Today we did a 2 hour drive to Zunyi City. We met our friends Zoe's mom there. It was great meeting a lady that can email me from China with concerns about her daughter and I in a matter hours can email her back and say she is fine, she just left her phone in the bottom of her purse. I told her today that she has a wonderful daughter and that she is a wonderful mother.
We went to a walking street. It was peaceful and had shops. Morgan got a fan and some earrings. We tested a few bites of different food items for sale and resisted buying baskets that are too large for our suitcases. We ate a lunch that was great...didn't bother my stomach. And then we headed to the orphanage. It took several tries to get there. We even ended up stopping and the guide, Richard, caught a motorcycle taxi and had them lead us for a ways.
We finally pulled in….what words do you use to describe a place that amazes me has children thriving in it? It is difficult to fathom that our daughters, and others daughters, have came from here and are as beautiful as they are? The blue two-doored metal gate with a padlock...a concrete courtyard with concrete playground things...even the slide was concrete. Metal framed windows that had to leak as if they had only screens in them...all the while the kids wanting to see us and see what we had, etc. TMZ’s room that slept 6 girls had bunk beds...two desks, wash tubs under the beds...no closet, and nothing on the walls. There were no Justin Bieber posters, no mirrors, no thick mattresses, no bed spreads with matching pillows...but lots of quilts bundled on them. Two blind girls were there at the desks and got the radios that TMZ had wanted to give them as gifts. Another girl was brought in, the third girl there in the room that is also blind and she got her radio. They all said thank you and I made sure to hold each of their hands when saying you're welcome... Then the other 3 girls that she gave pens to...then she handed out some hair items, a brush, etc. We had the apples for the other children....
TMZ was so excited to share her gifts, the guide summed it up well saying that she is so excited to be adopted and yet so sad to leave her friends that it evens out a bit. The smile has not left her face...maybe one does outweigh the other??
Then we drove to the girls school...to imagine our daughters walking to school on the road that we traveled was just not a good feeling. We said goodbye to Zoe's mom after we left the school and started the 2 hour drive back. Thank goodness that since 2007 there is a road put in that is passable. Before this drive had been 4 hours or more. We are back in the hotel now...tomorrow we go to an Ethnic Village and hope to just spend a bit of time walking, the last full day here in Guiyang. Now we have to figure out how to pack the suitcases!
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