What a Long Strange Trip It's Been, pt 11
2005-12-16, 11:15

Arrival at the Orphanage

We pulled in through the gate to Yifeng orphanage - which is actually an institution for the elderly as well as orphans - and saw a vaguely d�cored courtyard, a number of apartment-like buildings and the small, main orphanage building in the center. The orphanage building itself seemed a poor rendition of a day care center, with some primary-colored art objects here and there and a hint of that general feel you get from a center you'd see in the U.S. It was like they were trying to imitate American day care, but only using information they got by word-of -mouth. Which may have actually been the case, now that I think about it.

Everything was well maintained and seemed quite clean. H and I took turns going into the facility, because we didn't want the baby traumatized by seeing her former place of residence so soon after leaving there. H went first, carrying both still and video cameras in with her. After a while of hanging with the baby (and begging the bus driver to turn the air back on while we and the others on the bus waited), H returned and it was my turn to peruse.

Oh - one thing I forgot to mention about the trip there. Our two regular guides while in Jiangxi couldn't go on the trip to the orphanage, so they provided a substitute, a woman whose name I have completely forgotten (maybe she's on the tape, I'll have to check. Can you believe that we haven't watched any of our video footage since we got back?). She spent some time during the hours-long trip doling out some Chinese trivia and information on the areas we passed through. When I say information, I mean Party Propaganda. this woman sang the praises of the People's Government and all the swell things they've done for the People in this region. It made me wonder how many hours she'd spend memorizing the talking points she was chucking at us. It time I managed to tune her out and concentrated on the countryside.

Anyway, into the building. Everything was pretty basic but solid. There were rolley walkers lined up neatly along the wall of the main entrance - one of which we recognized from one of the baby's dossier pictures. There were little plastic sandaly shoes lined up in the laundry room, which looked to big for the babies, but maybe not after the 15 million layers of clothes they wore on the non-summer months got put on (it's a Chinese thing). Each crib room had four or five cribs, as well as a sleeping area for the caretaker. Most of the rooms were filled to capacity with babies, save for on less crib in a room here or there. (It didn't register at the time for me to ask where these children came from in a within-the-orphanage sense, considering that ours were supposedly in these very rooms not 3 days previous. I guess it's hard to think of these things when you're an overwhelmed visitor trying your best to absorb everything you see.) I think having a camera in my hand helped me disconnect with the fact that these little girls were given up in secret by their parents and were here waiting for a new home in a place most likely totally alien from what they would have known in China.

We brought all the families together with the babies and we took some pictures with the orphanage director - who seemed to have a special little place in her heart for our little one, judging by the way she spoke to her during the picture taking. We also did a group shot with the two donations we'd scraped money together for - a new washing machine and a new air conditioner unit (we'd originally looked at getting just the air unit, but the items were so cheap that we got more bang for our buck than we expected. Got a lot of overhead and some ambition? Fly to China and buy up a bunch of electronics to resell in the U.S. You'll make a killing).

One thing we made sure to do was bring a small Ziploc bag (Corporate synergy nausea alert - MS Word automatically capitalized Ziploc for me! Did they pay for this privilege, or is an assumed, household name thing, like Kleenex? The world may never know...) so we could sneak off and collect up some dirt and stone from the site. I guess we're visceral like that, wanting a little piece to actually touch, as long as we're not disturbing the environment. I don't think the manicured lawn minded a little missing dirt. And now the baby, when she's older and might care about such things, can touch a bit of her homeland.

We said our goodbyes to the caretakers and the managers and hopped back on the bus for the hours-long journey back to Nanchang. The terrain now provided landmarks noted from the trip there, so the ride went a little faster, mentally. We found a fun game to play with the baby, which was to make faces in to the digital camera while she looked at the little camera monitor. She of course, being the curious girl, was grabbing the camera and flipping it over, trying to figure out how I'd gotten inside it like that. She does the same thing with photographs.

One thing we noted along the way was a classic Chinese stereotype - rice. Jiangxi being the rural epicenter it is, it was everywhere. Not only was it everywhere in fields grow in paddies, it was everywhere out drying on cement or on large woven pads, in front yards, in driveways, even in the street (the bus had to go around them). Town after town, there was always someone sifting drying rice or tending to a field. I later learned that Jiangxi is the majority grower of rice for China, go figure.

We also noticed what seemed to be two other major products of the area, being bricks (lots and lots of red dirt to be found there) and either watermelon or pumpkin (both seemed to be prevalent in the menus of local restaurants) - it was hard to tell which because the leaves for both are pretty similar, especially when you're flying by in a bouncy bus. But there were huge patches in areas near the rice fields.

So came to a close our trip to the orphanage, which, after reading back here, doesn't sound nearly as emotional or influential as it actually was. Let me just say that I am very glad that I got to go there and see the place, to get a better understanding of the situation that our girl was raised in for almost eight months, and to plan the seeds of questions that I now have about how the operation is really run. More to come on that, at least one day.

We didn't do much else that day, except for some shopping to stock up on supplies for our next leg of the trip and to have some dinner, which we decided just to have at the hotel buffet. I had the pleasure to witness but not eat fried duck - just the neck and head. I guess it was true that sometimes, while eating in China, you had to 'break the beak off'. Or maybe you're supposed to eat the beak, to. I'll never know. Too freaky for me; I'll just play Stupid American on that one.

The next day was out last full day in Nanchang. It was also the day the sun chose to work with the gods of humidity to try and crush us underfoot. Tune in at 11pm to find out how.

-- End Transmission --