Rubber hits the road

What does this phrase even mean…can someone comment and give me the significance on this please…

But the last two days have been what this canned language signifies for us. We started by gathering for breakfast at 7:30 and discussing the details of our trip and again reemphasizing what our goals were of these appointments with the orphanages and their directors.

I could barely eat anything…I was to excited and nervous. I cried a whole bunch of tears the day before because this journey was finally now a reality. Casey on the other hand can eat like an OX! He made an understatement on day two of our journey – this country makes me hungry! Well yes, the authentic Chinese food is simply delicious.

We headed out at 8:30 in the morning towards Kaifeng http://www.henankids.org/orphanages/Orphanages.aspx We had an appointment with the orphanage director Mr. Wang and the Director of Civil Affairs for Adoption and Orphanages in the Henan Province – Mr. Chu. We were very honored guests on this occasion. Mr. Chu lives in Zhengzhou and we traveled about one hour to get to Kaifeng. He traveled there the night before to sleep in a hotel and then sent his van to pick us up back in Zhengzhou to bring us to the Kaifeng. We also picked up a second interpreter that CCAI provided so that both Casey and I could have our own personal translators wherever we ventured throughout our tours. Again – CCAI is incredible! Our translator’s name is Eva and she is the assistant CCAI rep for the Hunan province for families that are adopting via CCAI.

So on our journey I decided to lighten the mood by challenging everyone to make their favorite animal noise and the others on the ride would of course try to guess the animal. The best part of this was Eva who tried to imitate a pig noise. Well let’s just say that her small Chinese nose didn’t help her very much and Casey, myself, the driver, and Xia were laughing hilariously!

We pulled into the orphanage and were met by the director, his two deputy directors (each orphanage has a director and two deputies). We sat down made our introductions – Casey, Treasure on the EChO Board, Chemist for Bend Research, Robert – Co-Founder of EChO, Board member, teacher and father. This description was a great opening for us beginning to laugh with each other. We explained the origin of EChO, our board members and foundations purpose.

Mr Wang gave the history of the orphanage in Kaifeng, the number of orphans, older orphans, orphans in foster care, and answered all of our questions regarding himself and his role. He is a young man – 39, handsome, sharp dresser and overall we really were given the impression that he cared about his kids. The place wasn’t a four or five star hotel but the hearts of each of the employees seemed genuine.

We toured their facilities, toured the foster home placements and then eventually headed to lunch. Lunch was phenomenal. We had 15 or 16 of us eating lunch at a very swank restaurant.

There are drinking customs that we discovered at this lunch which was new to us Americans. When we are honored guests we are given lots of toasts and we are to drink each time “bottoms up”. If we didn’t adhere to this we would have absolutely insulted our guests who went all out and ordered over 25 dishes for us to sample. We dined for at least two hours and it was during this dialogue that we discussed what a potential partnership could look like.

The second orphanage is located in Xuchang – this was such a different atmosphere – the building was brand new – we had to wear these footsies so that we didn’t scuff the new floor, we met again and the name of this orphanage director….yep, Mr. Wang too! We viewed the entire orphanage, talked about our organization, and they shared with us their plans and need for connecting with an outside organization – they have never partnered yet with a non-profit foundation. This Mr. Wang was friendly and proud of his orphanage.

We then headed to dinner at his insistence to have the “real” conversation and we were still so stuffed from lunch. But we of course joined him so that we wouldn’t offend him. We again ate over 20 dishes, did the courteous drinking and I shared stories of my adopted girls – Mr. Wang shared stories of his previous military days, did magic tricks for us and in fact read our palms while he predicted our jobs, marriage, personal income and longevity. He said that I am happily married (true), will change jobs in future (come on! I love Bend High), that I was very wealthy (missed this one!) and would live a long long life (Whatever God gives me – I am happy with).

We then went home and slept around 11:30/midnight back to our hotel.

Now here is the dicotemy of these events and the day. Both orphanage directors absolutely were vying for our services and partnership. But we would go from the depths of pain, suffering, loneliness, sadness, loss, remorse and hopelessness to the highest tier of social status where our meal would pay for several people’s salary for the entire month, decadent, drinking until we had to tell our hosts – NO MORE!

On top of the depth of this rollercoaster we realized that orphanages are changing their needs regarding the older orphans. They are able to attend their local public schools and there is great support for this. We were really impressed with their studies and in general they do not have to leave the orphanage (in this region) until they are able to! The real need regarding education is for students with special needs; kids with intellectual disabilities. They have NO IDEA what to do with these kids. They just sit around and do nothing. It made me so SAD. I was really weeping. My students have no idea how our country, state and school district serve them. This is wonderful for the United States but wow these orphans who first of all are abandoned and then have no one to instruct them is simply devastating. They would like to do something but in fact the directors simply have no idea what to do. These are the lost kids. There is so much potential with just some simple instruction and curriculum that these kids could become viable adults. The Hunan province has such an agriculture economy that there is more opportunity for vocational opportunities for kids/adults with developmental disabilities.

Another rubber hitting the road. We didn’t know that this was the need. In fact as our host Xia informed us that this is a need in every orphanage throughout China. No one knows what to do. But we came with an understanding that older orphans needed vocational instruction. Yes, the older orphans could use some assistance in job hunting, resume building, etc but in general there wasn’t a great need for this. My head was in spinning state after the first orphanage as this becomes a clear reality to me…and change is sometimes difficult for me to process.

Casey and I discussed and brainstormed all this morning on the second day. It was a great conversation – we laid out what we learned and processed the details. Casey is extremely intelligent and stated that we simply needed time to process all that we had learned. We took so many notes, photos and observations and were balancing that with our depression of the stark realities of these impoverished kids. We sorted through the whole morning and remembered what our board wanted for us to do: 1. Establish a strong relationship with CCAI, 2. Choose an orphanage 3. Secure an educator 4. Discuss and Develop curriculum.

After everything we made a decision to go with Kiafeng. It was really clear regarding the level of partnership that each of these caregivers wanted to give to their kids/orphans at the orphanage and their strong means of communication that we experienced with them. We hope to assist Xuchang in the future after we establish ourselves in Kiafeng for the next year.

We head back tomorrow to confirm with the orphanage director – Mr Wang and the staff member who will be our direct link of communication. We will be donating our five lap top computers, two suitcases full of clothes and more goodies for the kids. We will establish a contract that will state the details regarding payment to the teacher, discuss what our budget can do and in essence make the first steps toward serving special needs kids and making them independent so that they can move out of the orphanage at some point of their lives plus assist the older orphans who are done with their secondary schooling with some assistance too.

All in all we will discuss the complete details with our EChO board and send out another team this coming winter to follow up on the beginnings of our relationship. And CCAI will help us facilitate the money, paperwork and serve, as a reminder that we know the Director of Civil Affairs and this is CCAI’s philosophy – have accountability from the top down. We are very fortunate for this partnership and are looking forward to working with the Kiafeng orphanage.