Little Princes

  I rarely mentioned the true inspiration for starting Next Generation Nepal: the seven children. The idea of searching for families was far-fetched, I knew that. At least it was a task, though, something I could try, even if I just walked the streets of Kathmandu. But Dirgha, Amita, Bishnu, Navin . . . these were real children. I did not share their names with anybody. To do so would have been to admit responsibility for what had happened. I told myself that there was nothing I could have done, but that wasn’t true. I could have squeezed them into Little Princes until we had a better solution. I could have avoided speaking to so many people about it—Golkka had many contacts, and he had learned of our interest in the children, which directly led to his retrafficking them. There was no escaping the fact that seven children were gone because of me, and it was very possible that I would never get them back. That crushed me every day. So I kept their names to myself and accepted the applause at that fund-raiser for being such a brave, selfless soul.

  I was learning more about Nepal that summer, leveraging policy and international organization contacts I had built over the years at the EastWest Institute, building a contact database for when I returned to Kathmandu. But nobody I spoke to could tell me anything about Humla, the remote region where the Little Princes were from. It was a complete unknown. Until I found Anna Howe.

  Anna was based in Kathmandu. She was one of the few people I had heard of who had actually been to Humla, who had actually worked on community development projects there. Like Viva at Umbrella, Anna had been in Nepal for about fifteen years. She was American, I guessed in her early fifties, and a practicing Buddhist. She would go on to become a Buddhist nun, to shave her head and wear the gorgeous maroon robes, but when I met her she was the country director for an international organization called ISIS that helped rescue children who had been trafficked from Humla. I e-mailed her, explaining who I was and what I was trying to do. She wrote back immediately, eager to help in any way she could. Helping Humli children was a life’s mission for her.

  We e-mailed often. Anna knew Nepal as well as anybody. She knew the story of how children were trafficked, and she knew Golkka; he had trafficked many children besides those at Little Princes. Unfortunately, Golkka also knew Anna. A local journalist had written an article detailing the work she was doing in Kathmandu. Despite her plea to remain anonymous for personal safety reasons, the journalist published her name. Days later, Golkka called her cell phone, which he had procured through his network, and told her in no uncertain terms to immediately cease all involvement with Humla. In typical Anna style, she politely told him to go to hell. But she was also much more vigilant when she left her house.

  Anna became something of a mentor to me. From my bedroom halfway around the world, we instant-messaged for hours, brainstormed about how I could search for families of trafficked children. She knew the region well. She had gone to Humla during the war, and had been captured, only briefly, by Maoists who demanded she pay a ransom to let her go.

  Clearly, the rebels didn’t know Anna Howe. In fluent Nepali, she shamed the young teenage rebels, asking them if they even knew anything about Mao, what they were fighting for, and if they were honestly demanding an older woman, traveling alone, on a mission to help impoverished villagers, pay them all the money she had, which would leave her stranded in Humla. They let her leave.

  Over and over, she told me that I was doing the right thing, that the children needed me to do this. That encouragement helped keep my spirits up over the summer when the weight of the task ahead threatened to overwhelm me.

  Farid was my full-time partner in this mission. We wrote several times per day. He understood my obsession because he shared it. He started a smaller version of NGN in France, naming it Karya. It was a much better name than Next Generation Nepal, I admitted with a sigh. Karya sounded like a French word, but was Nepali for “work.” Karya would bring in some money and, critically, find excellent, dedicated people in France who could help, some of whom had been former volunteers at Little Princes. It was a French woman, after all, who started Little Princes to begin with. Farid and I knew that, together, we could open a children’s home. We knew how to manage a children’s home—we had done it with Little Princes for months. Farid had long been an expert in how many kilos of rice one child could eat per week, the price of potatoes, how much to pay for a tailor.

  How to rescue children, though, was another matter. I had no answer for those who asked me how we would do it. Nor did I have an answer to the question of how I would even begin to find families of trafficked children in the remote villages of Nepal. All I could tell them was that we were going to try, but we needed their donation to do it. And bless them, many people gave. They gave in small amounts, ten dollars, twenty dollars. I received checks from people who had followed the blog for two years, who told me that they felt like they had been living at the Little Princes with me. I wrote back to each and every person who donated. I wrote gushing thank-you letters that probably embarrassed some people. To me, each donation was a touching display of blind faith that I would be able to accomplish something. Each donation showed a confidence in me that I did not share.

  By August, after four months of uninterrupted begging, I reached my goal of raising five thousand dollars. I figured that would be enough money to get back to Nepal and support a children’s home for a few months while I continued to fund-raise. I was practically sweating from the effort. Then I was rewarded with my first lucky break. One of my college buddies from the University of Virginia, Josh Arbaugh, had contacted the local paper in Charlottesville, Virginia, and convinced them to run a story about what I was doing. It would run the following month, in September, when I was already in Nepal. The paper promised a big article with a photo of me and the kids. The article would also detail the story of the seven children. That small, local paper in Charlottesville was going to hold me accountable.

