Recap and orphanage visit

Recap from Wednesday night.  Our good friend Shiyan that our daughter is named after lives here and she came to the hotel to visit with us.  It was great seeing her and catching up.   She took us and the Lee’s to a nice place for dinner, it was so good we are going back tonight.

Another thing I missed yesterday; when we were at The Bund this older couple keep looking at us and getting closer, I stopped paying attention them and eventually the man tapped me on the shoulder and smiled and pointed at our boys and gave us two thumbs up, I looked over and his wife was by Robin doing the same thing.   It has been a bit different having a child with noticeable physical deformity, we get stared at a lot when we are out in public.   Some just look and other give signs of approval as they understand that in the US he will get excellent medical care that he would not get here.

Today we stopped in a KFC for a quick lunch and this one worker kept standing near the boys and finally stroked Joshua’s ears and smiled, the manager came over and smiled at the boys too.   They all just kept looking at us and smiled.

 Since I am in recap mode, I will touch on other ways we have seen God at work on this trip.   It is extremely rare for a guide to be shared by multiple agencies on a trip but for some reason this week they were short a guide and Ming Ming needed to take care of us and also the Lee’s who are with an agency we have worked with before.    She ended up taking both families and met us at the airport.   The most interesting part of this is that we adopted a little boy with a hearing condition and guess what Dr. Lee is an ENT (ear nose and throat) specialist.   So by chance (Not) we ended up with a doctor that fully understands Joshua’s condition and was able to give us good information. 

Additionally we both have really enjoyed spending time with he and his wife and it has been great having their daughter and Josh together as they were in the same room at the orphanage.

Josh is sleeping very well, he made it all night with no issues, he does seem sleep with his eyes a bit open, I guess he still does not fully trust us.  However Shaun is waking up around 4:30 to 5 am every morning ready to go.  Robin let me sleep until 6 this morning and she had the boys dressed and ready to go when I got up.  I would be on a perfectly normal sleep schedule were it not for Shaun and I believe this could be said for Robin too. It does not matter how late you keep him up he wakes up as soon as the sun is up and that happens to be very early here.  Josh is a mommy’s boy, again this morning when she brought him to me he cried.  If he is up and playing and I hold my hands out he will come right to me but he does not like Robin to hand him to anyone.

Now back to today, as usual we met our friends for breakfast and then they had to head off to the airport for their flight.  We decided to go visit Peoples Park.  This turned out to be a beautiful park right in the middle of the city and it appears to be over a rather large subway station.  We walked around and watched people doing Tie Chi and other exercises.   There was a pond with beautiful walkways around it.   We spend a couple of hours in there walking around and just admiring everything.  I had been promising Shaun some ice cream so we found a street vendor and purchased ice cream for all of us.  This was likely the first time Josh has eaten ice cream and he really liked it.   Afterward we walked around the streets a bit.  We needed to pick up an item from Starbucks, for someone.a coffee mug so we managed to find a Starbucks to get this.  We then tried to make our way across this very busy street to get to the Hershey store and KFC.  There was a police officer there to keep you from walking out and getting run over as we waited it packed up with people, scooters etc. and when the walk sign came on it was crazy.  To complicate things a wreck had just occurred on the opposite side and people were stuck in the intersection trying to get around this so we just followed the crowd and snaked our way through to the other side.

The Hershey store was neat, there was another Starbucks in there and the KFC.  As noted above KFC had some stares but the food was good and the service pretty good too.

We knew that catching a cab in this area would be challenging so we worked our way to a side street and managed to hail a cab for the ride back to the hotel.

We had time for short naps for the boys and then off to the orphanage for a visit.  Traffic is so bad in this town that it took over an hour to get to the orphanage which is out by the airport.  When we arrived it is a very nice gated facility.  But let me start by saying no matter how nice an orphanage is, it is still an orphanage and will never take the place of a loving family and is not the best solution for a child.

We pulled up and walked in.  Sophie one of the ladies that brought Josh to us met us to show us around.  We went up to the third floor where Joshua’s room was.  When we walked in there were about 20 kids in the room and they started calling out mamma, baba.  Some started coming over reaching up for us to hold them.  Josh went to one of the nannies and was on the floor in a few seconds enjoying a snack with his friends.  

The facility is clean and well kept.  The nannies seem to do a wonderful job taking care of the kids.   We went into the room where about 20 plus cribs were.  We learned that the Lee’s little girls crib was right next to Joshua’s.  We spent some time playing with the children.  There was a little boy that had a scar from open heart surgery that kept wanting me to hold him, then I looked up and there was a little girl that looked so much like our Shiyan when we first met her.  She wanted me to hold her and the nannie pulled her back so the first chance I had, I picked her up and played with her.  Joshua never shed a tear, he loved the time with his friends but when I reached out for him he came right to me and we walked out.  It breaks my heart to know that some of these kids will not ever be adopted and will never know the love of a family.

We walked around the building and then went out to the playground and before you know it our time there was up.   It was so sad to leave, I realized as I have on previous orphanage visits that this would be the last time he would see these friends and care givers and maybe the last time he would be in this place.   This is the place where my son spent the first 2 years of his life and it would soon be a fading memory.   Shaun asked a lot of questions today and he clearly does not remember anything of his time in the orphanage.  He has asked multiple times this week “was I born in China”  “who came to get me” etc. 

   

Then we started the long ride back toward the hotel.  We had to stop at Carafore to pick up a few items. This is a large store much like Wal Mart, but here they are 5 stories tall with moving sidewalks between floors etc.  The staff were very helpful and we quickly found what we needed and then headed back to the hotel.

We walked down the street to the restaurant for dinner.   I managed to order noodles, these buns you put pork and other stuff in, dumplings, a beef dish that was out of this world and asparagus.  It was a wonderful meal.  None of the staff knew a word of English and it was a challenge to get napkins, forks, knives etc. but we got through it.  So thankful for menu’s with photos and English.

Tonight was packing night as we head to Guangzhou tomorrow afternoon.  We have everything in order and can finish up tomorrow.  Lets hope that these boys let us sleep tonight.