Numero Ocho

Emma is adjusting really well and quickly becoming quite attached to us, which is a real blessing – one of the many we have received on this amazing trip.
She is laughing and playing and even saying some things we can’t understand. We were playing in the hotel room this afternoon and she got excited and rattled off about three words. Missy and I looked at each other dumbfounded. Neither of us had any idea what she said.
She has started saying a few words here and there, but we don’t know what they mean.
She did have a bit of a traumatic experience this afternoon when we went to visit her orphanage.
As soon as we got there, she realized where we were and got a bit agitated. We were worried about how she would react. We were afraid that either she would be happy to return and want to stay (as crazy as that sounds), or she would be frightened that we were taking her back.
Fortunately for us, it was the latter. She whimpered a little and held on really tight as we walked around the grounds of the facility.
We weren’t allowed to go outside because of fear of swine flu, but we were allowed to walk around outside and take pictures.
It was a relatively nice facility (from the outside) for the area, with a small playground, a little pond with a gazebo and well-landscaped gardens. It was actually one of the nicest places we saw in the county, which is extremely poor and dirty, with gravel or mud roads in many places and little run-down shops and homes that wouldn’t pass for a junkyard or garage where we come from.
The weird thing is that the facility also includes a hospital for the homeless and disables and little homes for the elderly. The whole time we were walking around, there were elderly Chinese men and women sitting on their porches or hanging around outside their homes, curiously watching the Americans with a Chinese baby.
I’m sure they’ve seen it many times before, but for us, it was surreal walking around the place where our daughter was taken in after being abandoned, with curious onlookers staring us down like we didn’t belong there.
We are very grateful for what the orphanage did for her and for allowing us to adopt her, but it still wasn’t a good feeling being there.
We only stayed a few minutes, and Emma Lee was clearly relieved to leave.
That wasn’t the worse part of our trip, though.
We stopped in downtown Ding Yuan for a few mintues, and then had to stop to fix a flat tire on the way out of town. We actually had fun watching Peter, our driver, and a local mechanic change the tire in the rain while we watched people walking and peddling up and down the road.
The orphanage is in Ding Yuan County, about a two-hour drive from Hefei. That’s no big deal except that the roads are horrible.
I can’t even describe how bad they were, but that didn’t seem to matter to most of the drivers on the road.
The roads are littered with one pothole or rut after another. But that did not deter Peter. Nor did the fact that he was carrying seven people, including two toddlers.
He drove about 60 or 70 mph the whole way, weaving back and forth across the road to avoid the biggest potholes. And passing is apparently legal at any time and anywhere, no matter what you are passing – a bicycle, a scooter, a wagon, an ox, a goat or whatever.
Three times we had to swerve or slow to a near stop for something in the middle of the road – a man, a chicken and a goat.
Peter is an excellent driver, and he demonstrated his skills often, but I can’t draw any analogy that will do justice to the poor conditions of the roads. The best I can tell you is that we didn’t ride to Ding Yuan; we bounced.
Emma Lee hated it, just like she hates riding in elevators. She screamed and cried for most of the two-hour drive back.
But one day, the trip will be worth it because she will be able to see pictures of the town and area she was born in and the orphanage where she began her life.
We were afraid for a while that the trip might ruin her day, but it didn’t. She went right back to laughing and playing – and eating – when we got her back to the safety of her hotel room.
It seems to be the place that she feels safest and considers her new home. When we get off the elevator, she takes our hand and practically pulls us to the room. She can’t wait to get inside, where she becomes a completely different person.
It is funny; she grew up in an orphanage and a foster home, and now she thinks a hotel room at the Holiday Inn in Hefei is her new home.
Boy, is she in for a big surprise.