permission to visit Kaylee's previous and only home since birth: the
Qingyuan Social Welfare Institute, i.e. her orphanage. Our guide, Amy,
arranged for a driver and another guide, a sweet and knowledgeable
young girl named Becky from a competing agency, to escort us on the
hour and a half trip to Qingyuan City, which proved to be a very dry,
industrial setting vs. the beautiful countryside which exists in parts
of Qingyuan, that we had hoped to see. We stuffed our bountiful,
breakfast buffet into 4 to go boxes and departed early, about 8:30 AM
via mini-van. After we finished eating, I pulled Kaylee onto my lap and
sang to her for the rest of the trip, songs like "You are my sunshine",
ABC's, "Jesus Loves Me" and "Mommy loves Kaylee" hoping to soothe and
prepare her for any anxiety she may feel once we arrived. Normally a
sqirmy, 7 yr old who lately prefers Dave's back to my lap, she snuggled
in and seemed to soak up the affection I was giving her, while Dave was
snuggling Mattie, who was empathetically patting her little sister's
back and offering words of comfort. I was just praying that Kaylee
would feel secure enough with us that she would not be traumatized by
returning, then separating again from her old friends and caretakers.
After stopping for directions several times, we finally approached the
pagoda style, roofed entrance gate we recognized from pictures. When
Kaylee saw it her face lit up and she smiled and pointed like "I know
where I am now, this is familiar", but once parked inside, she seemed
apprehensive and confused. Becky explained to her in Cantonese that we
were just going to take a quick look to show Mommy & Daddy where she
grew up, get some pictures, then leave, and she reluctantly nodded her
head up and down. I asked her if she wanted to take pictures and she
nodded again and took the little green digital camera from my hand, as
she has become quite adept in its' operation, and hopped out of the
van. (I'm amazed at how well she understands us, without speaking
English. She is picking it up very quickly!) We were greeted by a
female administrator whom we recognized as Kaylee's escort on Gotcha
Day, and taken to a nice conference room where we met with a very
amiable, smiling gentleman whom we also recognized from that day. We
soon found out( to our loss of face,) that he was the Orphanage
Director, Mr. Cheung, as we had brought a feminine gift of Strawberry
Bon Bons and Floral-scented Bath and Body Works lotions on Gotcha Day,
addressed to Mrs. Cheung, thinking the director was a woman. We had
Becky explain and he laughed and shrugged it off with a hand gesture,
saying "No problem, no worries", a popular Chinese expression when
speaking to us Lai Bao (white, foreigner tourists as my nephew Andy
told me) He proceeded to show us the beautiful artist's renderings of
the new, 5 building complex currently under construction (2 are
complete!) which will be the future home to the SWI: the orphanage, a
home for indigent elderly, apartments for resident foster parents, an
office building, canteen and "playhouse" which I assume is some type of
gymnasium. Future plans included extensive landscaped grounds and a
motel as well. He then took us outside to the edge of the parking area
between the admin building and the classroom building to show us a
glimpse of the completed portion of the project. It is indeed very nice
and looks somewhat like an upscale, Florida Resort. The current
buildings are nice, but aged, and have a certain old and tired look
about them, (picture 1970-80[s Hojo or Holiday Inn with white,
mini-tiled exterior), but definitely not in any way a house of horrors.
The playground equipment is happy and colorful, but rusting and in need
of repair, and the current play yard is pretty small, though the
landscaping of the grounds is very nice. I imagine the children and
other residents will be overjoyed once they move into their new
facilities.
