Day Five - Chenzhou Orphanage

Today was a very happy day:)

I woke up awfully tired. Our wake up call came at 6:30, and I was still sleeping. Elyssa answered the phone and just slammed it down. Haha. She took a shower while I slept longer. I eventually got up and got ready. I was surprised because it was the first day I'd slept all the way through the night. Getting used to the time change I guess.

At breakfast we had our new guide order our food and everything was pretty good. I'm pretty sure I'm going to gain weight here... We eat so well!

On our walk today it was very pleasant. It wasn't too hot, and it wasn't too crowded, so we were able to look around and see more interesting things.

One thing that caught our attention was a man who had a rat in a trap in the street. He was trying to get it free (dead of course). When he saw all of us foreigners watching he put on a show of it. He got it free and began waving it in the air. Haha. That's when I left.... ;)

I also saw a woman and her husband climbing out of the taxi... With a newborn baby wrapped in a pink blanket in her arms. I can only imagine how many times that's happened where the mother knows she cannot keep her child for various reasons. I can only hope she is able to keep hers.

At the orphanage we played with the babies some more. I found the little girl I talked about yesterday. I played with her the whole morning. Her parents are naming her Ellie, so I'll refer to her as that from now on.

Ellie wasn't happy to see me. She was sitting by herself, so I figured she'd want some company, but boy was I wrong. She cried and cried. I rubbed her back again and then Katie brought out some of the toys that someone donated. She quieted down and became interested in the puzzles. Anytime I tried to move her, she'd get upset.

We sat in a circle and sang songs and played games, but she didn't want much to do with it. She held on to her two balls she had real tight and that made her happy. I knew picking her up and walking around would set her off, but I just wanted to try... Get her a little used to new things. As suspected, she cried, but stopped soon. She's a curious baby, always wanting to see what others around her are doing.

Feeding time came, and she ate up her big bowl of congee again. :) the kids at this orphanage eat well. Some get two or even three bowls if they're hungry enough. Many of the kids are chubby ;)

Ellie and I walked around some and sat down. She began to actually look at me more. She started touching my face... My eyes, nose, and mouth. Then she played with my hair. It was nice to see her making some physical contact.

By the time it was time for us to go, she was getting tired and rubbing her eyes. I think their nap time is right after they eat.

My goal for this week is that I'll get a smile out of Ellie. It may be hard, but I'm going to work at it.

After we had eaten our lunch, Elyssa, Tammy, and I ventured out into the market place. First we walked down the street and saw various animals for sale. Such as eel, frogs, pigeons/chickens, dried and live fish, cow tongue, cow foot, cow ear, and cow...insides. Yum. The smells coming from that place were... Indescribable. Haha.

We ventured into the actual grocery store market/mall. We walked with Tammy for a bit as she looked at shoes (she has a shoe fetish, and was going through withdrawals;)). After awhile Elyssa and I went to the food to buy whatever crazy stuff we needed.

At one point Elyssa picked up some Dove chocolate and put it in her cart, but a worker took it from her and pointed to the other side of the store and started rambling something in Chinese. She took it and put it back in the cart and she got frustrated, so Elyssa just put it back on the shelf.

Before we were going downstairs to checkout, Elyssa says to me, "I really want some chocolate. Go sneak some for me."

Being the good roommate I am, I go and grab some, kind of hide it by my side and start walking fast. Elyssa's face is telling me she's following me so I walk faster. Then I have this woman come and grab it from me and she starts yelling at me. So I say, "dui bu qi, dui bu qi!" (Sorry, sorry!) And we ran away.

Come to find downstairs that we have a whole bunch of Dove bars downstairs. I don't understand what her big deal was. Haha. Oh well... Just kinda freaked me out a lil bit.

We went back to the orphanage, and we were told to go upstairs and play with the babies. I found Ellie, picked her up and walked around a little bit. She didn't fuss at all, and no tears formed in her eyes which made me happy.

Progress. Slowly but surely, progress.

We played for awhile. She loves balls and things that make noise when you shake. She found my toes and started playing with them, looking at the purple nail polish, it was funny. And she loves to observe everyone else. She's a very chill baby.

Its sad because they have heat rash all over their bodies. They sleep in a hot room with only two air conditioning units in the middle, and they keep them in long sleeves and pants. Ellie was itching all over today, so I scratched her back and arms softly and she liked it.

At one point we were just sitting there playing and a little smile started to form. We almost got there... So close. It made me happy. But then she went back to the same old face she has. Haha. I'm going to keep working on that.

We stayed in the baby room for most of the time in the afternoon. I was sad because I wanted to see the older kids more. That's pretty much all I did last year, played with the older kids. But at this time they aren't out of school yet... We were here in July last year, and school must've been out then.

When we went in most of the kids were still eating their dinner. We pulled out this type of putty that when you squish it down into its container, it makes a farting noise (Shawn and Katie brought those, of course). The crazy girl (I really should come up with a name for her) thought it was absolutely HILARIOUS. It was so funny to see them laugh the way they did at it. We also pulled out some silly string. I sprayed a few of the kids and they kind of got freaked out. So, I sprayed Katie to show them what's supposed to happen, and they just laughed and laughed and laughed. Eventually they got ahold of them and started spraying them on the ground and making pictures out of it and big balls of it. Haha. It wasn't exactly what I thought they'd like doing with it, but hey, it works :)

After we cleaned up all of the string it was time to go. So we got our stuff and left. The crazy girl kept snatching things from my backpack, like water bottle and pen, and running back to give them to me. She's such a little stinker, but a big ball of fun:)

We went to look for the rest of our group and found them feeding 1 month old babies. They were the tiniest things I've ever seen. Usually the nannies don't let anyone in that room (probably because they didn't want sickness for the babies), but they let our team members feed a few of them.

By this time it was about 5:15, and I'm sure the nannies were ready for us to leave. I went into another room down the hall to find the rest and found where the babies that we see sleep. I found Ellie and went over and said hey, and ran my hands through her hair a few times. She really seems to like that, too.

Our guide told us we needed to leave. I turned to open the door and someone on the other side was opening it already.

It was a nanny with my little boy, Will, coming to find me!

It took me a second to see him there, but when I recognized him I was so excited. He saw me and acted like he recognized me. I gave him a big hug. He took my hand and ran me down the hallway. I felt bad because they wanted us to leave, but I've missed him so much. I had our guide tell him I'd be here tomorrow to play with him, and he seemed satisfied with that answer.

I walked away with Elyssa and Shannon crying. Complete tears. I've missed that little guy so much. SO much. I'm just glad I was able to see him.

We met up with our team downstairs and we talked for a bit. Someone started waving at the door so I turned around, and saw Will. I waved him over and gave him a big hug. Elyssa did, too. It made me happy he came back down to see. :')

Shannon says to me as I'm in tears, "you know, this means you'll have to come back every year." ;)

Hahaha. I wish.

We closed our night with dinner at the hotel. I know I've said this before, but our team is great. They make me laugh so much.

I think we'll be heading to Shannon's room for devotions and prayer tonight. But I won't blog about/after that... I'm usually too tired by then.

That's all for now. Very exciting and happy day :)