A Visit to the Orphanage

We woke up Tuesday morning feeling refreshed. We are blessed to be staying at some very nice, Western-style hotels. They all seem to include a very nice buffet breakfast.

Everywhere you go, the shops and restaurants seemed to be overstaffed by a factor of at least 2. How do these places make any money? Guess you gotta find a billion jobs somewhere.

One nice thing about this is people really have time to help you. There is a waiter who has been working at every meal we've eaten in the hotel restaurants. He, like so many people here in service industries, has an Americanized name - "Jack." A very striking looking guy - probably some mix of ethnicities. From the first meal down there, he seemed to have a tender heart towards Weifeng and our situation. He has become a walking English-Mandarin dictionary for us.

He has also helped us choose some appropriate food for Weifeng. A bowl of rice noodles with carrots, green onions, soy sauce, and rice vinegar was a big hit. He also scarfs down fruit like the Harding boy he is. We were touched to see him immediately pick up a fork and a knife to cut his watermelon in an effort to fit in. We have asked - this boy had never used them before in his life.

The first thing on the agenda was a trip to Weifeng's and Natalie's (the 14 mo little girl of the Fiorelli family, whom we are on this adventure with) orphanage, the Kunming City Children's Welfare Institute. This was a privilege - typically families are not allowed to visit their child's orphanage.

First we met with a woman who was the second in command. She was also the orphanage representative on gotcha day, bringing the two children to the Civil Affairs Office. It is our understanding that she is in charge of international adoptions.

We had the chance to ask her a lot of questions about Weifeng's background. With 600 children assigned to the orphanage (a mix of residents and children at foster homes), we weren't sure what level of knowledge she would have for this individual boy.

• Where had he been living? About an hour away, with a farmer's family



• How many foster families had he been assigned to? Just 1 (gulp.)



• How long had he been there? Many years - we think 5. (double gulp.)



• Is there anything that makes him scared? "Gui" (goo-ey - 'ghosts') - we laughed



• What are your favorite colors? blue and green



• How much schooling has he had? 3 yrs, two preschool yrs and kindergarten



• How many siblings did he have in his foster family? 2 sisters (unsure of ages) and a younger brother

The orphanage director came in and spent some time with us, as well. The Fiorelli family told us she has the reputation of running a very tight ship. I will say this: the orphanage was spotless. It was huge, well furnished, fairly modern. There was an overall hopeful feel to the place.

We saw the infant room, which I think made all of sad. There were about 20 babies in there with 2 nannies to look after them. We saw a toddler room, rooms full of rows and rows and rows of cribs or beds. Weifeng spent some time in school there, so we saw some school rooms. We only took 1 or 2 pictures inside the facility. We were told when and what we could take a picture of, if we would take a picture of the wrong thing, we would have had our film card taken away. The same holds true for pictures you take of any uniformed men. Can you imagine losing all of the pictures you have taken on this trip?

After the orphanage it was trip to WalMart and KFC for lunch. I found WalMart to be a very intimidating experience, 4 floors of store, couldn't find the clothing section (did we mention this boy is big? Much bigger then we expected?) and no one spoke english. The fruit section of the store smelled heavenly, the dried squid in a bag section made me ill. I also saw some beef tongue hanging around in this section. I can't even think about it, it gives me the heebie jeebies. We learned at KFC that even though you think you are in line someone is going to come up and butt in front of you because you aren't standing on top of the person in front of you. This perturbed me so you better believe I was breathing my hot breathe down the neck of the guy who butted in front of me, ain't nobody getting in between me and my greasy fried chicken!!!

Chris and I ended up venturing out in to town to get the boys some coats and to get Weifeng some pants. Chris tried his hardest to bargain down the ladies at the store, but to no avail, they wouldn't bite.

Our last adventure for the day was out to dinner at a western restaurant called BlueBird. This experience can only be described as exhausting. Think of when Tarzan was brought out of the jungle and into civilization. Every thing is foreign to this little guy, table clothes on the table, going under the table, not touching everything on the table, not playing with the silverware. We are taking the perspective that he is a baby Harding and we will have to train him just like the other kiddos. You can pray for us to keep this in mind as we spend more and more time together.

I'm going to include a few pictures for your viewing pleasure!

---Chris and Susanne