The nine hour drive there went by fast. I took a dramamine and my pillow, and only awoke for a couple quick bathroom breaks. Now, I've seen my share of roadside restrooms across the United States, and even the worst of those are still cleaner than the best of these! And the gas station snack foods?...vaccuum sealed donkey meat and miscelaneous pig parts!
When we reached the first town, we met the orphanage director and she guided us to a fancy restaurant to talk over lunch. Here I was expecting impoverishment, and I found myself in an upscale dining room. As soon as I sat down, someone made me jump out of my seat by pulling my coat off from behind me. They hung it from the back of my chair, and then proceeded to hastily grab my gloves and purse from me as well. They used velcro straps to secure each of these items to the back of my chair. Then, just when I was sure they were finished arranging my belongings, they brought out a red velvet slipcover that pulled down over the entire seat back, covering it all. Oh, my! After making it through all the formalities that go with a proper Chinese meal (have I ever mentioned how I hate sitting through these things?), we finally were ready to go visit the first orphanage.
It was clear the minute we drove through the entrance gates that we had left the cushy life behind at the restaurant. The building was in a horseshoe shape, much like the layout of the public schools I taught at over the summer. It was four stories tall with all the rooms having exterior facing doors. We were ushered into a big conference room and seated around a large conference table. Again with the formalities, we were urged to eat from large fruit bowls that were placed before us and were served dixie cups of hot water. The table was ornate, our chairs were a comfy black leather, and a modern flat screen TV hung on the far wall, but there was dingy lighting, pealing paint on the walls, and bitter wind blowing through the metal doors and barred windows. I sat quietly for what seemed like forever as the orphanage director chatted with Hope, our foster house mom, in Chinese. Hope told us the director was very open and honest about the poor conditions and inadequate ratio of staff to children.
At last we were shown out to the staircase and lead up several flights of stairs. The first room we visited was a physical therapy room. The floor was covered with foam padding, and two therapists in white lab coats were helping a couple of kids with floor exercises. A number of immobile kids lay scattered around the room, waiting for their turns. In a building of three hundred children, they all have to wait to be circulated between the two therapists. From there we were shown the many rooms lined with metal bunkbed frames or metal cribs. They all had bare concrete floors and walls, and a heavy insulated tarp was the only thing hanging in the exterior facing doors to keep out the cold. Between every three or four 'bedrooms' is a small closet with a sink and hot plate, where the nanny responsible for those rooms will make rice or noodles three times a day for her charges. It was when we stepped into a room full of infants, and a nanny pulled back the blanket on a newborn to reveal severely disfigured, skeletal legs, that I really began to feel myself choke up. The overwhelming sight of this one child was enough, but then your eyes move to the crib next to it, and then the one after that - a room no bigger than my bedroom, with fifteen to twenty infants. Next we moved to a wing filled with mentally handicapped children. I was told that since so many babies are born at home in rural areas, there's a lot of mental illness caused by lack of oxygen during birth. In yet another concrete room lined with metal cribs, these older children lay on their backs with absolutely no stimulation. Down the center of the room ran a wooden homemade row of potty seats - a long board with about ten holes, each one occupied. Underneath each child lay a metal bowl filled with their waste. If you were in this wing, you either layed in a crib or sat on the potty bench. The smell was enough to make you sick, I can only imagine it in the heat of the summer. One nanny moved between three or four rooms just like this one - all the runny noses, all the bare bottoms, all the blank looks on their faces. It was easy to pick out the Down's children, but here they were grouped in with everyone else, none of them getting individualized attention. Even an adorable albino baby with eyes unable to focus in the bright sunlight, lay grouped in with the others. After seeing this wing, my tears turned into nausea and I began to welcome the bitter wind that hit my face. We made our way back downstairs into the conference room, and once again sat through more polite chit chat, until we were finally able to unload our vanload of supplies and greet those who had gathered to see the foreign guests. I also learned that this is the orphanage where our very own Noah and Micah came from, so it definitely gave me a new appreciation of the life they came from.
