What has amazed me most since arriving is how familiar this place feels, even after only having been here once. It's so far been easy to fall into the China Care bubble as I've termed it, which makes me even more excited to take a trip back to the downtown core where I spent most of last summer. The streets surrounding the orphanage are empty compared to the constant hustle and bustle of Beijing's heart. Yet the old men riding rickshaws and tiny stray pups that dot the streets can't ever really escape your view it seems, no matter where you are in this vast city.
It has been 3 days and I'm slowly but surely learning the ins and outs of China Care. I was one of three newly arrived interns that were picked up at the airport on Monday afternoon, bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived from our 12-hour flights here. We met up with the four other interns, one of whom has been here for 3 and a half weeks already. It was strange having to settle in to our new home, still not knowing much about the upcoming seven weeks. We were given a quick tour of the apartments that China Care owns (8 or 9 scattered about a large compound appropriately named Yuxiang Gardens - there are rose bushes!) and I along with two other girls, Ysabelle and Callie, jumped straight into our volunteer duties of caring for and playing with the toddlers in BCH (Beijing Children's Home) 3.
Thanks to a long meeting we had with Brent, the China Care Coordinator based here in Beijing (he's a Nevada native who's lived in China with his wife and growing family for the past 18 years), I can finally provide more details as to how this organization is run. China Care was started by a 16 year-old boy named Matt Dalio who had come to China one year to volunteer with orphans. When he saw the adoption situation (or lack thereof) and care these children were getting, he decided to make a change. In a very small nutshell, thus began China Care, an organization that both provides care for and raises money to fund surgeries for special needs orphans. The home here in Beijing (they have another two that I know if in Taiyuan, and one in Inner Mongolia), serves as a halfway point for children moving from either government-run orphanages or foster homes, to the hospital to get whatever surgery they may need, and back again. Orphanages must be in contract with China Care who then goes in and decides which children are in most need of special medical attention, or which children can be sent to foster homes under the China Care name. The Beijing home also runs group homes with five or six children per home and two foster parents who provide care for the kids. We've met with some of the families here and the foster moms and dads seem to love the children just as their own. It's a pretty amazing thing to see.
Before I arrived, I was expecting this week-long orientation to consist of some sort of formal training, but apparently (because this is the way things work in China...), we learn as we do. As I mentioned earlier, on our first day here, Ysabelle, Callie and I jumped right in and ended up spending a couple hours getting to know the kids in one of the homes, with the Aie Yees (nannies) keeping close watch. Another example of this week's surprises has been a couple days of manual labour (!) as we've spent hours cleaning out a newly constructed building that will serve as a new home for a few of the babies here. Apparently they had a truck full of policemen visit the compound a few weeks ago and tell them they had to pick up and go (something about noise complaints... again, the Chinese way to do things it seems...). Why it was so easy for the police to come in and decide they were unhappy is that China Care is not officially recognized by the government, despite being affiliated with government-run orphanages. We explained it was basically impossible to do such a thing especially given the stress it would cause the children, so CC struck a compromise and agreed to only move some of the children. This has left 7 of us interns and a few high school volunteers who are here for 2 weeks in charge (yes, completely in charge) of cleaning up a building completely covered in thick layers of plaster dust, to make it fit for little ones. Overwhelming, to say the least. Cleaning walls and mopping floors countless times over to make sure they're in decent shape for babies and tots is hard work when you're jet-lagged.
I'm really excited for the weekend. We're going to take a trip into the city, perhaps visit Tian'an men square and Mao's mausoleum. Something I didn't get a chance to walk by last time. The other interns and I are getting along so great, and I'm making good friends with many of the kids. It's sometimes easy to forget that many of the children will probably be here for a few years before they're adopted, if at all, or that they're even orphans to begin with. Spending a few hours with them can make you both overjoyed and really quite sad. For example, I'm quickly growing attached to a little girl named Liu Fa, who is 18 months old, yet doesn't weigh more than 20-25 pounds. (Does that sound right? I may be drastically off) Regardless, she's tiny. She has a heart defect which has already required surgery and still requires more, but according to her brief "medical chart" she cannot get her follow-up surgery done in China anymore. I've no idea why. She also has a deformity in her right arm, which allows her only to use her left arm to help her get around when she's sitting down, seeing as she's unable to crawl. She was feeling pretty restless today, which made my morning really challenging. After reading her chart for the first time and getting a bit of perspective on her medical condition, my heart nearly burst. It's nice to be able to hold these children and make them smile, but difficult when you think of how much difference you're actually making in their lives. Maybe that's a bit of a pessimistic thing to say, but I think it's a lot of what I'm going to be dealing with in the next few weeks.
On that note (though i tmay not be the brightest) it seems I've stuck to the habit of writing massive monologues... so time for bed!
Love you all to pieces and please feel free to send some love from home : )
Will write again soon,
lauren.
