Waterproof Mascara and Shots of Three

Two days ago we visited Collins' orphanage. It was a crazy day. I had prepared myself for a day of grief and tears, but halfway through we ended up in an executive "lunchroom" doing shots of beer with high ranking officials of Fujian province....that's China for you.

Jack, the Director of Fujian Province Adoption and International Marriage, picked us up at the hotel at 8:20. Actually, he was there at 8:10 hurrying us through breakfast because it was rush hour and we had to catch the 9:00 train to Putian City. I threw some fried rice and bread in a to go box and we ran to the cab. After dashing through morning traffic and nearly dying 20 times on the way, we jump out of the car with Collins and two huge bags of clothes for the orphange in tow. I realized then why China has so many special needs babies for adoption (and I'm not joking about this.) They can't keep up. Everything happens at lightening speed. Really, may God be with the healthy person who sprains an ankle because they will miss a train and be run over trying to get there. Side note, Collins LOVES new things. She loves riding in cars. She loves Wal-Mart. Elevators, escalators, trains and weird food, she loves. She's totally fine in the midst of all this madness. I'm probably freaking out more than she is, but it's nerve wrecking

The high speed train is surprisingly clean and quiet and it's fast. What would have taken us 2 1/2 hours only took us 40 minutes on the train. It was nice to sit and be still for a moment though. Collins fell asleep and we talked to Jack about adoption and Fujian province. Who knew Jack was a really important person in Fujian and in China. He's on the news all the time and friends with the Vice Premier of China. For whatever reason, he decided to go with us to visit Putian. He said he hasn't been there in three years, so he's quite sure they will want to take him to lunch after our orphange visit.

Putian City

When we pull into Putian, Collins is still asleep. I wake her up and say a prayer for her as she has no idea what we are about to do. The day before we had seen her nanny and Dr. Li at the Civil Affairs office. She had been really good with it. She went to her nanny but didn't cry for her and everytime she needed something she came to me, not her. That was a great sign. She was starting to figure out who I was. But we were going to see them again today and see all of her friends. I wasn't sure how it was going to go.

When we walk up the stairs, her nanny and Dr. Li were waiting for us. Collins is still in a fog. Her nanny reaches for her, and she leans in to go to her. I walk close by and hold her hand. I have no idea where we are going first. We wanted to see her finding place as well as get pictures of Collins friend JingJing's finding place for our friends that couldn't see it when they were in China. After driving down a dirt road, we pull into the orphanage. I recognize it immediately. The orphanage is actually more like a compound. Several buildings with courtyards and sidewalks. Like the rest of China, it's dusty and run down. Collins is looking around a little confused but okay. She would look at me and then look around again wondering why her two worlds were colliding.

Putian City Social Welfare Institute

Dr. Li starts to walk us through to what I am guessing is the childrens building, but I still don't really know what the plan is. We walk up a ramp and pass an old, rundown playgound. Collins doesn't really pay much attention to it. At the top of the ramp, there is a very Western looking building. Turns out, it was the original orphanage building that was built by Christian missionaries. Totally threw me off, but it makes me happy to know that. We turn right, and I see a gate. Collins starts squealing and jumps down to run toward the gate. I then see two little boys standing staring at us. She is so excited to see them and immediately starts to play. We go through the gate and on the left is this tiny play room with maybe 4 other children in it. Two of the kids are on these rocking horse things and Collins goes straight over to one of the boys, pulls him off and starts to rock next to her friend. The funniest part was that he let her. I'm thinking she was the playground bully; they said she was always like that. The Original Orphanage

All the nannies were there and everyone is loving on her and saying hello to us. We stay and play for about 4 minutes and then it's time to go. It was a whirlwind. I'm going to have to go back and watch the video just to remember the details. I thought we were going to go see her room but we start to walk back out the gate. As we go, Collins is in my arms and in the sweetest little voice starts waving and saying "Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye." to her friends. No tears for her. It was like she knew she was always going to get out of there. There were lots of tears for me though thinking that some of those kids may never leave that tiny playroom.

We walk back to the van, and (quickly) off the Collins finding place. In hindsight, I think the rushing was purposeful. The orphanage was terrible. About 85% of the people there are severely mentally disabled. I have no idea, besides God's protection and mercy, how she made it out as un-scarred as she seems.

Collins was left at the SOS Children's Village which is set up like the Big Oak Ranch. It is a really nice facility and whoever left her I'm sure had hopes that they would keep her. We take a few pictures and I watch Collins pull on the gate and walk around totally oblivious to the significance of where we were.

I'm not as emotional as I thought I would be. Maybe it's becuase we were just jerked around the city without much time to reflect inbetween. I had no idea that the craziest part was about to happen.

Jack had warned us that when we go to lunch that the hosts would want us to drink beer with them. I'm not a big beer drinker, but it's percieved as rude if you don't, so ok. I'll do it. We walk into a private lunch room which looks more like a board room with a round table. I didn't know there was a head of a round table but I was quickly ushered to a new seat when I tried to sit there. We start out with some appetizers on the big lazy susan on the table. Jerod is loving the dried minnows and I'm still trying to get past the shrimp eye balls and head that I have to take off. Collins, on the otherhand, is eating it all. Amazing. The rounds of odd food keep coming and the toasts begin. We toasted to everything from the health of Collins to the health of the pinkie toes of the world. Every toast we have to drink a shot glass of beer. By the end of the day, we were doing toasts in groups of three. Apparently, if you want to be really, really, really good friends you take shots of three together.

30 bottles of Beck's later, we head back to the train station. We get in our seats and in about 30 seconds Jack and Collins are both asleep. I just stare out the window of the train and thank God for waterproof mascara on a day like today.