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Rain delay! The trip to the park has had to be postponed due to rain. Not much sense in going if we're going to get soaked. Instead, Jophy said we could go to the local museum and visit the local foreign bookstore. After that we plan to go to a restaurant specializing in cuisine for one of the many local minority groups. In this region there are several minority groups who identify themselves outside of the Han majority. Their minority status is not
considered derogatory in any way, but instead helps identify them from the Han majority, and also allows them certain benefits which the majority population cannot have. I'll post more on that as soon as I find out more.
The trip to the museum was interesting. Since there was a slight language barrier, Jophy had to get a museum guide to describe everything to her (in Mandarin, I believe) then Jophy would translate the guide's description to us in English. While touring the museum, some of our group met up with a woman from Singapore who was visiting the area on holiday. She told us how lucky the chidren were to be adopted and brought to the U.S., where their lives would be so much better. We all responded that we felt just as lucky to be able to adopt such beautiful children. We were able to see a good bit of the history of the area in the museum and were also pleased to find several examples of the dress and customs of the many minorites in this area. Many textiles and costumes produced locally were displayed as well as descriptions of customs regarding dating, dress and hairstyles.
I'd like to make a note about the local people and how we've been received in the area. The Chinese people are definitely curious about us when they see us out and about. They don't hide their curiosity at all, and will often come to us to get a closer look, especially when they see us carrying Chinese babies.
They will often ask questions which we have to direct toward Jophy, but thay all end up saying "lucky baby" or other similar things, sometimes even in English. It amazes me how many people, even in this poorest part of the country, know at least enough of our language to communicate with us in broken phrases. Some people will even come up to us just to practice their English. Truly amazing. Another couple of things that draw their attention is our little blonde-haired Abigail and red-haired J.T. Willingham. Both of them have had their heads rubbed for luck more than once, and Abigail has handled the attention very well. She will smile and repond to the people, and will occasionally say "me-how" in greeting, though we've tried to teach her to say "ni-hao" properly. Everyone appreciates the effort and smiles at her more. She is really handling the trip very well considering how young she is.
We left the museum and went to the foreign langusge bookstore. It wasn't quite what we expected, but I was impressed at how many books the store had either in English or for teaching the English language including Conversational English, English as a Second Language, How to Write Business Briefs in English, Nursery Rhymes in English, etc, etc. Jophy managed to find some pictorial books about this area which were written in English. Naturally, every family had to have one of each. We all want something for our daughters to be able to learn about their place of birth.
After the booksore we went to the restaurant for lunch. We all got settled in our own room and Jophy explained to us that the local food is usually quite spicy and she had requested that some bland dishes be brought out as well. She described each dish to us as it was brought out, and the staff continued to bring out dishes throughout the meal. With the meal also came the chance to try the local "sticky rice wine", which is bottled and served from ram or goat horns. The alcohol content is pretty high, and they would only serve it in tiny cups. The flavor is hard to describe, but it seemed close to a really strong homemade scuppernong wine. Halfway through the meal some singers came into the room and performed a traditional wine tasting song and served all of the adults the wine while singing. I didn't expect to drink another cup of the wine, but it was fun to participate. A comment was made later that anything that might have harmed us in the food would have been killed off by drinking the wine.
We all returned to the hotel after lunch, and we decided to stay in for the rest of the day since we were so tired. We didn't want to take the chance of getting the children completely worn out, and we are still adjusting to the time change. Before we managed to get Hannah to sleep she got started on a crying fit that we couldn't console her out of. We weren't sure if it was a stomach ache from her congee dinner or if she is just going through her grieving process from the adoption, but it lasted about an hour before she finally collapsed and went to sleep. Hopefully she won't go through that again, but we'll sit there holding her and singing to her again if she does. We want to let her know that she will never be abandoned again.
Tomorrow we are planning to go to the city where the orphanage is located, and we hope to find two of the abandonment spots. Hopefully they can be found so we can get some pictures for Hannah when she gets older.
Victoria just asked me to remind everyone that there's a link to our email account at the bottom of the page and that messages from home are always nice to receive.
Until tomorrow.
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