Orphanage Visit and Finding Place

We all slept pretty good last night.  We ate breakfast and quickly brushed our teeth and went back down to Skype with our families.  They all saw Le An for the first time and we got to see our daughter!  She was excited to see us and meet her little brother.  While we were Skyping with Tony's parents, Le An filled his pants.  Tony couldn't stand the smell through another Skype session so he went up to change the diaper while I called my family.  They were so excited to see Le An but I had to tell them they had to wait till he got a new diaper.  We chatted till Tony and Le An came back down.  Skype uses a lot of data via VPN so we've used up our free allotment and have now gotten into the paid/permanent data usage.  We finished Skyping and went back up to the room to grab our bags for the day.

Echo came at 9:30 and we left for Xuchang.  I typed yesterday's post the whole 2 hour drive.  (It's not easy to type with 2 fingers!). Le An took a nap.  We got to the orphanage around 11:30.  Actually, Mr. Liu had to ask directions a couple of times and we missed a turn and had to come back.

We saw the first floor where they make food in the kitchen and have therapy rooms and a "singing room" (as Echo translated it) where they do music things.  Then, we went up to the 2nd floor and they took us into the room where Le An was.

I had told Echo 3 names of boys that I wanted to make sure I took pictures of.  All 3 boys were in that room!  I took several pictures of each of them and then also with the iPad.  Since I don't have a camera connection kit, I wanted to be able to email some pictures to their moms.  I'll email the good camera pictures when we get home.

I took pictures of other children in the room, too.  I will post them on the Yahoo Group for the orphanage when I get home.  The little boy that we've thought was Le An but isn't was also in that room.  I actually got to hold him.  He's quite chunky!  Looks like he has just started walking and still loses his balance some.  All the boys in that room are about the same age.  There was another little boy walking around in there who is older.  I asked about him.  They said that he may be lost (wandered away or something).  Later they said he'd been there for 6 months.  (Between you and me, I don't think he's lost.).  Also there was another little boy there who was obviously a little person.  He was definitely no taller than Le An and maybe shorter.  They said he was 4 years old.  Echo told us that he may never be adopted because maybe no one wants a little person.  We told them that there may be someone in the US who would adopt him.  They just don't understand.

We hung around in Le An's room for a while and then Echo told us the director wanted to take us out for lunch.  On the way out they asked if we had any other questions and we asked about possibly seeing where the 12-year-old girl had lived.  That family was not coming to the orphanage.  It would not be a good idea.  They took us to the room where she stayed with a "volunteer mother" for most of her time there.  Then, when the volunteer mother was not eligible to do that anymore and they knew she was going to be adopted, there really wasn't a very good place for her to go so for the last 2 months, she stayed in the same room as a caregiver.  Her previous room was now part of an elderly facility.

We took pictures of the big sign for the orphanage then we got in the van and followed the director and the gal that gave us the birthmom's keys in the hotel and 2 other girls to the restaurant.  Mr. Liu joined us, too.  We had a traditional Chinese meal served on a lazy susan.  Echo explained what things were as they were brought in.  Le An likes just about anything he tries.  Today he ate potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, and pumpkin.  we tried various types of things.  We gave chopsticks a good try but the director went and got forks for us.

We talked (with Echo's help) about the cultural differences between the US and China.  They talked about the 12-year-old girl and Echo translated for us some of it.  They also told us a little (what they know) about Le An's birthmother!  As we suspected she was unmarried and when she left the hospital, she didn't even pay her bill.  The orphanage paid it.

When we finished with the lunch we took some pictures of everyone.  When we got our thank yous and goodbyes said, we got into the van and I asked Echo who the other 2 girls were.  She said they are the ones who do the children's paperwork for the orphanage.

Next we went to the hospital where Le An was left when he was 4 days old.  (We got a photo album from the orphanage that had a picture of him taken on 9/3/10, the day he was left and found.)  The maternity part was a building behind the main building.  We took some pictures and video and were on our way.

We drove the 2 hours back and paid Mr. Liu.  We went into the hotel to go back to our room and found that the elevator was out of order!  We are on the 3rd floor so we had to walk up that many stairs.  We got up to our floor and there was a hall party again!

We unloaded our things and the 12-year-old girl's parents were anxious to hear what we learned.  I showed them pictures and will email them later.  The dad also spoke with Echo later when she came back from the translator service with all of our documents and Le An's passport.
We ended up going to dinner at a fancier Chinese place with several of the CCAI families.  Two of the moms and one dad actually speak Chinese so they ordered and translated for us.  It was pretty good and they even brought fruit (mostly watermelon) at the end .  First time we've gotten fruit at the end of a Chinese meal since we've been here.  The mom I was sitting next to said it only happens in the fancier restaurants.

We came back to the room and started packing.  I'm worried that we won't get everything in the suitcases!

We go to Guangzhou tomorrow!