Almost home!

December 9, 2010 Second to last day in Guangzhou

It is Thursday afternoon here and folks in our group are all beginning to turn their attention toward the trip home. We have seen many other adoptive families and met others from all over the states, Finland and I think Great Britian. The first of our five families leaves early tomorrow morning. That is the family from near Seattle who have been with us most of our journey. The Blunts adopted Sophia Grace who is just under two and has what they believe to be a healed heart condition. Their 16 year old daughter is with them and they have three more at home including two young boys adopted from Russia. Another family the Smiths leave Friday evening. Patty the mom came with 13 year biological son and a 15 year old whom they adopted from China last year. This time they adopted a 13 year old male friend of the 15 year old girl. At home they have one biological daughter and two more Chinese teens. Patty and her husband will have six teenagers! The other two families the Madsens and the Estes will travel with us Saturday morning via van to the Hong Kong airport Saturdday morning. The Madsens are on the same flight we are to Detroit. The Estes go Hong Kong to NYC and then on to CT.

Today we visited a Pearl and Jade market. In American terms, it was a big mall five or six floors with an open center and shoppes around all sides. The amazing thing is that the whole place was full of jewlery, beads, and stones of every variety. It amazes me that all these shops are in one place. I would think the competition would make it not very profitable. The guide says they do a lot of wholesale buying and selling, so I guess we walking customers are not their primary source of income. We went to a jade factory and museum in Beijing, so Mary and I focused on looking at pearls and other non-jade things. I bought some lurma jasper beads with which we could make some necklaces ( I admit I have never heard of lurma jasper, but the beads are pretty and the price was reasonable). 

Next we visited Liuhua Park, a park which also turned out to be a mini amusement park for kids. The park and lake were lovely and full of flowers and flowering trees and Marie Ling enjoyed riding a couple of rides with her new friend Madison. In the playground area (which cost a dollar a family to get in) must have had a dozen different rides that spin or twist in some way  - think merry-go-round with seats or pedals or animal shapes. The girls loved it!

After a bite of lunch across the street from the hotel at McDonalds we are having some down time in the room. We put on a DVD we purchased here and it is full of children's songs. Marie Ling danced around the room for at least a half and hour. She was having a great time and obviously is no stranger to dancing. Like Mary said, it is great to know a few things that "tame the savage beast". She sang with a few of the songs and adjusted her dancing to different tempos and what I assume are different messaes in the songs.

There is nothing scheduled for tomorrow other than packing. It could be a very long day! I keep thinking about things I want and need to do when I get home. I hope I can find another family or two in the Cincinnati area who have brought home an older child from China recently. I have really enjoyed meeting other adoptive families. We met a dad at the medical examination who had a nine year old and they live in Indianapolis. Another family we met with an older girl is from Buffalo. Across town would be so much easier. Having a child who can speak and who is bringing home a history of memories is so different than bringing home a little one. I think of how different it was bringing home Matthias and Magdalena. We just went to the airport to pick up Matthias and Magda was only nine months old so the trip to Calcutta was more of a cultual experience for us than her. The other big difference is that we were the only famliy adopting from that agency in Calcutta at that time. Here we see other adoptive families everywhere. Anyway I try to process it, this two week journey has been a strange version of a visit to a labor and delivery room. It is like no other maternity ward I have seen....

Until later,

Michelle