Day Three (Sunday)

Nicole in front of the walkway to our hotel.

It's SO HUMID our camera keeps fogging up! It's NOT foggy outside. It's a very clear day. We never saw the sun or blue sky when we were here in 2010, so this is a nice surprise for us.

 Area outside our hotel. It's Sunday morning (8:30 am) so shops not open yet.

Suitcase which will serve as Sarah's toybox!

*** Funniest moment so far today was when a boy about 9-11 years old apparently proposed to me :) We were walking around on Shamian Island and there was this group of 9-11 year old boys (reminding me of the students I teach) and they kept looking at me, and then they all yelled, "Hello, Hello, Hello." and I said "Hello," back and then this one boy in the group yelled (very loudly), "I LOVE YOU." This was followed by tremendous laughter by him and his group of friends. (Probably two of the few English phrases they know.) It was SO FUNNY! As a friend reminded me, 10 year old boy antics cross all cultural barriers. As a 5^th grade teacher, 10-12 year old boy antics are my favorite J (and I am serious about this. I LOVE this age!)

We were up at 6 am and we are ON CHINA TIME. (No jet lag - yeah!) That was our experience last time too. We enjoyed a great breakfast and walked around the area around out hotel. Bought things at the bakery, snacks for Sarah, and water. 

In one of the bakeries the young cashier asked me to help her practice her English. She said she is 19 and did not learn any English in school because she was not going to university. (Only students who are going to attend college take English; those who are getting jobs do not.)  I asked her, "How are you today?" and she replied, "I am 19." :)  She was very kind to us and then gave me a free "lemon water" (think this is like lemon ice tea). We were polite and took it but of course it was tossed when we got back to our room. ('Cause you just DO NOT drink the water here!). 

Two people came up to me so far and touched my hair. (Adults, not kids).

Oh, and as for that "no shirt, no shoes, no service" rule in the U.S. well, that is not the case here. Tons of guys (including storekeepers) with no shirts on. It is SO HOT. SO HOT.

On Shamian today we did see 5 or 6 other families with their newly adopted children, and a few like us - most likely getting their children tomorrow. I wish all of us on RQ had T-shirts with our RQ screennames on them so we could identify each other!

Now turning to more serious things…Tomorrow is a monumental day for one very special little girl, and for us.

“Adopting a child will not change the world, but for that child, the world will change.”  ~ Author Unknown

Tonight my thoughts are of a woman I will never know…the woman who gave birth to Sarah…While tomorrow will be a day filled with tremendous joy for us (and fear for Sarah), there is much sadness and frustration tonight, (on my part) at never  being able to say thank-you to her for the incredible gift we will receive tomorrow – our daughter.

I wish there was some way for her to know that the child she chose life for twice, will tomorrow gain a family forever. (She chose life for Sarah, first by giving birth to her, and then by choosing to abandon her so that she would be found and taken to an orphanage.) As most people are aware, the country of China has a One Child Policy/Law, forbidding families from having more than one child. What many people do not know is that even for a FIRST child, the family must have a permit to become pregnant. In Guangdong Province, where Sarah and Aaron are from, the fine for an illegal child is $46,000.00. (That is an insurmountable amount keeping in mind that in 2009, 362 million Chinese people lived on less than $2 per day, or $100 per year! In 46 YEARS, they would have $4600.00 – nowhere near the amount of the fine!)

So, it’s against the law to have a 2^nd child, and it’s against the law to have a child without a permit. Ironically, it is ALSO against the law to give your child up for adoption. So, in China, if a family is going to abandon their child, they almost always do so in a public place (outdoor market area; train station; park). There, the child will be discovered and the authorities will be notified. A search will be made to attempt to locate the child’s family, and if unsuccessful (almost always the case), the child will be sent to one of the thousands of orphanages in China.  (The fact that the majority of Chinese people have no knowledge of these orphanages or the MILLIONS of children living in them is beyond heartbreaking to me…)

It is truly risking one’s life giving birth to a child you do not have a permit for, and then abandoning the child and hoping your secret is not discovered.

I wish that the woman who gave birth to Sarah could know that she survived; that now, she has been CHOSEN by us; that she will be cherished by us always; that she will be loved; that she will have access to an education and medical care; that she will have two older brothers to look out for her; that one of those brothers shares much of her same experience as he was adopted at age 3 from the same orphanage as her; that she will be loved for always by us. And that we understand she will be torn from all she has ever known, and will embark on a whole new journey (and that this will be very frightening for her). Her entry into her new life and family will be filled with new faces, new smells, new language, new foods, new everything.  And we will be there to help her navigate this new world she is about to enter.

2:30 tomorrow is when we meet Sarah.  Please think good thoughts for her (and for us…we are going to need all the emotional strength possible!)

One of the most powerful things I have read about an adoptee’s experience is a story comparing the day a child meets his/her new family, to an adult having his/her spouse suddenly replaced. I’ve had trouble putting my hands on the story, but essentially it asks you to imagine you are very happily married and content with your life.  One morning you wake up, to find that your spouse is not there…but has been replaced by another man. This is a man you do not know. And this man is speaking to you in a language you don’t understand. He prepares foods for you that you have never had before. You have no idea who he is or where your husband has gone, and if he’s ever coming back.   This will be the experience of Sarah. She will be torn from all she knows and will be handed over to strangers. She has loved before, and she will love again, but the months ahead of us will be a time of her learning to trust us, learning what a family is, and learning to love.