories of civil war, 274–75
and mother of Nuraj and Krish, 74–81
and names of children, 23
and Navin’s father, 218
and “Nepal time,” 268
and opening of new NGN home, 141
personal background of, 73–74
rescue of children by, 227–30
and return of Little Princes children to Humla, 277–79
return to France of, 93, 100, 274–75
return to Nepal of, 115, 138, 141
and Sandra’s trek to Mugu region, 47–48
and Santosh’s illness, 50, 53
search for families by, 266–67, 268–69
and setting up Dhaulagiri House, 142–46
and seven children with Nuraj’s mother, 83–89, 92, 93–94
and shampoo incident, 24–25
and spiders, 68–69
as teacher, 32, 33
and Umbrella Foundation, 92
Alex (volunteer), 61, 62
Amazon River: Conor’s trip on, 62
Amita (orphan)
appearance of, 86
and Bishnu rescue, 254, 257
and camera, 88
Conor first meets, 86, 87
Conor’s good-bye to, 271
and Conor’s return from Humla, 225
at Dhaulagiri House, 145
disappearance of, 101, 102, 184
finding of, 125–28, 183, 270
mother of, 183–85, 186
with Nuraj’s mother, 86, 87, 88, 130, 183
search for, 107, 120, 270
in Thangkot, 126–27
at Umbrella Foundation, 128
Anish (orphan)
appearance of, 25–26
bedtime for, 22
and Bollywood movie incident, 121
Conor playing with, 28
and Conor’s first night at Little Princes, 22
and Conor’s leaving Little Princes, 53, 54, 55, 93
Conor’s memories of, 61
and Conor’s promise to return to Little Princes, 53, 54, 55
and Conor’s proposal to Liz, 265
and Conor’s questions about food, 66
and Conor’s remembering names of children, 26
and Conor’s return from Humla, 237–38
English homework assignment of, 32
family of, 176–78, 179–80, 237–38
and garbage can explanation, 21
and questions about American food, 42
questions about water and distance of, 67–68
and search for Raju’s socks, 30–31
apartment, Conor’s Kathmandu, 146–51, 155, 224–25, 243, 271
apples: in Humla, 157–58, 213, 230
Arbaugh, Josh, 109
Bagwati (cook at Little Princes), 31, 35, 66–67, 68, 72, 93, 239
Bahadur, Gyan
and Amita, 127
and Bishnu, 241, 248–53, 256
Conor and Farid first meet, 90–91
Conor’s relationship with, 115, 136–37
and Golkka, 90–91
jurisdiction of, 115–16
and Kumar, 134–38, 140
and rescue of children at Dhaulagiri House, 127, 134–48, 227–28, 248–53, 256
and search for seven children, 115–20, 129, 228
and seven children with Nuraj’s mother, 90–91, 92
in Thangkot, 127–28
and Tilak, 253–54
and Umbrella Foundation, 92, 115
Bahadur, Min
Conor says good-bye to, 200
on Conor’s Humla trip, 165, 166, 168, 169, 172, 182–83, 191–92, 195–96, 200, 239
Lali trip of, 195–96
as UNICEF staff member, 165
Bali: Conor in, 62
banana example, 162
bandha
(Maoist-instigated strike), 30–32, 72, 74, 78, 81, 82–83, 89
bank manager: and Bishnu rescue, 249–56
Basinati (orphan), 140
bathing, 24–25
bedtime: at Little Princes, 22, 34–36, 42–43, 53–54
beggers: children as, 62–63
Bell, Viva
and Conor-Liz relationship, 260, 261
e-mail about seven children from, 100–102
and families’ visits to Dhaulagiri House and Umbrella homes, 240
finding of Jagrit by, 157
and finding of Kumar, 137–38
and finding the seven children, 128, 132, 133, 137–38
and founding of Umbrella Foundation, 91–92
and Jagrit’s first meeting with Conor, 132
monkey stories of, 149
and NGN children’s home, 139
personal and professional background of, 91–92, 107
and search for seven children, 114–15, 116
Bible, Conor’s, 246, 247
Bikash (orphan), 33, 75, 113, 161, 172, 173, 179, 273
biking: and Conor’s round-the-world trip, 60–62
Birendra (king of Nepal), 69
Bishnu (orphan)
Conor’s good-bye to, 271
disappearance of, 101, 102
as domestic slave, 249
rescue of, 248–57
saving a Dhaulagiri bed for, 146
search for, 107, 120, 134, 228, 241
Bistachhap (village), 9–13, 24, 90
blankets, making, 143–44
Bokche Ganda (Humla shelter), 169–70, 214
Bolivia: Conor in, 62
Bollywood movie incident, 121–22
Buddhist stupas, 148–49
Buffalo-induced panic attack, Conor’s, 181–82
Buk, Jacky
appearance of, 92
and Bishnu’s rescue, 248–56
call to mayor of Kathmandu by, 255–56
and disappearance of seven children, 101
and finding of Amita, 128
and Jagrit’s first meeting with Conor, 132
and Liz-Conor relationship, 260
and NGN children’s home, 139, 140
rescue of children by, 128, 227–30, 248–56
role in Umbrella Foundation of, 92
and search for seven children, 114, 115, 116
buses: in Nepal, 44, 70, 125–26
Cambodia, 61
camera incident, Conor’s: with seven children, 87–88
camoflage jacket, man in, 186–87
carrom (game), 27–28, 68, 79
cars: building toy, 38–39
caste system, 45–46