  I looked at my checklist. Seven steps had been crossed off. The next one was the very first one I had written down: Fly to Kathmandu. It happened in early September 2006.

  Four

  Nepal was a different country from the one I had left in April. My trip out of the country involved weaving around burning tires on the Ring Road and pressing through the crush of the few remaining panicked tourists to make my flight. For the first time, there was not a swarm of people milling outside the airport’s borders, waiting for their family or friends to arrive; they were now allowed inside to the arrivals area. The machine gun nests near the entrance sat empty. Gone were the soldiers at every intersection and the tank that guarded the southern road that led from Kathmandu to Godawari. We drove past what had been the military checkpoint, the point on this road where I was so accustomed to getting off the minibus, submitting to a search, and getting back on the bus to continue my journey. It was as if the closing bell had rung, and the entire war had just packed up and left.

  One hour and seven dollars later, we were driving into Godawari, back where it all began.

  I had not told the children I was coming. They were a quarter mile away from where I got out of the taxi. For all they knew, it would be several years before I returned. Halfway down the path to the children’s home, I ran into Nishal. He was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, peeling a small orange and chattering away to Hriteek, who was hanging by his knees from a branch directly above him. Nishal held up his arm to hand him the peeled fruit, and set to work peeling another. Hriteek took the orange and continued to stare into space. I happened to enter that space, from his point of view, upside down. I watched him snap out of his blank stare and try to rotate his head.

  “Conor Brother!” he yelled, falling out of the tree and landing on Nishal, who shrieked first at the sight of Hriteek free-falling toward his head, then at the sight of me coming down the path. They scrambled to untangle themselves, then sprinted toward me, plowing into me like crash-test dummies. They grabbed my hands and shook them with glee, then ran ahe
ad of me, racing to see who could break the news first.

  In the few quiet moments between the time Nishal and Hriteek disappeared and the herd of children stampeded back up the path, some still holding pencils and notebooks from their study time, I took in the new landscape. It was the end of the rainy season in Nepal; I had only ever been there in the dry season. Gone were the bright cloudless days. Mist hung around the hills and mountains, catching in the trees like a Lord of the Rings set piece. The fields were thick and green with wheat. The garden, the dead patch of dirt and dry vegetable patch, now sprouted above the seven-foot walls surrounding the home, a thicket of bamboo obscuring part of the house. It was drizzling, the first rain I’d ever experienced in this country, and some of the children were holding enormous Jurassic Park–style leaves over their heads as umbrellas. Then I was overrun.

  The children, in their hepped-up craziness at seeing me, actually calmed me. It was not just because this was like coming home to family, nor was it because I felt a surge of joy in seeing these twenty little Nepali tornados, an emotion I never would have thought I would feel here three years ago, when I first arrived at that blue gate. I felt something else, too: respect. For the children. Because after all the rage and revolution that had clawed at Nepal for years, after being forcibly marched through the mountains, after being taken from their parents and watching volunteers leave them just when their country was imploding, these kids were still laughing, still studying, and still showing off. They were survivors. That’s how kids are in Nepal. I felt no less urgency about finding the seven children, but it gave me hope that even if I didn’t find them tomorrow, that they might somehow hang on.

  I had not been to church since I was ten years old, and even then it had bored me. But that night, in the thick September humidity, I lay in bed and prayed aloud. I asked God to consider this remote country and those seven children in it, seven dots of humanity. I asked only that He keep them safe, just long enough for me to find them. I admitted, silently and only because I figured that He knew it already, that this was as much for me, for making up for my own failure and assuaging my guilt, as it was for the kids.

  “You are married, Brother?” Santosh asked. I was buttoning up Nuraj’s shirt. He was, as usual, the last one ready for school. The other boys were ready, shoes shined, shirts tucked in, gripping the shoulder straps of their backpacks with some cartoon French logos on them.

  “No, not yet, because it’s only been—”

  “You have girlfriend?” This was from Bikash, the eldest.

  “No. Like I said, I have been very busy with—”

  “You find girlfriend soon? Nepali girl? You are getting very old, Brother!”

  I could hear an alarm ringing, like when two submarines came too close together. If I gave even the slightest hint that I was open to finding a Nepali girlfriend, the children would go momentarily catatonic, then emerge with a single-minded directive: find Conor-Brother-Girlfriend-in-Godawari-How-About-Her-or-Her-or-Her. . . .

  “Absolutely not. I am here for you guys, I came to see you,” I declared, too emphatically perhaps. “Besides, my parents would not be here to approve her,” I added.

  This registered. Over 90 percent of all marriages in Nepal were arranged marriages. The idea that I may be any different, that I could simply marry any girl I wished without my parents’ permission, was unthinkable. They nodded solemnly.

  I watched them march off, single file, their hair pasted down with oil to look presentable for school. They looked like a line of busboys in a 1940s nightclub. Once they were all the way down the road and the house was quiet, the real work began.

