Friday, March 10, 2006

This to report on our 4th full day with Hannah. She and all the other adopted babies have blossomed. You can see it in their faces as they go from frowns and stares to smiles. It is hard to express in words. The mortality rate on these orphans is 50% according to one of the two timers in our group, Mike Zook. These kids are the strong survivors. They have very strong wills.

Hannah has a mind of her own with personality plus. At the same time, they are very fragile. Just the act of handing them to someone can set them back emotionally in their development. Those of you reading this, please be aware of this factor. It is recommended that you don't pass these babies around for the first year. In their mind, they are being given to another person again. You have to let them warm up to you on their time and let it be their idea. Please don't be offended when we get back if we don't let you hold her right away. You'll have to give her some time to feel secure. Hannah will smile at Donna Reed and wave, but she screams if we try to hand her to Donna. She feels secure with Pam, Kristin, and I, but outside of that, she gets scared and cries.

All the families get together for breakfast each morning at the hotel buffet. We float around to each others' tables and see how everybody did through the night. I'm getting used to having Chinese food for breakfast along with regular food, whatever that is. One of the things I picked up was a "meat filled won ton." I started to eat it, then pondered the meaning of "meat" and Donna suggested it was the leftover spicy broiled snake from the night before. Donna got a big kick out of that, because I got grossed out and didn't eat the won ton. I'm always grossing out Donna and she finally got me back.

We visited an orphanage today and it was an emotional time, especially for Tina O'Hara, the adoptive mother of a second Chinese baby named Carly, who came from there. You'll see a picture of Carly today. It should be the last picture. She is 22 months. She and her husband, Kevin also have another adopted child from China, Christina who is 12 and acts like 24. Kevin is an attorney from eastern Pennsylvania. Kevin and Christina stayed home with Carly and Tina went with us. Pam was there to give emotional support and hugs.

We wanted to bring all the kids home with us. They were all so cute in their own way. Their were also some special needs kids there. The most memorable part for Pam and I was the baby nursery. There was a set of twins and one of them was blind. Thank God they were all rescued by the orphanage, but your heart breaks for little ones with no home of their own.

The trip today enabled us to see a lot of the countryside. Their are many rice patties and working farms. We saw some very nice houses built on the hillside. Our guide, Peter, said that the government controls the land and is very careful about how the farm land is used. To build on the flat land that is farmable, you have to get special permission. But no special permission is required for the surrounding hillsides. There are some very nice houses in the country.

We broke away from the group for lunch and went by taxi to McDonald's. We usually don't eat Big Macs at home, but we were all craving Big Macs. Hannah loves french fries. It was a welcomed change from Chinese food. Then we crossed the street to go to WalMart and a tall handsome Chinese teenage boy chased us down to practice his English on Kristin. I have to fight the boys off with a stick, even in China. The grocery section of Walmart here is a lesson in cultural eating differences. There are large glass tanks with all sizes of live fish up to a couple of feet plus long. There are live green frogs, live turtles, frozen shark fins, eels, snake, dog, etc.
One of the favorite crunchy snacks is deep fried chicken feet.

Hannah loves to shop. But she is all hands and she is very, very quick. Pam and Kristin has started her on a life long journey into the ancient art of shopping. She is going to Pam and Kristin more and more. We used a walker yesterday and Hannah ran and screamed in the walker. She has had a very limited concept of space. She has tended at first to wait for someone to bring her a toy rather than crawl to it.....but today she took off.