The next day we went to Chen Jie's orphanage or Children's Welfare Institute (CWI) in Luan. Luan is a city about an hour and a half west of Hefei. Our usual driver and Erin our facilitator brought us there. It was explained to Chen Jie ahead of time that we were just going for a visit and for her to say goodbye to her friends. We were worried, of course, that she would think we were bringing her back to the orphanage. She looked a little worried when Erin was explaining this to her, but in the end she was fine.Here is the Luan CWI.
We were greeted by the Director and by Madam Hu. Madame Hu is the main caretaker and has been for many, many years. If you are reading this blog post and have adopted from the Luan CWI, Madame Hu probably was your child's nanny. When she saw Chen Jie she fussed and fussed all over her and pretty much took charge and kept Chen Jie with her. Good thing I'm not the jealous type. Nor am I the talkative type necessarily, and Thank Goodness because such a chatterbox is Madame Hu! Even our facilitator Erin kept shaking her head and saying "My, she talks alot..." But she has a good heart and it was obvious she cares for the kids. Chen Jie's attachment to us has been great from the first hour of our introduction. That would only happen if she was well cared for in her orphanage. We feel very blessed that our daughter was cared for as best as possible. We take nothing for granted.Madame Hu fussing over Chen Jie:
Here are pictures within the CWI. Here is Chen Jie's crib. Yes, she still sleeps in a crib. All the kids do. Her group was the toddler group. They stay in that group until about age 6. Then they move to another room with older kids. In the hotels where we have been staying, Chen Jie also sleeps in a crib (they're big). I may have to make some accommodations back home with one of our toddler beds for her. Right now I have a full size bed in her room. I guess we will have to wait and see how that goes...The center bed was hers.
Here are pictures of Alex and Nathan distributing candy to the children. Most of them are much younger than Chen Jie as she was one of the last of her peer group to get adopted. They had expected us in May, and it is now the end of August, so you can see how long we were delayed. :-(
Here is the poignant part of the story..... These photos are of Chen Jie's "finding place." This is where she was left, at approximately 3 days old. She was not left with any information or keepsakes, and the doctor's estimated that she was about 3 days old, so her birthday is also a guess.She was found at the gate of the CWI. The white building you see behind the gate is the guard shack and a female guard found her in the morning around 10am.
We are now in Guangzhou, the last major part of our trip. I am trying to catch up on blog posts. We will be here 8 days. Guangzhou is completely different from Beijing, Hefei and Luan. To help you visualize the amount of people the entire STATE of Florida has just over 18 million people. Guangzhou city has over 12 million. Dave says Guangzhou looks like the city in the movie Blade Runner, without the flying cars. I will let you guys figure that out...
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