  While preparing for my return to Nepal, I had reached out to everybody I’d ever made contact with in Nepal—aid workers, UNICEF representatives, other volunteers, Nepali friends. I would need as broad a network as possible for what I was trying to do. I told each of them that I was searching for seven children from Humla who had disappeared after the April uprising. Many were curious, some were outright skeptical of my motives. Surely there was some other purpose? Surely these seven children were the side project to some larger agenda? Regardless of the reaction, the response was uniform: admirable but impossible, I was told in so many words. We will keep our eyes open, they said, for every one of them. But please, they implored me, do not get your hopes up.

  I met Viva Bell and Jacky Buk, of the Umbrella Foundation, for the first time in person. They had their hands full; Umbrella now had five children’s homes in Kathmandu. The homes were almost next door to one another, and in turn next door to their own house. Within that one area of Kathmandu, a remarkably quiet neighborhood in the northwest side of the city, they and their staff looked after more than 170 formerly trafficked children. They had worked hard, and had probably taken in more children than any other child protection organization in the country. Still, as we sipped tea in Viva’s living room, all she could talk about was her deep regret that they had not reached the seven children in time. I reminded her of the military-imposed curfew and that they had missed them by only two days. She shook her head.

  “No, no . . . that was our chance, Conor,” she said, putting down her tea. “You haven’t had to look for children in this city before. I have. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack—it simply can’t be—”

  She cut herself off and looked at Jacky, who only smiled at her. She continued, “Look, if you find them, any of them—they’re probably not together anymore—they can stay here with us. We’ll take ’em in for as long as you need until you can get your own children’s home up and running. You’re doing fine work.”

  We finished our tea, and they walked me to the door. I hated to leave. Viva had been here fourteen years, Jacky two. Both were former hippies. Viva had a teenage son. They had built a life here. My time in their living room, where I would be a lot in the future, felt safe, like a home away from home. They were equal parts encouraging and honest. They had been through these same trials with children in Nepal and I felt a deep connection with them. Farid would not be able to come to Nepal until late November, and I felt very much alone with a very large task before me.

  As I walked to the door, Jacky asked me to wait. He took out his cell phone and dialed, speaking quickly to the person on the other end. Two minutes later he was off again.

  “That was Gyan Bahadur, from the Child Welfare Board—tu le connais, non?” He spoke in a funny mix of English and French; I don’t know if he was even aware of it. “You met him last year. You should go to his office immediatement. He can see you. If anybody can help, it is Gyan.” He walked me to the front door. “Bonne chance, eh?”

  Gyan Bahadur, the Child Welfare Board official who had helped us months earlier, would soon become one of the most important people in my world. The exact position he held was unclear due to the complexity of the Nepal bureaucracy, but he commanded authority. That much was clear from the buzz in his office, the way families gathered around him, pleading with him to help them. That he had made time for me in the middle of what appeared to be a hellacious workday was a testament to how much he respected the Umbrella Foundation.

  In a country where many public officials must be viewed with suspicion, Gyan genuinely wanted to help children. His responsibility was overwhelming; his jurisdiction was the Kathmandu Valley, the epicenter for child trafficking in Nepal. Still, he never gave up, never slowed down, and maintained his calm Buddhist demeanor in every interaction. When I approached his desk that first day, he waved away a man who was raising his voice and walked over to me to shake my hand. I told him quickly what had happened to the seven children he had tried to help protect, and the reason why I had returned to Nepal. He was dismayed to learn of their fate.

  “This was Golkka, we know this,” he said. He paused. “I do not wish to alarm you, Conor sir, but . . . time is not on our side. It has already been many months and no one making sure children stay healthy. I will ask people i
f they hear of these children.”

  I had many more questions for him, but I knew he had to get back to work—the man who had been raising his voice was now pounding on the desk to get Gyan’s attention. Gyan smiled at him, almost serenely, and politely indicated that he should take a seat. I walked outside and caught a bus back to Godawari.

  My workday began when the children went to school, which was just about every day now that there were no bandhas, and it ended when they came home. I continued at 8:00 P.M., after they went to bed. During the day, I spent a lot of time with Viva and Jacky. I sought out anybody who knew anything about Humla, specifically whether or not it was safe to travel there. Nobody had any definitive answers, even people from Humla itself. I also called Gyan frequently. Although he was always clearly in the middle of something urgent, he always took time to speak to me. He sensed my growing frustration.

  “We must search, yes, but also be patient,” Gyan said one afternoon. “We will find, but it will take time. . . . I am sorry, Conor sir—you know that I have so much work to do here.” I was visiting him in his office. As usual, he had excused himself from a family to speak to me. My raincoat was dripping wet from the monsoon outside.

  “We don’t have time, Gyan—you know that.”

  “I will ask some more people if they have any information.”

  “Nobody has any information. Nobody has seen them. Or maybe nobody is telling us even if they have. How many illegal orphanages are holding these trafficked children? Two hundred?” I could hear myself getting angry.