Journey with Lydia - Day 3, Part 1

While Lydia and all other girls adopted from Qichun were in foster care, the program was overseen by an orphanage.  In 2005, we paid the orphanage a visit, met the orphanage director, and saw where children stayed during training sessions for foster parents. At the time, there were many foreign adoptions being processed, with large groups of girls (mostly) at once, and foreign visitors weren't uncommon.  It was an active place.

Fast forward seven years and the orphanage is gone.  The entire property has been converted into a  "retirement community" comprising two residential structures (one for seniors with family support; the other for people who have no family). Occasionally older kids who have lost their family may come to live there, but only saw one older child who appeared to be developmentally delayed.
 

Mrs. Xu said that adoptions are very infrequent with the last one happening in March this year.  Dave asked Mr. Fan and Mrs. Xu separately why so few children are available for adoption.  Both said that girls are becoming more "acceptable" to families.  Mr. Fan said that couples know that it's hard and expensive to raise children and are, therefore, are having fewer children.  Mrs. Xu said that families make more money and are willing to pay the fines for having children outside of the "one-child" policy.  I'm not sure what to think.  My unscientific observation was that the babies being carried around in Qichun were mostly boys.


While Mr. Fan and Mrs. Xu had assured us that they would not get in trouble for being in contact with us, Mr. Fan said it would be best if he waited in the car for us.  He told us to act like none of us understood Chinese.   Mrs. Xu works at the retirement community and was the only employee on site that day.  Interesting.

Mrs. Xu smiled to see us and was happy to show us around, but did not speak except to Florie when there was no one around.  We wandered through the grounds, which were neatly kept.  It was very different than what I recalled from our visit in 2005.

I have no idea how Mrs. Xu explained our presence to the residents - we certainly didn't go unnoticed!  On the contrary, we were a major spectacle.  A couple of elderly women even trailed us as we walked through the grounds. This older guy was also very interested and posed for a photo for Lydia:

Though Mrs. Xu was silent, she took this time to be close to Lydia and for a few moments lost her stoic demeanor.

As we left, we were followed out by our "shadows", the two elderly women.  We stood to say good-bye to Mrs. Xu when the women closed the distance between us.  They took Lydia's hands, patted her nose, and said something to her that I couldn't hear (and wouldn't have understood anyway!).  One reached in her pocket, pulling out sunflower seeds and put them in Lydia's hand.  The other gave her a large apple.  Mrs. Xu watched from a distance looking pleased.

I was so proud of Lydia for how she handled this situation - she didn't resist them or pull away.  Instead, she smiled kindly, said "xie xie", and ate some of the sunflower seeds - shells and all!  As I watched the scene unfold, I was thunderstruck with an intense sense of sadness for Lydia and those in her original families who loved her but had to let her go.  At the same time, I was filled with deep gratitude that she is ours forever.  Lucky us.


We met Mr. Fan at his car, then headed off to the next activity - lunch, of course!  More on that in Part 2.