Thursday, December 12 -- Visiting Her Orphanage

We waited until the last minute to confirm if we were all going to her orphanage. Even though I desperately wanted to see it, we didn’t want to take Maylia unless we felt she had bonded with us sufficiently. Even at her age it would not be an easy visit and so we thought that if things had been difficult for her that I would stay back with Maylia and Todd would go to the orphanage on his own. 

I was grateful for many reasons that Maylia had been doing so well, well enough we both felt, that we could visit the orphanage all together. It was a quick trip to Foshan, a city adjacent to and not far from Guangzhou where Maylia’s orphanage was located. Foshan had considerably less people than Guangzhou, approximately 3 million -- but by the time you get past a couple of million -- all these cities seemed enormous and sprawling to us. 

For whatever reason when I had imagined her orphanage I had always pictured it in a rural setting -- perhaps I’d seen a movie with that image at sometime. I pictured a small double floored building with many happy children, young and old, with space and a place to play, busy and bustling with little ones. Nothing ever quite lives up to my romantic imaginings, and this didn’t either. 

We pulled over to the side of a busy street full of a number of highrise buildings. 

“We’re here”, Becky said

“ Where?” I thought to myself, all I saw were a few apartment high rises surrounding a concrete courtyard. We left the van and a guard opened a large iron gate. As we walked up the sidewalk we were greeted by an older woman whom we learned served as a sort of manager to the orphanage. As she led us into the building I noticed an older man and an older woman sitting in wheelchairs near the entrance. Another older woman sat on a porch swing in the distance, the only piece of equipment on the entire concrete courtyard. We went up the elevator and as the door opened my heart just ached inside. The doors opened onto, what looked very much like a hospital wing. 

Though pastel colours and cartoon like characters were painted on the wall, it felt very cold and sterile. There was linoleum everywhere, not a shred of rug or carpet to be found. It made sense especially if you were dealing with the toileting issues of a number of children and wanted to keep everything as easily clean as possible. We walked down a long narrow hallway with open rooms on wither side. Some of the rooms were empty, many of them had stainless steel beds and cribs. All the cribs were close together in a grid like fashion , 4 across and 4 down. Some had babies in them , bundled in about 7 layers of clothing apiece. I wondered how often those babies even move let alone get out of their cribs. 

Others beds had older children in them. I noticed one boy who was tethered with a cloth to one of the bars of the crib.  As some of the children came out to see us it was evident that many, if not most of them, had much more severe needs, both physically and cognitively. As we looked into the rooms there was not a toy to be found - but perhaps they had all been put away for later as we had arrived at their lunchtime.

We were greeted immediately by a number of women who served as nannies at the facility. Some of them were carrying stainless steel bowls full of a mush, what I expected was rice congee with raisins. They smiled warmly and opened their arms to us and called out to Maylia. “Yung Ya” they all said excitedly, “Yung Ya” -- Maylia looked at all of them quietly. Some of the older children came out of the rooms. They too called her by her nickname -- clearly they not only remembered her but knew her well, even though they were much older than her. One of the nannies came over to  Maylia, called her by name. She held a spoonful of mush towards Maylia who opened her mouth as if on cue. The nanny then reached out to her as she spoke in cantonese and Maylia leaned over to her and into her arms. The nanny hugged and bounced her and continued speaking to her. 

I can’t say wasn’t relieved when, as the nanny turned so Maylia could see me, Maylia reached and came right back into my arms. The nannies spoke to Becky who would gesture to us and smile. I desperately wanted to make a good impression and hoped they would think Maylia had gone with good people. As the children came over to us we bent down to greet them. Maylia had been holding her container of goldfish. We took off the lid and as the children gathered round Maylia handed out goldfish one by one. It was the sweetest thing.

 Surprisingly Maylia wanted to walk  and as I took her hand to walk down the hall an older girl slipped her hand into mine. What I would have given to take them all home. We walked past a room where a nanny had knelt down on the floor and was feeding several eager faces from her bowl. 

Still holding two little hands we walked to the end of the hall and back until Becky called us into the other room for a photograph. They wanted to take a picture of us all in front of the items we had donated. 

They felt so insignificant compared to what they were surely in need of. Todd asked Becky which of the nannies had primarily cared for Maylia. There were two of them  there and they seemed genuinely surprised and pleased when Todd gave them their pearls. 

I asked Becky to tell them how grateful we were to them for taking such good care of her. The credit to Maylia’s natural adjustment to us goes not only to the nature of her fiery little personality but surely to the nurturing that these warm wonderful women provided. There are far more children and far more needs that really could ever be met, what a blessing that Maylia was so well cared for.

After several minutes Maylia began to get upset. She began to cry and the scream. I can only imagine how confusing it must all have been for her. She seemed to want to go to the end of a hallway where there was a window that looked out onto the courtyard. As soon as we got to the window she pulled back and screamed again, the nannies came up and tried to tell me what she wanted. I didn’t have the heart to say, “ I think she wants to go”. After a few minutes we said goodbye to everyone and made our way into the hall and down the elevator. As we left the building we met the director, Mr. (?), probably one of the few men Maylia had had any interaction with in her life other than the policeman who had found her and the doctor who had first seen her. 

We stood at the entrance and took another photo as the large iron gate closed behind us. As we looked back through the gate Becky mentioned that this was not just the orphanage but the Foshan City Social Welfare Institute, meaning that it housed not just children, but adults with special needs as well as seniors in need of greater care than presumably their families could provide. 

On one of the few English t.v. channels in the hotels, I had watched a program featuring a man who had begun a charity called Wine to Water. Though I began watching the show too late to see how the charity had begun, his goal was to provide wells and clean drinking water to 1 million people worldwide. He was now in nearly 16 countries and nearing his goal. He was a young man, likely in his thirties with a young, beautiful family at home while he traveled to Africa and South America to build wells and provide clean drinking water to families and communities in need. I admit that for a moment I wished for his life -- or at least his ability to impact the lives of nearly a million people for good. We had taken 1 child, from 1 orphanage in a city of millions of people and many more orphanages. It seemed like a small drop in an extremely large ocean of need. But if impacting the one is as important as the 1 million, perhaps in this one little life we could make a difference.