Today was a big day as we went to visit an orphanage. In China orphanages are called Social Welfare Institutes (SWI). Sometimes they house children as well as the elderly. I went to the Zhengzhou SWI where three of the ten children in my group lived. The other seven babies lived in different orphanages in different cities. Some families visited their children's orphanages when they had to travel to their child's city to apply for their passports. Because we were staying in the city Zhengzhou, it was easiest for me to visit the orphanage there.
I don't know if anything can prepare you to go to an orphanage. I've heard so many things from different families about their experiences- some say the orphanages were nice and the workers were lovely, some say they were run down and the conditions were terrible. Even the nicest orphanage is no substitute for a family but I realize that some are much better than others. The drive to the orphanage seemed to take an eternity and there was a nervous energy on the bus. I was with four families plus a travel companion of another family. They were told it would be best to leave their children at the hotel if possible as it can be confusing and upsetting to bring their chldren back to the orphanage. I am not sure why the parents did not listen to this advice but of the four families three of them brought their children. I can't really express how I felt when we pulled up to the Zhengzhou SWI. I had a tighness in my chest. No one spoke.
A little tiny man came out and greeted us as we got off the bus. Our guide Vivian was with us and she told us that he welcomed us and we could stay as long as we wanted. There were three separate building and in the middle was a playground. We didn't see any children anywhere. I remember thinking that it was very quiet.We walked into a building that housed older boys. There were no children anywhere. We walked up a flight of stairs to the Lily Orphan Care Center. Lily is the owner of my agency and we have several rooms in orphanages all over China. These rooms are funded by donations made to our charity fund. We have a specific model of how these rooms are run. They are typically for infants with medical needs and the nanny to child ratio is about even. Most of the children that are cared for in the LOCC rooms will be adopted by families working with our agency. We strongly advocate for these children and petition to get their files released so they can be adopted. Orphanages do not want all the children that live there to be adopted, otherwise they wouldn't receive any money from the Chinese government to keep the orphanage running. We walked into the LOCC room and I noticed right away that it was full of babies but they were completely silent. There were pink cribs lining the room, music played softly, there were lots of nannies milling around, colorful toys, murals on the walls, and two incubators. Me and the families stood awkwardly in the doorway. I don't think we knew what to expect or what to do now that we finally made it there. I asked Vivian if I could pick up a baby and she said yes. I picked up this sweet baby and fell in love. She never made a sound, just looked at me and looked around.
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| Yeah that is drool. |
She felt like she had on a brace under her outfit so I was careful with her. She was so little but the brace was hard, heavy, and constricting. She couldn't really move her legs. My curiosity got the best of me and I took her over to a corner and sat down on the floor. I unsnapped her outfit and saw that she was not wearing a brace but a huge piece of cloth that was fashioned as a diaper. Typically children in China do not wear disposable diapers and when they are about 12 months old they will be trained to potty on command. They wear split pants, which are just what they sound like- pants that are split (i.e crotchless). I was warned before I came to China it would be typical to see a child squat on the street and potty but I actually didn't see that. I did see lots of split pants on children everywhere. Also when a Chinese person picks up a baby they hold them with their legs together. In USA typically we pick up a baby and put them on our hip. It was interesting to me to see that even the way we hold our babies is different.
Back to my baby. As I held her I walked around the two rooms, looking in each crib. Most of the babies were awake, just lying on their backs. It was emotional and overwhelming being there. I felt sad, protective, and humbled. Some of the families spoke with the nannies, asking questions about their children. The nannies showed them which cribs their children slept in and their pictures were on the wall. The children in our group were fussing and I do believe they were confused and unsure as to why we were there. They had been bonding with their families for three days and they took them back to the orphanage. I am sure it was traumatizing for them. None of the families I was with picked up any babies in the LOCC, maybe because they brought their children but many families had more than one adult (mom and dad, mom and grandma, dad and mother in law, mom and her brother, etc) so one person could have held their child and the other could have picked up a baby there. I took it upon myself to start picking up babies and handing them to people. Who knows the next time I will be in an orphanage in China. I felt like we needed to make the most of our time there and love on as many little ones as possible. These babies have flat heads from laying on their backs in a crib. They don't cry. I could not be there and not have a little one in my arms. Perhaps some of the families just did not feel comfortable picking up a baby in the orphanage unless encouraged to do so.
Because the children in my group were fussing the parents wanted to move our tour along. This disappointed me as I wanted to stay with the babies longer. This is definitely one drawback of being in a group! We left the LOCC room and started walking down the hall. We walked by a craft room, a toddler room, and a playroom. We were told the kids were in school and thats why all the rooms were empty. Then we walked by a room full of wooded cribs which appeared still and empty. But as we walked by I checked the door.
It was unlocked so I slipped in. The room was full of infants lying in cribs. Some were two to a crib. They were just lying there. No one was crying.
There weren't any nannies in there. They had heavy blankets over them. On the floor were three babies in little bouncy seats. I picked up the baby on the left and walked around the room looking in all the cribs. I was in there about 10 minutes when Vivian came in and told me I needed to stay with the group. Busted. We finished walking around that building (never did see any other children) and walked over to the administrative office. Here the orphanage director gave each of the families a piece of clothing that their baby was wearing when they were found. The families were ready to leave. I could have stayed there all day.
The bus was quiet on the drive back to the hotel. The orphanage seemed to be in the middle of no where, down a dirt road. I did see the one and only gas station in China near the orphanage. It really was puzzling for so many people and cars there were no gas stations. There were lots of 7 Elevens but they were just little stores, not gas stations. By the way, gasoline is about $10 a liter there.
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| Behold! The only gas station is all of Zhengzhou |
When we got back to the hotel I walked to McDonald's with another family. That afternoon I made my way around the hotel visitng with different families. It was amazing how well the kids were doing. That evening I went to dinner with Yisha. She took me to a nice restaturant. They actually put these huge covers on our chairs. It looked like when you buy a suit from Dillard's and they put it in a nice zip up bag. They changed these seat covers each time a table sat down. Very interesting. I had high hopes for this dinner and Yisha was very accomodating and asked me lots of questions about what I like and dislike. Well the short story is that I did not like any of the food. It absolutely was not like any Chinese food I have got in USA. There was no General Tsu's Chicken. There was tofu with peppers ( I feel like tofu is not food; I think it's material used to build houses), lotus root with honey and chicken (it was soooo sweet), and some vegetables with chicken that did not taste like chicken- I could have eaten it even if I did not have any teeth. It slipped right down and I didn't have to chew it. I choose to believe it was chicken maybe it wasn't. In the nicer restaurants in China they brought us hot water to drink, instead of cold water. I asked Yisha about the hot water and she said Chinese people think it's good for your body to drink hot water. When in China do as the Chinese do. We had a nice time and had lots to talk about. I fell into bed and went right to sleep when I got back to the hotel.
