Inside Hubei Orphanages

Jingmen

About halfway back from Yichang to Wuhan we stop in the rural town of Jingmen to visit another orphanage FCO has helped by purchasing a dryer. The building offers a cheery facade in white tile with yellow and red accents over windows and door, but our visit is too short and structured to get much of a sense of life inside.

On our way to view the dryer, Director Zhou tells us that the Jingmen orphanage, established in 1867, has 6 staff and 36 children. More than 800 children have been adopted from this orphanage since 1980, all of them by families in China. We are the first foreigners to visit, and the staff seem nervous to have us here. The tour is quick and tightly supervised.

There's a cheery preschool room where girls age two to six perform a song with their teachers while Ying Ying and Victoria watch from the sidelines. In another room older babies sit in the center of desklike contraptions that look like square wooden walkers without wheels. They each hold a brand-new toy they don't know how to play with. In the infant room, babies lie two to a crib. We're herded through and out.

On leaving, Director Zhou repeatedly thanks "our American friends" for the dryer. He presents us each with a gift, a city official tells us that the parents' donations promote friendship between America and China, and we're back on the road again.

Huangshi

The following day we visit two orphanages east of Wuhan, one south and one north of the Yangzi River. Both suffered flood damage in August but are now clean and dry.

We arrive first at Huangshi, driving into town past low-lying houses and apartment buildings standing in water several feet deep. The town center is on higher ground and appears dry now. A month ago the orphanage at Huangshi Social Welfare Center stood in more than three feet of water, Director Ke tells us when we arrive. The staff moved the babies upstairs until the water receded.

The grounds at Huangshi are old-fashioned and lovely, with flowers and butterflies and even a pavilion to give it the feeling of a retreat from the bustle of life outside. The home for the elderly is inside the compound across from the orphanage, and several residents greet us warmly as they stroll or fan themselves in the shade.

Our first stop is the FCO dryer, of course. Xu Hua, the laundress, explains that she alone does all the laundry for the welfare institute, both the orphanage and the old folks' home. Before the washer arrived, she did it all by hand in a concrete sink the size of a dinghy using two large wooden scrub boards, which she demonstrates for us. She's delighted to have a dryer now too: "Now the babies can have dry diapers even when it's raining or cold," she says. "When their diapers are dry, they don't cry."

We visit the infants first, then the playroom for children ages one and a half to six. There we meet a lively group of kids with short, boyish haircuts. All of them are girls, and they go back and forth between talking with us and playing in a well-used pool of multicolored balls. Can Can, six years old, wears a blue velour sweatsuit with a plush bunny on the front. A three-year-old named Chun Chun, in brown pants and a pale yellow blouse, comes up with one of the caregivers, who says Chun can recite a Tang dynasty poem and many other things. Another three-year-old, Tian Tian, sporting plush puppies on the front of her sweatshirt, joins Chun Chun, and the two girls sing a song to Shanti while caregivers hold them. We're allowed a comfortably long time with these children, and Jon gets some great photos.

As we leave the playroom we pass a room of older babies. Most are propped upright. A nurse sitting on a stool bottle-feeds two at a time at arm's length. Another nurse feeds solids from a spoon. The women smile at the little faces and make eye contact, but no one touches the babies while they feed. There are too many babies, they're all hungry, necessity dictates efficiency. We think again of the importance of foster care: In a Chinese family, babies are held almost constantly. It makes such a difference.

Huangshi orphanage houses 21 babies and young toddlers and 25 children age two to six. Another 8 children are old enough to attend school outside. Since 1995 more than 60 children have been adopted internationally and now live in Holland, Norway, the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and England. But again we're told we are the first foreigners to visit the orphanage.

Director Ke loves it when families send letters and photos of their Chinese children. "When we hear how children are growing up in foreign countries," she says, "we feel very relieved. All of us love this work. We love the children and want to take good care of them. We want them to grow up to be good and responsible people....I want to express our thanks for your generous donations in helping us with our work. We hope to have further cooperation and more exchange to help the children."

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