This may not post neatly to blogger, but I am having trouble
connected to our VPN and blogger is blocked in China. Today we went and applied for Su Min’s
passport AND visited the Children’s Welfare Institute where he lived until
Monday. In the Henan province, children
must go back to their home city to apply for their passports. The other families’ children lived a shorter
distance, so they had all gone the previous afternoon. We need his passport to fly to the next city
and then home.
So our family and our guide met at 7:30am to take the 30
minute cab drive and 1.5 hour bullet train ride to Xinyang City. The orphanage officer who had brought Su Min
to us was there at the train to meet us, and took us to the office to apply for
the passport. The office had recently
moved, otherwise this would have been the same place we went with Ben. I will just say that as a family of 4 We. Are. Chaos. Discipline or whatever you would call it is a
huge issue currently because 1. We are literally stared at everywhere we go, so
you would rather the people already staring at you not see you giving your
Chinese kid the evil eye or putting them in time out. 2. Ben is of course struggling so we are trying
to be VERY VERY patient (ASKING FOR GRACE FOR MYSELF!) and to really be there
for him 3. Does anyone have kids who
are thrilled to visit the DMV, etc etc and
sit in trains, buses and cars all day?
After the completed the application, on our request, we went
to Children’s Welfare Institute. It was,
like most buildings in China it seems, a high rise with outdoor walkways on
each level. People do orphanage visits
all kinds of ways, many wear their child in a carrier so that no one (i.e.
nanny) can pull them from their arms. While
I had the carrier with us, I just couldn’t do it. Su Min has been adjusting really well, and I
knew there could still be an issue of him not wanting to come back with us, but
from reading many, many families experiences, I knew it would be OK.
Just like with Ben, we were hardly out of the car when
someone took Su Min from me and walked ahead talking to him and kissing
him. We walked upstairs with them and just
like with Ben (though Ben is not from here) nannies gathered and passed him
around like a hot potato, asking him to say their names and then laughing and
kissing him when he replied. A point,
someone tried to hand him to me and he cried.
A wave of panic came over me, but I let it ride. The nannies were eager for our guide to
translate to us his likes and dislikes. Another nanny told me that she was the
one who loaded the flash drive with pictures and had written the corresponding note
(our flash drive came back to us with him on Monday). Then someone asked him
who Baba was and he pointed to Tom and smiled, then they asked who Mama was and
still smiling he pointed to me. Cheers
erupted from everyone and I was SO GRATEFUL for that moment.
We asked to see his bed and they took us back
into another room. The situation there
was not glamourous and might look pretty dire in pictures, but there were a lot
of nannies and a LOT of love. At this point we were in a room where lunch was
being prepared and it looked like the kids were fed in their cribs in an adjacent
room as the food was brought around. Previously our guide and the orphanage officer
had separately asked me why we were not adopting a girl, to which I had
answered, “Next time.” J
It is hard to request a girl hen there are so may boys waiting, At that point
the officer brought out a little girl and told me they had just started
preparing her file for adoption if I wanted to have her too! I laughed and said
yes! If only it was that easy.
We asked about a little boy who is being adopted in a few
weeks (I had met his family on Facebook) and they wanted me to know that they
are good friends. I asked if we could
take a photo and told them the boys would live in the same city in the U.S. and
they were so excited, telling each other and smiling and talking.
In the background there was a woman crying. The officer explained to our guide this woman
and the other nanny we had met took special care of Su Min. I wanted more than anything to just hug her
but it felt presumptuous. I did my best
to smile, ask questions, take their advice about Su Min’s preferences and to
sneakily pull out snacks to bribe Su Min back with. We were not there long at all when we had to
leave to catch the train back. Su Min saw that bag in my hand so he did not cry
when someone finally handed him back to me, and I received sounds of approval
from the nannies.
As we walked out down the long corridor, I turned back to
them and said thank you in Mandarin. I
don’t even know if I could have found the right words to say to them if I spoke
more than 3 words of Mandarin, and I hoped they wouldn’t somehow be offended by
my thanks. But they just smiled at me
and nodded through their tears, and I knew they knew what I was trying to
say. They were such a picture there that
I never wanted to forget, nodding their heads to me, and I looked back again,
and said it again, this time my eyes swimming with tears too. Their job is not an easy one, whether
children leave or stay, they must carry some heartache for every one of them,
for different reasons.
So we left. There was
a 2 hour commute back to the hotel with two cranky toddlers who had no real
naps. Needless to say, they and Tom were asleep by 7:45pm and that is why I am
in the hotel restaurant with a drink, making sure we never forget this day and
all the love our spunky firecracker received from Xinyang City CWI,
1 comment:
Wow, what an emotional day. I love seeing the pictures and following your trip :)
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