Houston, We Have Liftoff!

In my opinion, few things are sweeter than victory shared amongst friends. When our vision for LaVya began to gel, we knew we'd have to act quickly--we just didn't know we'd need the Millennium Falcon. Thanks to a few gracious people who expedited things along the way, we are now packing, doing laundry and breathing a huge sigh of relief. Our only crisis remains who will get the aisle seat on the flight to London. Sure, we're laughing now, but for a time last week, we weren't sure if our travels to India and Nepal would be taking place via reruns of Globe Trekker:

*Turns out the Consulate of India remains backed up for at least three weeks for visa processing. We, of course, found this out two days before Thanksgiving, when David, Jer and I were all in NY/NJ with family, and the NY office told us, good luck, but no, you live in Atlanta, and must therefore process your request via Houston. Oh, and best of luck, in fact, because you'll never get it in time. Always up for a challenge, we refused to take no for an answer, and found that we could, in fact, get our visas in time, it would just require travel to Houston and applying in person. This, we found, would entail an on-line application process and request for appointment with their visa outsourcing center. Check.

*Once the on-line requests were made, we began reading the fine print. Yikes! Long form birth certificates, which included the full names and nationalities of both parents would be required for processing. We wanted to cry, and now it was the day before Thanksgiving! After frantic calls to our mothers, we resolved again to take matters into our own hands. The clock was ticking and we dialed vital statistics offices from Napa to Fairbanks with one hand, booked tickets to Houston on Travelocity with the other. A fax, a notary and a Fed Ex later, I held in my hand a long form the next day. David, however, was not so lucky. Turns out overnights aren't so common from vital statistics bureaus in Alaska. He'd have to have his sent to our hotel in Houston!

We'd come to far to not keep looking up.

*Back to Atlanta, packing for Houston. David can't find his passport. No worries, I tell him. We have three hours before departure.... Good news: Found. Bad News: Expired. Again, just another hoop. The State Department had a passport office located in Houston, just ten minutes from the visa center. At this point, we laughed. Bleary-eyed, we arrived in Houston. The next morning, the dawn came. Good omens were everywhere. It wasn't enough that we passed a Kiehl's on the way to the visa office, like a shining beacon in the SAME parking lot we were greeted by this:

It was a sign. Kiran was there in spirit! Feeling bolstered, we proceeded with our paperwork. It was almost too easy--after all the emotional build-up, we walked in to the visa and passport offices respectively, handed over our documents and were handed receipts for pick-up. SAME DAY pick-up! Now, to kill time in Houston....

Should you find yourself in a similar predicament, we HIGHLY recommend lunch at Taquerias El Alteno. Homemade tortillas, chargrilled, crema fresca just mixed, buttery avocados, spiced, roasted and shredded chicken--need we say more?

Rounding the corner from lunch, another sign:

Yes, tis the season of Epiphany. We stopped for a moment on the side of this little church, settling into the realization that our journey and our vision for the children of India and Nepal were far greater than ourselves, far greater than the bureaucracy which had frustrated us all the way to Houston. It was humbling. It is in this spirit and with these words that we move forward:

We should not go the people and say,"Here we are. We come to give the charity of our presence, to teach you our science, to show you your errors, your lack of culture, your ignorance of elementary things." We should go instead with an inquiring mind and a humble spirit to learn at that great source of wisdom that is the people.

---Dr.Che Guevara

Now where are my keys?