Trip to China
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Sunday, August 17, 2008 "Hello from Nanning! Our Sunday morning started when we woke at 4 am half dreaming about Gotcha Day and still trying to track down our missing luggage with Northwest Airlines. The workers in charge of lost baggage at Guangzhou airport definitely know about us and the missing bag of baby bottles, clothes, medicines, food and toys. But Northwest has no way of tracking what they did with the bag once they found it so by 7 am we had hit the realization that the bag could be (lierally) anywhere in the world and it was time to make Plan B. All of the other families in our groups immediately promised us their extra clothes, baby Motrin, bottles and diapers and we all headed off reduced from our group of 37 families to a group of 11 families bound for Guangxi on China Southern Air. Bidding goodbye to Guangdong for a week, our plane soared through thick clouds with visions of the South China sea breaking on the beaches below us and landed in a green and humid and beautiful land with rice paddies growing up to the edge of the air strip. As we exited baggage claim (happy to see our one bag) we saw our new CCAI tour guide who we had heard so much about, Michael, and, as we boarded the bus and drove together toward Nanning and Michael spoke to us of what lays ahead for us and our babies arrive tomorrow, Daniel and I could both immediately see and feel how dedicated Michael is to the babies and what makes CCAI families remember him. Michael gave each of us typed information about each of our babies answering questions we had all sent in care package about how much the baby ate, naps, toys, and how to soothe her. He spoke to each family about the shock we can expect our babies to go through and how the first couple days will be "pretty hard" but that soon enough as we keep meeting their needs with patience and love and food and comfort, they will come around. He also promised to teach of us the local dialects our babies will be familiar with -- just a few words so we can talk to her in as familiar tones as possible. After settling in to the hotel, we accompanied Michael to a traditional Cantonese restaurant to eat shrimp noodle soup, braised ribs in plum sauce and scallion pancakes. After lunch Daniel and I walked down the main boulevard to see what we could see in this bustling provincial capital. Nanning is a small city but small in China bears no resemblance to our small as we saw building everywhere and huge high rises and building upon building for residence. While there were plenty of cars flowing along the large boulevards we also saw hundreds of bicycles and mopeds and scooters of every variety carrying families of every configuration. Late in the afternoon Michael took all of us to the huge Walmart in the City Center which for Daniel and I meant an opportunity to stock up on bottles, baby clothes and washclothes, diapers and wipes, and a couple simple toys so, while I don't feel the same as I would with my own bag, I do know we now have what we need to meet Jiangyue tomorrow and to care for her. The best gift of all though was learning from Michael that he has both seen and held Jiang Yue. She has needed some medical care over the past month for skin issues and Michael had been involved in bringing her medicines sent by our agency from Guangzhou and advocated diplomatically to use those medicines. He had held her and told me her skin is much improved now and she feels better. He also quietly said to me "she is very beautiful." Which we know but I turned to one of my travel companions to tell her too. Emotions are running high as everyone still struggling with sleep and time changes prepares to ready themselves for their first, second, or third child -- ages 9 months to 3 years old. Tomorrow will be an exceptional day. We have posted a few pictures from our day. Love to all. Colette and Daniel

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