Hello, Yali
My mom would have shut her eyes the whole way. Winding mountain roads, steep grades, rain, dense fog, fogged up windshield, Colombian pop music blaring from the radio, our driver occasionally humming along. Before we had even left Bogota, a man on the street walked up to our car, hit each tire once with a stick and took a few coins from our driver, who chuckled. Later as we went flying around tight bends over thin bridges past soldiers wrapped in machine guns, I wondered if it had been the pretense of a good luck charm. We paused for two accidents and a recent rock slide.
“Tinto? Coffee?” our driver asked us, pulling over at one of the many ramshackle roadside stands in the mountains, stuffed with sweet treats and fried breads.
Oxbear happily obliged.
Beautiful country. The same faces, the same green-slashed mountains – huge, gorgeous mountains gouged with waterfalls – and raging black mud rivers you’d collect from the pages of National Geographic.
“Ah! Villavicencio!” our driver proclaimed victoriously three hours later.
We had some time to kill in our hotel – very warm now, out of the mountains – nine stories up, another “no ingles” situation, before the interpreter and lawyer picked us up to meet Yali.
No one spoke English at the adoption house. We were led into a tiny office shared by three friendly women who simultaneously prepared a “little party” for Joe of mango juice, cake, and balloons (which we never had time to blow up), prepared paperwork for us and the lawyer to sign, all while laughing back and forth and talking over each other. Somewhere in the middle of our translated interview, the door opened.
There he was – little Yali.
To my astonishment, he let me hold him almost immediately. About twenty minutes later, he was tossing the stuffed donkey that Puck sent him two months ago back and forth with Oxbear, laughing at the accuracy of his throwing arm. Either that, or tugged on Oxbear’s beard, mesmerized by this wild novelty.
By this time, there were nine people sardine-canned into this tiny office. Oxbear was sweating bullets.
Back to the hotel nearly two hours later for a little exploration. Books, toys, pictures, bananas. Happy chubby dimpled brown cheeks, wispy black hair.
At seven o’clock we tucked him into bed. That’s when the tears finally came: reality had set in. An hour and a half later, with a few snacks and a drink, he lightly cried himself to sleep between us. During the night, he unconsciously tugged on Oxbear’s beard from time to time, just to make sure he was still there.