We Succeed Where BBAS Wouldn’t Even Try
Solutions can come from the unlikeliest sources.
On Aug. 25, back home late after celebrating his mother’s birthday, Daniel was reading a post on one of his mailing lists from a fellow hiker who lived up in the Adirondacks part-time, with whom he was acquainted offline as well.
Way down in an otherwise routine trip report on a hike, he mentioned that a hiking partner, Susan, was returning to New Jersey “to prepare for a trip to Bulgaria.”
Daniel’s eyes perked up at this. We had never read of someone going to Bulgaria outside the adoption boards and mailing lists.
He wondered ... was she Bulgarian? Probably not, but maybe she had some contacts who could help us, and by extension the Blevinses.
So he asked his friend who had posted the report if he could get in touch with Susan, and explained the situation.
He told me about it when I came home from work later that night. I agreed it was worth a shot.
Dan’s friend didn’t write back for five days, during which he and his brother themselves went up to the Adirondacks to do a bit of backpacking and peakbagging.
When he did write back, the man promised to give Susan our email, and us hers. She wouldn’t be back for another three weeks, however.
We could wait that time.
As it turned out, it would be a little longer. Susan was supposed to have returned to the U.S. on Sept. 11, but ... that day, as you know, all international flights were barred from entering the country after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, and she was among those stuck at Heathrow Airport in London for a good week or so before she could get back to the U.S., which she finally did on Sept. 18.
So, her friend emailed Dan back three days later in response to a query from Dan about Susan and asked if we’d like her email and telephone number.
Three days later, she emailed us with her phone number up in the Adirondacks and we were finally able to talk a month after the thought first occurred to us.
Dan made the call. It turned out that things were better than we’d hoped.
Susan had been to Bulgaria many times, understood the language quite well and — get this — did relief work in the orphanages. She’d started while her husband at the time, an EPA employee, had been sent over there back in the early ’90s to help the Bulgarians develop an environmental enforcement program in the wake of the Communist collapse.
The best part came after Dan described the Blevinses’ situation.
Susan or a Bulgarian man she worked with in doing her orphanage aid were both cleared to escort children, and he had the necessary US multiple-entry visa as well.
Score! A direct hit!
She was willing and able to do it and, although the date hadn’t been fixed yet, would probably be able to do it.
Now it was just a question of the logistics. We put Susan and Dorothy in touch.
On Oct. 6, Susan emailed us back (Dorothy was having some problems and unable to email us frequently at the time).
It was a go. She was not only willing, but wanted very much to be the one to escort Maria, so sympathetic was she to the Blevinses’ situation.
Now all we had to do was figure out how to do it.