Friday- Safe Arrival

Safe Arrival


Well, I am thankful to announce that we made it safely to Shantou. We have now learned that over 60,000 people were stranded in Zhengzhou due to the ice and snow. The chaos even made the front page of the China Daily, so I will be saving that copy for my memory book.

The Zhengzhou airport finally reopened around 9 p.m. Thursday. Everyone clustered around the windows and gave a huge cheer when the first airplane took flight. The plane that would take us to Guangzhou still had not arrived, so I decided to take my briefcase to use as a pillow and lie down on the tile floor in the airport for awhile. I had just closed my eyes when I suddenly heard people yelling, pounding, and hitting glass. I honestly thought that a show was taking place, so I got up to see who was performing to help pass the time in the airport. Instead, I quickly learned that the passengers to Guangzhou (our flight) had just learned that the plane that was supposed to be for us, was instead going to take the Shanghai passengers all the way to their city, turn around and come back to Zhengzhou before then taking us to Guangzhou. We would have another 8 hours of waiting for the plane to return and would not be able to take off until around 6 a.m. Well……….let’s just say the Guangzhou passengers didn’t take that very well. We saw food being thrown at the customer service people, lots of yelling, and various other interesting moments that attracted an even larger crowd.

At around 10:30, we heard them call our flight number but of course with the destination of Shanghai. The next thing we knew, a large group of passengers from our flight decided to storm the gate, insisting to board the plane themselves. The amazing thing is that around an hour later, all of their noise paid off. The next thing we knew they suddenly had “found” a plane for us. Karen and I thought we were going to have to wait until 4 a.m., so we were busy talking to new friends in the airport and all of us completely missed them calling the flight to Guangzhou. Suddenly a man ran up and said it was the last call to Guangzhou and the gate was one level down. We raced downstairs only to be a few of the last people to board the bus to our plane. Can you even imagine if we would have missed the flight we waited almost two days for?

We arrived in Guangzhou at 3 a.m., collected our bags and headed to a hotel. We managed to check in at around 4 a.m. Remember the night before where I said our Chinese male friend had to share a room with us? Well, we went even one better this time. The man behind us in line at the hotel discovered that we had received the last room and he would have no place to stay. Our facilitator is such a caring man, so he asked if it was okay for him to stay with us. Karen and I were laughing in bed that night that we had a stranger from Guilin staying in our room. We never got his name but he was very, very nice. I am sure he is not telling his wife. J

After two wonderful hours of sleep, we got up at 6 and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Shantou. I still couldn’t believe that we were actually going to make it there.

We arrived at the orphanage and soon learned that because of our time constraints, instead of us visiting the foster families, they were coming to visit us. It was so much fun seeing one family after another pull up the orphanage. The love of the foster parents for these children is so obvious. These children with special needs are thriving under their care. I couldn’t believe my eyes when a small van pulled into the orphanage gate and I saw little Bi sitting on her mommy’s lap in the front seat just smiling and waving away. Her mom had scrubbed her so clean that her cheeks were pink, and she had dressed her in a darling dress with two little hair clips on her head. This little girl, who just six months ago struggled even to walk, now is at a full run. Her vocabulary was just amazing and she wished us Xin Nian Hao (happy new year) over and over with a little grin that showed off her dimples. She is non-stop smiles, and her foster mom is oh so proud of her.

The orphanage gate opened again and in came Hua, riding with his mom on their motor scooter. I was happy to see that both he and his mom had on helmets. J I have to tell you that he was thinking he was looking pretty cool in that helmet and he took a moment to strut around a bit to make sure the other kids saw. J

Everyone from the orphanage gave a huge cheer when Fen arrived. The kids in the orphanage had not seen her for awhile and they were all excited to see her come back. As soon as Karen walked over to her, Fen looked up and said “how are you? I am fine!” in perfect English. Karen told me that she was holding Fen upside down at one point and when she raised her back up, she said (again in perfect English), “I like that a lot.” What a lovely little girl.

The orphanage had prepared gifts for each foster family for Chinese New Year, and each child got a new pair of shoes, a Chinese outfit, and their family got an enormous bag of rice and some juice. It was one big celebration and I am so happy we were able to be there. I kept telling the foster moms, “thank you…..thank you” for the care they were giving the kids, but they kept grabbing my hand saying “thank you for letting us parent these kids”. How many times can I say that I love foster care?