We left the orphanage that afternoon and headed to a nearby motel. I was left with a room to myself and a couple hours until we were to meet for dinner. I sat down at the end of my bed and scanned the TV channel listing, disappointed at not seeing CCTV 9 listed (the only English channel). I pulled out my journal and flopped across the hard bed and wept. Finally I decided I needed to wash my face and put on some fresh clothes for dinner. I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, already knowing that without channel 9 I'd find nothing to watch. As I absently pushed the bottons on the remote, I came across a Chinese sports channel that was showing a Smuckers' figure skating show, and there before me was Rudy Galindo, Dorothy Hammill - all my favorites! As their solo numbers came to a close, the entire cast skated out to perform one final group routine. The camera panned to a stage at the end of the arena where a band was intro-ing into a song, and out walked SARA EVANS to sing one of my favorite songs, 'I Could Not Ask For More'. Here I was feeling so far from everything I know, yet two very real 'me' things played across my archaic television. That had to have been a scripted moment!
Dinner that night took place at another fancy restaurant within our motel, with the orphanage director and other dignitaries. Oh, how I loathe these meals! Strange food upon strange food is continually brought out - you feel like it will never end! And of course everyone wants to watch the foreigner take the first bite of each item and watches carefully for her reaction. I'd never been so thankful to finally sink into my bed as I was that night.
We gathered early the next morning to begin another big day. Our motel served a breakfast buffet, but it looked more like they had reheated our leftovers from the night before. We drove another couple hours before coming to our second orphanage stop. This one was built only a year ago and was set within a large compound. It was much larger than the previous one, had interior hallways, and the fresher layers of paint made it feel brighter, too. I believe if I had seen this one first, I would have found it just as overwhelming as the first one - but having seen it second, it felt like the Taj Mahal in comparison. We once again went through the conference room meeting prior to being shown around the grounds. It was felt that we probably weren't shown all the areas of this place, only those they wanted us to see. They were proud to show us their music room and nurses station.
Standing outside in front of the main entrance, our gaze was directed across the yard to another door where a small boy was being lead toward us. This was the boy with Brittle Bones that we had previously been made aware of. Even from a distance, I could see his resemblance to the twins and the other O.I. boys at our home. He held his hand to one of his thighs as he walked with a bit of a limp, and didn't seem the least bit shy as he shook our hands. He was then lead away as we continued on our tour. In one of the infant rooms, they allowed me to hold a baby, although I think it was a preselected baby as they tried to stear me away from some of the cribs. I watched as they changed the diaper (scraps of cloth, tied around it's waist with another strip of fabric) of one baby, noticing it still had it's umbilical cord attached. As they rolled it onto it's side, I gasped as I saw it's extended vertebrae piercing through the thin skin on it's back, sore and oozing. Keith noticed, too, and mentioned that with the open sore laying in the dirty diaper, that the child would probably become infected and not live much longer. In another room, my eyes were drawn to an albino set of twin boys, around a year old. Although their eyes couldn't focus on me, they smiled widely and laughed as I tickled them through their crib bars. We spent the most time in a physical therapy room, where many of the kids had clubbed feet and couldn't walk. Keith explained that with simple stretches that begin early in life, they could easily be corrected. But these children had been left untreated for so long that their limbs continued to clench tight and draw in. Simple things, but nobody to educate the caregivers. We found more clubbed feet in another room who were being classified as mentally handicapped, just because they were disfigured and undiagnosed.
After the tour, it was back to the conference room for more talking, some rice and hot water, and finally the final word that we would be allowed to take the little boy with Brittle Bones home with us! As we walked outside to leave, he was again escorted out to meet us. He climbed into the van without any hesitation, his only possessions being the clothes he was wearing and a small blue teddy bear. Keith told me I could pick out his new English name, since it was my first 'run'. I knew I'd need the long drive home to think up a good one! It wasn't long into the drive before both of us were snoring. At the reststops, he wouldn't go to Keith to be lifted out of the van, but would allow me to pick him up and set him down. He loved snacks, any snack, and really didn't make much of a peep the entire drive home. When at last we pulled into our driveway, it was I that got the priviledge of carrying him inside to his new home. We decided on 'Geno' for a name - after my dad's middle name, Eugene. We even passed this building (below) on the drive to his orphanage, so my dad was on our minds! He even looks like a Geno, and he's fitting in wonderfully here in his new home.
Now I'm asking myself, 'Where do I go from here?' What do I do with this new information? I've had such a rare opportunity to see what I've seen, so how should I use it? Will you join me as I'm still processing, thinking, and seeking?
If I was better at summarizing, it'd be a lot easier to write these blogs!
Posts