We asked to meet the children, and Mr. Cheung shook his head and told
us through the translator that it was OK, but not too long because
their morning class period was just about over and they would be having
lunch soon. We proceeded up an exterior staircase whose walls were
decorated with once vibrant, cartoon and animal cut-outs, and Kaylee
ran ahead of us with camera in tow and put her face right up to her old
classroom window. The teachers smiled and greeted her "Yang Zhi!" and
opened the door, and the doorway immediately became abuzz, jammed with
curious, laughing faces, Kaylee's former friends and classmates. She
was older than they by several years and there were none her age or
older present, as we were told they had all ridden a bus to school, but
this had been her classroom last year. She held my hand and said "Mama"
almost as if she were introducing me, then she took several pictures,
gave a few hugs, posed for several pictures and ran to the next
classroom, which held about a dozen younger children, maybe 2-3 years
old, but she recognized them and they her. She barged into that
classroom unbidden and took several photos, many of the kids making
their "peace" sign which to them means "V for Victory". One boy,
slightly younger than Kaylee followed us and kept grabbing the camera
and we let him take several pictures, and another little girl escaped
from the second classroom and ran up to me and lifted her arms to be
picked up. I gave her a squeeze and set her back down, then she ran to
Mr. Cheung and did the same thing. He did not look very comfortable,
but he did pick her up for a brief second then pointed her back to her
class. She was really yearning for someone to hold her and I hated
putting her down. We continued down the concrete exterior corridor,
rounded the corner and were led into a room of about a dozen identical
silver metal cribs/toddler beds and Kaylee stopped in the center of the
row and pointed to the bed which had been hers just a few short days
ago, and my heart contracted in my chest. This was where she slept,
dressed, showered, used the bathroom, went to class and ate all her
meals in the same classroom, lived all of her life in the same few
rooms in the same building, and small playground outside, with the same
teachers who were also the nannies. Riding the bus to school for 1st
grade the first few weeks of Sept must have been a real thrill for her.
At the end of that small room were 2 large glass picture windows
flanking the door into the baby room, which held about 20-30 crawling,
sitting, sleeping, playing, laughing, crying infants under age 2 at
various stages of development and activity. To my disappointment, we
were not allowed in, as it was very close to feeding time, then naps,
and the nannies had to keep them on schedule without disruption. We
leaned that there are approved workers from a charitable foundation
called "Half Sky" who come just to hold and cuddle the children and
give them some personal attention and affection to help them thrive,
while their busy nannies can not, and I was so glad to hear of that. On
our way down the steps, we ran into 2 kitchen workers pushing a cart
with a very large bowl of rice laced with a little green and meat. They
greeted and had their picture made with Kaylee, then proceeded up to
the classrooms with lunch. Mr. Cheung seemed to be growing a little
impatient with us about then, took a cell phone call and motioned us
back to the admin building across the parking lot where we began. We
took some photos in the nice outdoor park in the center of that
complex, Kaylee picked a few starfruit from a tree, then, at the
nudging of our guide, we presented Mr. Cheung with a gift, a small bag
of clothes and toys for the children, as we had passed on most of what
we brought on Gotcha Day. This signified the end of the visit and Mr.
Cheung said goodbye and quickly disappeared. He is a busy man and was
very kind to allow us to come. He could have said no. When we told
Kaylee it was time for us to go, she held our hand and skipped back to
the van and climbed aboard, like it was nothing, and we were so
relieved and thankful. She knew she had come for a visit, and she
showed no inclination to stay! She has clung to us and we are awed and
blessed. Thank you Jesus! She and Mattie played during the ride back
and we joined up with our group to finish the day with some souvenir
shopping on Shamian Island, and then a group dinner at a "scenery"
restaurant, of which you will see many interesting pictures! Mattie
tried a little of everything, including crocodile belly, but the
Chinese girls, Kaylee, Danni and Jing Jing, wolfed the stuff down: big
crab claws, round, speckled crabshells that were curried, stinky
mussels, salmon that did not look like salmon and all kinds of things
that I was not inclined to try, I did enjoy the scenery though: tanks
of slitheing, speckled eels, frogs, turtles, giant lobsters, all
varieties of fish, miniature roasted pig, intact from snout to tail,
cages of live ducks, all part of a virtual menu. You just walked around
and pointed and they whipped it up to order, but it felt like ordering
dinner from Pet Smart. Very interesting. I will be so glad to get home!
Miss everyone bunches! Lisa
PS Kelsey, would you put this in order, before the one I just posted a
little while ago? Thanks sweetie!
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