After the foster kids left, Karen and I went room to room with one of the doctors to see the newest children who have medical needs. There are over 25 children who will need surgery. Baby He, who has a tumor on his neck and who is fully sponsored for surgery now, is so adorable. I didn’t realize how young he was when we got his case, but he is so tiny with the brightest little eyes. He will be moved for surgery immediately following spring festival. Karen got a photo of each child needing surgery and we will immediately start looking for sponsors when we get back to the states.

We also took photos of all the kids who had surgery this past year with us. Everyone knows how much I love those heart kids, and our latest group is no exception. The orphanage had told me that baby Shan was the new “Little Monkey”, and they are right. She is so beautiful but an absolute peanut! We immediately recognized Baby Wen, who has gained so much weight following her surgery. She is so smiley and has the chubbiest cheeks. Each of them had on a homemade crocheted hat and they looked adorable.

As we walked room to room, the orphanage pointed out those children who will soon be going to America and Ireland. Oh what lucky parents! Each child was more beautiful than the next. Sometimes the aunties would pull me over to show me the photo albums that parents had sent to the orphanage. It was so neat to see them pointing to the pictures and telling the babies, “this is your mama….this is your baba”. Even though the staff is always so sad to see the babies they care for leave, they are just so happy that they have families. That is their wish for every child.

Before we knew it, it was time for our dinner with the teens. We were able to take 20 of them out for traditional Shantou hotpot. The kids decided to walk to the restaurant, but the staff insisted we go by car since they felt we must be tired from our long journey. One of the teachers was recently given a new car by her daughter. They have nicknamed it the “green apple car” as it is the exact same color as a Granny Smith apple and is almost as round. It is actually called a “QQ” car and you can buy one in China for about 40,000 rmb ($5000). She offered to drive us to the restaurant as she had just learned to drive the month before. . She is SUCH a careful driver, with two hands firmly on the wheel. It was sort of funny to Karen and I that she was being so diligent as no one else in Shantou seems to follow traffic rules. J

The hot pot dinner was so much fun. It was the first time the kids had experienced this type of meal. The kids ate and ate and ate, and it was wonderful to look around the tables and see everyone laughing and talking. After dinner and the passing out of the huang bao, we took some of the teens to Walmart in order to buy some “female things”. We told them we wanted to take six girls with us and when we arrived at Walmart we discovered it was half boys and half girls instead. Now we had a quandary as we knew we had a mission and it certainly didn’t involve boys, so we sent them off to the electronics department and told them we would find them later. J Out of privacy for the girls I won’t discuss what all we bought, but suffice it to say, when we checked out and the boys actually saw what was in our cart, they stationed themselves AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE from the cash register. It was absolutely priceless.

We finally got back to the hotel at around 11 p.m. and started filling cereal bags for the kids for the next day. A few moments later, my friend Ao phoned to say he was in the hotel. He asked if we could come down and meet him and his girlfriend. Even though we were very tired, there is no way we would miss having a chance to see them, so we went down and had a lovely visit. Karen and I have a saying on this trip of “why sleep in China when we can sleep in the US?” There is just so much to do and so few hours, so sleeping is the absolute last thing on our list.

We finally called it a night at 1:30…..and I fell asleep knowing Saturday would be a great day as we were going back to the orphanage to do school reports. The education program is one of my favorites as it is very heartwarming to see the kids so happy and excited about school. Earlier in the day we had seen some of the kids all lined up single file walking through the hallway to their class. Over and over we heard, “Nihao Ayi!” (hello aunty!), and many of them ran over to give us huge hugs of welcome. As I got ready to fall asleep, I started thinking about how very little it costs to sponsor a child into school. Ten dollars a month is such a small amount in the grand scheme of things, but the amount of hope and absolute FUN is immeasurable. In school they get to learn nursery rhymes, do fingerplays, dance, paint and hear stories…..all of the simple joys of being in kindergarten. I remembered their hugs and how excited they were to be heading to class. Before I fell asleep, I definitely had decided that the sound of a child’s giggle is priceless.