Visiting Zhuzhou Children's Welfare Institute
2:20 pm Fri Jan 9 in Changsha
12:20 am Fri Jan 9 Central Time
Wow, to put this day into words. It was an incredible rush of emotions, from laughing one minute with the nannies to crying the next as they said their final goodbyes to the girls. The end result is that our visit left all 5 families without a doubt that our girls were very loved during their time at Zhuzhou Children's Welfare Institute ... and cared for by some incredible women.
Our very bumpy bus ride took us through the countryside and then into Zhuzhou City. It was a wonderful experience to see the area in which (we presume) Abby was born. We pulled into the gates of the orphanage and some older children came running with "hello!" and smiles to greet us. We went into the building that houses the younger children. Abby was in a different room than the other girls in our group, I guess because she is slightly younger and smaller. That meant that we had the 5 caretakers all to ourselves ... and they held Abby and talked to her and fussed over her to no end. They gave her a cracker and a bottle of water and scolded us that she wasn't dressed warm enough, as you often experience in China. However, on a day of about 45 degrees the windows were all wide open
and there was no heat in the building, so I guess that is one very good reason the children we saw were all bundled like the Michelin Man. There were 21 babies in Abby's room, some were 3 to a crib. She went willingly to the caretakers but kept whipping her head back around to be sure that she had her daddy in sight at all times. The
young woman who brought Abby to the hotel on Tues was there and she was one of Abby's caretakers. She obviously had a great affection for Abby, and the feeling was mutual.
I've posted some pics from the visit, including one of Abby's crib (the only empty one in the room), her playroom and eating area, the caretakers who knew and loved her for her first 11 mos of life, and some general shots of the grounds. I am also on a Yahoo group of families who have daughters from Zhuzhou, and I offered to put together an album of their daughters' pics to take on the visit if they would send me some snapshots ... and the nannies were SO
excited to see those little faces. I asked the parents to photocopy their daughter's Chinese name on the front of the photo so that the ladies would recognize them, and they would yell out the name and point to the beautiful little face and SMILE. It was so neat. Then the director came in and pointed at herself to ask if the album was hers to keep and I said yes, and she had the biggest smile and just said "very happy".
We left that building and toured the 4th floor of an adjacent building which houses older children. As we climbed the stairs, we were greeted by little smiling faces and more "hello!" greetings. The children were very bundled again as the building has no heat. We saw their sleeping quarters, a tv room and a small classroom. They followed us around and were fascinated by our visit. All the way down the steps we could hear them yelling "goodbye!" and then they
were waving at us from the balcony once we reached the ground.
I think I will never look at my warm comfortable home, our overflowing kids toy room, or our stocked up pantry and refrigerator the same way again. This type of visit brings a profound sense of perspective on what we have in our lives and how blessed we are.
Echo took a group pic of us on the steps and then we were back in the bus and off to 3 of the 5 girls finding spots ... Abby, Caitlyn and Carly. The other 2 were not in Zhuzhou City and too far to travel. Only Echo and the family got off at the stop to pause for a moment and reflect on the spot where our daughters were found. It was quite overwhelming. Mitch and Abby stood in the spot and I took some pics. It was a very busy street area with hundreds of people around watching us and doing their daily business in a local market.
Then we drove the 1.5 hrs back to Changsha and had lunch at the hotel, and princess Abby is once again taking a nap. She has come out of her shell even a little more today ... especially around the others in our group. She's happy, but just very, very serious most of the time. She is definitely comfortable with us and feels secure, and I know that she will continue to open up as time goes on.
Echo hopes that we will be able to leave Changsha a day early and head to Guangzhou. We'd all like to have an extra day there because our time there is so tight right now with the required medical exam for Abby and the American Consulate appt. She is going to try and pick up the girls' Chinese passports on Tues morning, and then we'll either catch a 2:30 or 6:30 pm flight to Guangzhou. But that means we still have 3 more days in Changsha ... and now that we have the girls, have seen the city and the orphanage, we're all ready to move on, but we can't yet. Fingers crossed for those passports to be done and get us out of here on that 2:30 flight on Tues!
This is really long so I'll sign off ... thanks for following our journey, we appreciate all the personal emails and replies here to the list.
Until later ... Lisa