A Chinese Orphanage

Alright, I haven't written in a while but the past few days have been pretty relaxing. We're taking it easy. We've had about half of the volunteers go home. They were all signed up for the 14 day program and so now these next six days we're consolidating apartments (we are getting two people). During the day I can't really remember what we did, but I know that we went to the dumpling dinner that we missed before. This was delicious. I tried jellyfish, which was actually like hard gelatin. It had a little sour bite but it was kind of bland and bitter. At least I tried it. Other than that we had tons of dumplings and other dishes. It was Andrew's last night, so he came with Jimmy and I to dumpling dinner. Afterwards we talked about travelling aroudn China back at the apartment. Andrew has been a lot of places while he was in China this summer. He had a lot of information and we're definately going to use him as a resource when we need to find out what to do in certain places. Not to mention, a lot of CYCAN students (our Chinese leaders) live in various cities around China. One leader, Serena, lives in Shanghai, another lives in Shenzhen (her English name is Rain), and another leader Sophia, lives in Wulan? It is somewhere in southern China, but she studies in Beijing. We hung out at the house and I'm pretty sure I was out by 11:30. Rachel and Kelly had a track and field event at the Bird's Nest and they got back around midnight. They had really good seats and had a great time. It was fun to listen to them tell their stories about getting paparazzied by Chinese and other foreign tourists.

I went to the orphanage yesterday. It really exists. It was about an hour away from Beijing by bus. It is out in a rural part of China, but not too rural. The facility is actually really nice and modern. The program is called Philip Hayden Foundation and the director's name is Leah. After showing us around the grounds a bit, me and the 3 other people I was with got to meet some of the orphans. All of the orphans at PHF have some kind of special need. Most have cleft pallett, severe heart conditions that require surgery, or brain issues. The children we worked with were all under the age of three. This was a little bit out of my comfort zone because I am not used to working with such young kids. Also, it is a lot different when you are working with special kids. One of the girls had her stomach born in a pouch on her stomach. The skin of the pouch was very very thin, almost transluescent. You could see her heart beating inside of the pouch, moving the skin up and down with each beat. Another girl had a brain condition that filled her with head with water. She had an enlarged head. The one thing that made me uncomfortable at the ophanage was how tempremental the children were. They were easily upset and there was one girl, Ruby, who we were told isn't fond of others. One of the children loved to be tossed up and down, and Leah encouraged us to do so, but somehow it didn't seem right for me to toss them up in the air. Had it been any of my younger cousins, I would have loved to, but considering these children were special and not related to me, I didn't want to take the risk of something happening.

There was one kid, Tristan, who had cleft pallet and a underdeveloped hand who was awesome. He was probably one of the most happy babies I've ever seen. All you had to do was bounce him up and down and he would giggle and smile. I enjoyed my time with the kids and could see myself becoming attached to these kids had I actually come to the orphanage more often. When the children went to take a nap, we ate lunch and began painting a few classrooms for the orphanage. Painting was fun. I'm not a professional but I can say that my walls looked decent enough. I got a lot of paint on the ceiling though. But she said that didn't matter. We headed back around 3:30 PM. Before we left, we were walking around outside and we saw two puppies that had been abandoned at the orphanage. They were the only things I took pictures of and they reminded me of home. They were really cool puppies that were small. One of them literally fell inside a small hole while they were following me to the other building.

When I got home from the orphanage, I hung out at the apartment and relaxed. My shorts had paint on them and my shoes had drips on them so I'm heading to the silk market today to pick up some shoes and shorts. Also, my gym shorts mysteriously disappeared so I need to get a pair of those too. We had duck dinner last night too. We weren't signed up to go, but since people left early there are a lot of open slots. This is a chance for us to get free food and have fun with our CYCAN leaders. Jimmy, Rachel and I had turtle and some delicious Beijing roast duck. Also, we had this catfish that they brought out for us to see before it was cooked. The waiter held it up for us to inspect and it was huge. The whole meal was delicious.

Last night we hung low because we were supposed to go to the Great Wall this morning. Unfortunately, we woke up to rain and I had an upset stomach. We decided to nix the trip and reschedule for another day when the weather is better. Probably on the 24th or 25th. I'm going to the market now. Have a good one everyone.