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On Thursday, we went to visit the orphanage. It was a world of difference from Fengcheng. The Urumqi SWI is the model orphanage for the province and they wanted us to come visit.

The orphanage is barely within the city limits, so it is very country side like (city limits seem to be very different in China, than in the US where they stop where the metropolis ends). You take a toll road to get there (interesting concept to see in communist China). You get off the toll road and take a pretty long side road past a ventilation machine factory, a vegetable oil factory, and the apartments for the factory workers.

We were taken into the meeting room first off and I asked Peng if he was going to give us the tour, he said (as translated by Lily), “Yes. This is the meeting room.” We met with the director of the orphanage and the director of the business department and another assistant director. The Director didn’t know too much personally about Peng, but the other two gals could answer specific questions about him. We got the overview of the orphanage. The Urumqi SWI contains primarily special needs children — I suspect this is because the 1 son, 2 children policy does not apply to the minority races in China and the majority of the Xinjiang population is one minority race or another (while at the museum, we learned that 47 of 56 minority races in China can be found in Xinjiang). Peng’s paperwork says he is Han Chinese and to my uneducated eye, that appears to be true. The SWI has 300 chilren in its care and 200 of them are in foster care with about 100 in the orphanage proper. There are 88 caregivers of one sort or another in the orphanage proper during the day.

We did the gift exchange. I handed over gifts for the director and assistant directors and also brought out the bag of items for Xin Jie/Mandy, a little girl about Noelle’s age whose family is coming to get her in a couple of months. (Peng had recognized the picture on the labels we had put on the bag and each item and started jabbering about her in Chinese to me in the hotel room that first evening. He flipped through the photo album and oohed and ahhed over her new family.) The caregivers flipped through the photo album in the package and stopped at the big, extended family photo and all said, ooooh and spoke a bit in Chinese. Lily translated it all to be “big family”. The Director had gifts for me, too. I received a pashmina scarf (sorry, Mom, we never did make it to a bazaar), 4 Uyghr scull caps, and a white jade carving for Peng to have in order to remember Xinjiang.

During the tour, which Peng did lead, we got to see a class room with mentally disabled children (just a few). We also got to see Peng’s classroom and classmates — he was in a small class of maybe 6 or 7 children. He recognized everyone along the way. He and 2 of the girls in his classroom gave us the full performance of the dance they had done at the New Year’s celebration. The 4th actor was adopted this past January. He’s been coming to the orphanage for formal schooling for about a year, now. They tell us he is the head of the class. He would learn the days lesson first and then explain it to the other kids in the class. We could see this in action when it came to the dance. He was definitely the lead in the dance. He put everyone in the rigt spot and was a half step ahead of everyone in doing the performance. In his room, they showed us the special mat they used with him and had him show us some of his special exercises — it looked like P/T to strengthen his back.

After Peng’s classroom, we got to see a classroom with kids Noelle’s age. This is where we met Xin Jie. The care givers had brough the doll and the photo album with us on the tour and Peng gave Xin Jie the doll. The doll was a big hit with her. The care givers did show her the album, but she was less interested in that. She is the little girl featured in the orphanage visit photos. She seemed healthy and happy, like all of the kids in the orphanage that we met.

We also got to see his bedroom and the lunch room. I don’t know if the gussied up his room before we arrived or no, but it was realy quite nice. Not austere. There were toys on the shelves and 2 keyboards. He plays on every keyboard he encounters, so I get the sense he is comfortable with them (although, he likes to see and do new things, so who knows — someday when he speaks English, I’ll have to ask him about life in the orphanage).

We walked around the courtyard where there was an outdoor playset. The director pointed out the other areas of the place, including a clinic, a gym, basketball courts, a computer room, and a garden area (where the caregivers grow fresh vegetables for the kids).

He recognized everyone along the way and they were all happy to see him and vice versa. When we left, a good 8 people poured out onto the front steps to say good-bye to Peng. He did kisses and hugs all around and waved good-bye to his former life with great aplomb and grace.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 18th, 2006 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.