Finally, another internet connection!

Sorry for the lack of post, we’ve had no internet for the past 3 days!! But wow, has soo much hapened in 3 days!

We visited the Lily Orphan Care Centre (LOC), a centre like Gracie’s Room, but runs 24 hours a day and is run seperate from the orphanage, eventhough they are located right inside the orphanage. They have their own room, with hard wood floors, they buy thier own food, do thier laundry and have a kitchen off to the side where the prepare the children’s meals. If a doctor is needed they will pay for it as well as any medicine. CCAI runs this program and it is making such a huge difference in the lives of the children. We’ve posted more about this program and our visit on the DJ kids blog site. The link is to the right.

After that visit we flew to Chongqing, and then were driven to Dianjiang. (Lily’s orphanage)

We checked in to the hotel and then taken right out to supper. We had supper with Director Jao(Gow), Director Dai (Die), Assistant Director Li Jiang Hong, and the foster care coordinator, and the office manager. We had an incredible hot pot dish, with each of us having our own pot sitting on an induction plate, you added your own ingredients, like beef strips, 5 different varieties of mushrooms, bamboo, tofu, goat, and cow’s stomache and greens! It was so good and I ate enough for 5 people.

The custom of the host toasting the visitors continued, and apparently my reputation proceded me, as the Director would smile and say “Cheers!” and Bottoms up! with a cheeky grin! Xia kept laughing They toasted us over and over again, each person taking a turn, from the most important down...

When we first arrived, I showed them pictures of Lily (then and now) and although they couldn’t really remember a lot about her, they recognized her name, and for the next 2 days instead of calling me by my name, (which is hard to pronounce for them) they called me “Yu-Qian’s Mama”. I can’t tell you how much that warmed my heart every time I heard it!! Amongst all tis chinese talking I’d hear “Yu-Qian’s Mama.. Yu-Qian’s mama..” and I would look up and they would smile, or toast me or put food in my bowl or if we were on the street, the Assistant director Li Jiang Hong, would hold my arm! We found out that she has a 13 year old son, that is a perfect match for Abigail, and by the end of the second night, she was calling me “sister by marriage” and she took Abigail’s picture to show her son!! lol. By the end of the evening it was like we were all old friends!! It was wonderful to experience this, so different from our adoption trip 5 years ago.

The following morning we met after breakfast and we were able to meet with a few of the foster families and the babies!! (All about this is on the other blog). They took us to the Rape Flower celebrations..(note to self..look up rape flower)..

We were then able to do a bit of walking around on our own, we had about 2 hours.. so we had a foot massage. The place ended up being..wel.. questionable.. and I’m sure it was actually a place of “ill-repute”.. anyway, I’ll send out another post about the rest of my trip to DJ later.. I think this is a big enough one for now!!!

Enjoy the photos.. lots more to come.. If you want the baby pictures check out the other blog, as this is blog is more about my own personal experiences on the side. The more serious part of the trip is on the DJ kids blog. We saw a lot of terrible things that I don’t want to go into here, here I want to smile and think happy thoughts!! Maybe later I’ll talk about them, but first I want to talk to Frank to debrief.. happy thoughts for now!!!