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Jingzhou
On the road, perhaps to keep our minds off that scene at the Lijiang Hotel, Shanti invents the water buffalo counting game after the girls awaken from a two-hour stress-relieving nap. Eighty-one, eighty-two, eighty-three...and we're in Jingzhou. The Jingzhou orphanage stands next to a bamboo grove near this historic town (also known as Jiangling) in central Hubei. Although FCO has not sent funds to this orphanage, it is similar in size and location to those we have funded. The handsome but spare new facility houses just 65 children up to the age of 14. As in the orphanages we tour later, about a third of the children here are disabled. We visit a room full of cribs, only a few of which currently hold infants, and a preschool room where the children sing and dance with their teachers. Ying Ying thinks it looks just like her pre-K at the Chinese American International School in San Francisco; even the songs are familiar. Just before we leave the orphanage, our girls discover a playroom with Little Tikes climbing and sliding equipment inside. The bright plastic play gear looks like it has never been touched, although if the children take off their shoes and go one at a time under adult supervision, perhaps they would leave no mark. (I remember how my students in Xi'an in the mid 1980s had to don white coats and gloves before touching a computer keyboard. Perhaps the Little Tikes slide is the 1990s orphanage equivalent.) We're surprised by the sightseeing side trip and museum visit that follow, although the girls enjoy gawking at the 2,000-year-old mummy in the gift shop (its temporary home while the museum undergoes renovation.) We FCC grownups, however, are eager to get the next leg of the journey over with so we can see what we came here to see: orphanages that have received donations from FCO.
Foundation for Chinese Orphanages |