Orphanage Visit 11-24-09

Today we went to the Kunming Orphanage, where Meilin spent 4 months before going into foster care. We met the lady that brought Meilin to us yesterday and she gave us a really nice book about the orphanage all in english with a lot of pictures. Then she took us around the orphanage to see where the kids live and play. They even have their own hospital branch there. She told us that there are over 600 kids in the orphanage but that right now about 500 were in foster care out in the villages. We were able to see Meilin's room where she slept and some of the nannies that took care of her. Also the dinning area and play room. We walked into several rooms, some had very small babies ranging from 1 month to 8-9 months old, there was also a sick room where all of the sick babies were kept.

They let us take some pictures but not pictures of any of the babies. They said they had some pictures of when she was younger but wouldn't even let us look at them, they said it was the director's policy. Also we had sent a list of questions hoping that they would answer them but they didn't. They said there was an incident about a month ago where a foster family tried to send photos and so they wouldn't let the foster family answer the questions or send stuff anymore. So we tried to think of all of the questions to ask, but I don't think they really knew the answers anyway as she has been in foster care and so they gave us very general or vague answers most of the time. Chinese will never say "I don't know" it seems but they give you an answer that could be true or sounds good.

It was a really nice visit. The orphanage was very clean, there were alot of workers there, but you would see babies just laying there for quite some time but none of them were fussing. I'm sure they don't get alot of one on one time. It was almost sad to go as that is a major part of her history.

Sorry for so many pictures, hopefully your not on dial up!