Now that changes things

After breakfast at the buffet and half of the movie National Treasure 2 our guide met us in the lobby at 9am for our journey to Gao An. We had never seen the city of Gao An before. The adoption took place in the city of Nanchang an the director of the orpahange, Mr Huang, brought Devlin to us. We were supposed to have a chance to go there later in the week but they said there was too much construction and they were too busy. Our thought at the time was because we were the only family from our group adopting a girl from Gao An that day it wasn't worth it to them. A bigger group they may have gotten a group gift, but what could we, alone, possibly give. They didn't realize that we had traveled with a large garbage bag filled with clothes for the children and money earmarked for purchases that may help. The clothing went to our travelmates' children's orphanage, the money came home with us. Not that we didn't want to help, but we were given no guidance in the how. We have donated other ways over the years.



The city of Gao An is fairly small, approximately 1 million people and expanding. It looks as if life is improving as the new part of the city certainly looks more modern than the older parts. There is a lot of farming surrounding the city, fruit and cotton and rice. We did not get much other information. The orphange was on the westeren edge of the city, not where it was when Devlin was there. The buildings are knew, but there is no landscaping giving a somewhat odd appearance of still being a construction site. The oddest thing was the quiet. When we had visited FengCheng there were lots of babies, in cribs, in walkers, in arms, here we saw none. We were told that a. they had fewer children than in the past and b. most are now in foster care in the surrounding area. The orphanage or Social Welfare Institute (SWI) acts as more of an administrative center for managing the orphans' cases and less as a home.


We were shown to the directors office and Mr Huang served us fruit. He claims to remember Devlin. We presented him with the snapfish album we had compiled. He especially liked that we included the picture of him carrying her up the walk to the Civil Affairs office. Devlin's file was brought out and we began to go through some papers. Here is where things got interesting. First out was a picture that we had never seen. It was a younger photo than those included in our referral packet. Just a mug shot, nothing fancy, but the expression on her face was pure Devlin. There were two of them and when he realized we had never seen it before the Mr Huang took out a pair of scissors and cut the two apart giving us one. Thank you. They had documents that we had never seen and that we could not keep but we did photograph them.


First: a hand written note with Devlin's birthday and time. We know our girl really was born on her birthday, which is more than we were certain of before, as this information is often an estimate.


Second: this is the one that rocks our world, she was found on February 16, 2004. We had seen this date once before but been told that it was probably a typo. Our agency told us quite clearly that she had been one month old when found. It was not a typo. She was 13 months old when she came to the SWI. Thirteen months, this twists a mother's heart. I cannot imagine how difficut it is for a parent to abandon their child. Even when it is done in as safe a way possible where you know the child will be found and taken care of the actual act of leaving your child, or walking away. But a one year old!?! A crawling, babbling, smiling, laughing toddler? Oh, and the terror Devlin must have felt. My poor, poor girl. She was found at 5 in the morning, so she would have been sleeping when she was left. She woke up and her whole world was gone. My heart is heavy today.


Third: her finding ad. These are run in the newspaper whenever a child is found to try to find the bio parents. I am not sure if anybody actually responds to these.


Fourth: the identity of the man who found her, along with his picture


Fifth: police reports about the events of the day.


Ponderfing all that we just learned we loaded into the car and headed towards the old orphanage. We stopped first at the local Buddist temple. It was down a dirt road and behind a crumbling wall, but it was beautiful. There were local people there prayering and they stopped to watch us. They looked at Devlin and asked. The director of the orphange put his hand on Devlin's head and his voice sounded very proud. I imagine he was telling them, "she was one of ours." From the temple we went to lunch and then brought him back to his office. We took a few more pictures - Devlin standing in front of the sign welcoming her back to visit.

We returned to the hotel and called it a day. We watched the rest of National Treasure 2 and then headed to the pool. Thankfully no bathing cap rules here. There was another family playing in the pool - 2 boys and a girl. They looked around Mac and Liam's age, but told us that they were 11. Not sure, their Enlish and my Chinese added up to not a whole lot. The boys all got together and apparently at their age a language barrier is no barrier at all. In no time they had devloped a game using our sammy towel (those things you see divers with in the olympics that they take in the water with them and then wring out to dry themselves). The boys would stand on the side of the pool one would throw the towel and then they would race to it. The one who got it first got to be the thrower for the next round. Gotta love what kids can accomplish.