Caylor, Beth, 150, 159, 219–20, 223, 224, 225–26, 229, 235, 236
Caylor, Kelly, 62, 150, 159, 219–20, 223, 224, 225–26, 229, 235, 236
Cecile (volunteer), 70, 71
CERV Nepal (volunteer program)
Conor with, 15, 90
Conor’s doubts about volunteering for, 16
Conor’s motives for joining, 6–7
orientation for, 8–13, 17
and return of volunteers, 53
See also
Little Princes Children’s Home;
specific person
Charlottesville, Virginia: NGN story in newspaper in, 109–10, 122
child trafficking
Conor and Farid’s underestimation of amount of, 89
during civil war, 40, 70–71, 84, 189
and expansion of Maoist rebels, 76–77
families as aiding in, 267
and gender, 86
in Humla district, 76–81
Kathmandu Valley as epicenter for, 115–16
and mission of NGN, 105–6
and rescue of children at Dhaulagiri House, 227–28
See also
Golkka;
specific child
Child Welfare Board, Kathmandu, 41, 90, 101, 115, 248
children
abuse of, 266
as beggers, 62–63
civil war knowledge of, 70
Conor’s attempt to open up to, 42–43
and Conor’s promise to return, 55
families reluctance to take, 266–67
Farid and Buk’s rescue of, 227–30
independence of, 68
Liz’s relationship with, 244–45, 249, 259, 260
memories of Humla district of, 81, 161
questions about Conor’s marriage of, 93, 113–14, 259–60, 265–66
questions about Conor’s return of, 53–54
resilency of, 42
responsibilities of, 93
reuniting families with, 266–67, 268
in Ripa, 179
Sandra’s attempts to get news about families of, 47–49
in Shreenagar, 202–3
as survivors, 113
as taking care of one another, 134
as talking about their parents, 80–81
See also
Dhaulagiri House; Little Princes Children’s Home; seven children; Umbrella Foundation;
specific child
Chris (volunteer), 18, 32, 46, 47
Christianity: Conor’s views about, 128–29, 246–47
civil war, Nepal
ceasefire in, 69–70, 204
child trafficking during, 40, 70–71, 84, 189
and Conor’s arrival in Kathmandu, 5–6
and Conor’s decision to volunteer, 5
and elections, 82–83
escalation of, 46–47, 69–70, 81–83, 89, 99–100
and Everest Base Camp region, 15
memories about, 274–75
outbreak of, 46
peace agreement in, 158, 166
and Sandra’s trek to Rara Lake, 46, 47
truce in, 105
U.S. news about, 97–98, 99–100
See also
bandha
; Maoist rebels
CNN: Nepal news on, 99, 100
Conor.
See
Grennan, Conor;
specific
person or topic
cows: questions about eating, 42–43
Dalits, 45–46
Dasain (Hindu festival), 125
David (Scottish volunteer), 211–13, 214
Dawa (orphan), 33, 36–37, 68, 129, 273
D.B. (ISIS volunteer)
and Amita’s mother, 184–85
Conor first meets, 124, 270
Conor says good-bye to, 200
and Conor’s Humla trip, 161, 163, 164–68, 171–72, 173, 174, 175, 179, 184–85, 187, 190–91, 192, 198, 200
and Conor’s plans to visit Humla, 158
and Jagrit’s family, 190–91
and Maoist permission for Humla trip, 166–68, 203
Rinjin as brother-in-law of, 164
and teams for Humla trip, 164–65
death certificates: for Jagrit’s parents, 157, 188–89, 194, 230
Depak (CERV Nepal employee), 9
Devaka (house mother), 271
Devendra (CERV worker), 90, 91
Dhananjaya (WFP worker), 198, 200, 201, 203–8, 209
Dhaulagiri House
addition of children to, 219
blackout at, 244
Conor and Farid’s decision to open, 109
Conor has missing children at, 218
Conor’s good-byes to children at, 271
and Conor’s return from Humla, 226–27
Conor’s stay at, 243–45
families’ visits to, 240–41
Farid as manager of, 155
and Farid’s return to Nepal, 141
final group photo at, 271
finding of, 138–40
importance of opening, 141
leaving ceremony at, 271
Liz’s relationship with children at, 249, 259
Liz’s visit to, 226–27, 228, 229, 243–45
and location of Conor’s apartment, 147–48
naming of, 144
rescue of children at, 227–30
setting up, 142–46
six children come to, 145–46
and stipends for parents, 267
and Tilak’s rescue, 254
Dipendra (crown prince of Nepal), 69
Dirgha (orphan)
appearance of, 86
and Bishnu’s rescue, 254, 257
and camera, 87–88
Conor first meets, 86, 87
Conor’s good-bye to, 271
and Conor’s return from Humla, 225
at Dhaulagiri House, 145, 146, 148
disappearance of, 101, 102
finding of, 129–32
get-well cards for, 134
in hospital, 129–32
malnutrition of, 129–32
with Nuraj’s mother, 86, 87–88
search for, 107, 120
at Umbrella Foundation, 132, 133–34
Drinking Jelly, 66
EastWest Institute, 6, 99, 106, 107
Ecuador: Conor’s trip to, 62
eggs: as gift for Conor, 185
Elena (Liz’s friend), 123
English: learning, 33
Everest Base Camp, 14–15, 40, 158–59, 267
Everest National Park, 15
families, children’s
as aiding in child trafficking, 267
Conor’s feelings about meeting, 181