Xuchang and Zhengzhou

Today we packed our bags and said good bye to Kaifeng. Mr. Wang provided a car and driver to take us 80 km north of Zhengzhou to Xuchang.  The orphanage in Xuchang is a new complex with addition buildings to be completed in the next two years.  We were greeted by their friendly staff and director also name Mr. Wang.  This orphanage has about 100 children with 90% having special needs.  They already have some physical therapy equipment and teachers with some great successes. They would like more equipment and the teachers would also benefit from more training.  They have some equipment they are using that they know how to use only through reading the manuals, but have never been trained on the equipment.  After Xuchang, we returned to Zhengzhou to quickly check into our hotel and then took a taxi for a hour drive to the Zhengzhou orphanage.

Mr. Wang and his staff in Xuchan

Zhengzhou is a much bigger city with 4.2mm people, so their orphanage is also much larger. This orphanage is already sponsored by a couple other American groups and has a lot of equipment already in use.  They do a great job of tracking each child’s progress in a binder showing the child’s picture and their achievements. We also met two American college students volunteering for the summer.  This orphanage also told us they needed more training for their staff. We grabbed our cab and returned to Zhengzhou to take Eva to one last dinner.  The next day we are off to Xi’an by bullet train at 350km/hour.

zhengzhou orphanage

One of the therapy rooms at Zhengzhou