It is now 4:00 in the morning in Yiwu

Good morning! It is now 4:00 in the morning in Yiwu & I can not sleep. It is warm here but the air conditioners are shut down on October 1st every year. The same was true in Beijing.

We have had a few incredible days at the orphanage in Yiwu. I have been on the RTC board since it was founded in 2006 so I felt that I knew what was going on but it has been a real eye opener being here. It is hard to explain it. It is a bit overwhelming & it really makes you think about your own life.

The first day we saw 19 children, mostly ones that were in foster care. Many with cerebral palsy. I do not know how these foster mothers do it - one had 5 children & the other 6. I find it hard at times with 4 kids & none of mine have any special needs. It is a rather humbleing experience.

Yesterday we saw a few kids from foster homes but mainly we saw babies at the orphanage. So many sweet, little ones. And so many that should be placed for adoption soon before they fall further behind. Unfortunately, this orphanage used the bad formula & a number of kids we saw had kidney stones. All the babies were screened at the local hospital for kidney stones. I am not sure what the long term prognosis is for these children.

In the afternoon, Danling & the special education teacher that we hired for the Guiping orphanage gave a talk to the nannies and foster mothers. They left two nannies to handle the baby room which has about 40 children in cribs. Often both of the nannies were upstairs, bringing babies up to be assessed and talking with the nurses, doctor, or therapists. So that left Susan downstairs in the baby room on her own. She did a super job. It was amazing to see her in action - a very proud moment for me!

Later, Susan did her talk. She had put together a powerpoint with photos telling her life story. There were about 40 people in the room - foster moms, nannies, RTC staff from the U.S., and RTC translators from China. Again, she did an incredible job. I sat up front & watched the reaction on the faces & they were extremely interested. Again, Susan was very poised & confident. After her talk, there were questions for her and for our group. We had a nice dialogue between the different groups. I think the Chinese people really appreciated hearing from an adoptee and seeing that she was doing so well.

Last night we had a great dinner with the RTC volunteers & translators at the hotel. It was called hot pot. We sat at two big round tables and each had three boiling pots with broth sunk in the table. Then they started bringing food for us to add to it & you just scooped out what you wanted. Susan flipped a bit when shrimp on skewers were delivered to our table with the legs moving! After boiling them, most ate them whole but I opted to remove the head & eyes & most of the shell. Apparently the shell is full of calcium but I will stick to a vitamin instead! We also added beef, pig intestine, dumplings, noodles, mushrooms and crab. The nice thing is you could fish out what you wanted. Each person had a little bowl to mix their own concoction of soy sauce & spices to dip the cooked pieces in. It was delicious, especially with a nice cold Tsing Tao beer!

Off to another day of work.

Cheryl Heley