Orphan Whisper

Orphan Whisperer
These 3 weeks apart have been awful. Never since the beginning of my time in China have I wanted to jump ship so badly. Huai Rou is the burbs of Beijing. I don’t even like the suburbs of America, so this has been just the pits. Like USA, Huai Rou has swept away all the beggars and street urchins.

street kids in Huai rou, cops asked them to leave it was so sad

They have landscaping and boutiques. There aren’t a lot of foreigners out here, so there are nearly zero Western foods in the grocery store, there is no Wal-Mart or Carrefour. There is a McD’s and KFC. And I have been put up in a luxury apartment. The apartment would be lovely, if it had consistent utilities. I’m to teach a total of 28 days, so far with 4 days to go we have not had electricity for 7 days, gas for 5 days, and water for 2 days AND INTERNET ANY DAYS. Plus the fact that it’s all white and glass everywhere and my Korean roommate doesn’t like Teenager.
So to top off our situation, we wanted to get Chris and little guy a hotel for when they came to do the medicals in Beijing before we go to Guangzhou next week. Well, we walked all over Huai Rou and found out just how prejudice this little burb is. They are not lovin’ the Americans here. Flat out refusal to give us a hotel room. “No, no we’re full” even if online we could see that reservations could be made (using the net bar, we didn’t want to whip out the credit card so all the hackers could have a heyday). There is even a Super 8 our here, I believe that’s American owned, “No, no, You can’t stay here.” We pulled out our old Super 8 card from some vacation long ago and said, “We’ve VIPs, online we know you have rooms.” You can’t stay here. So we asked (in Chinese of course), “Can all foreigners not stay or just Americans?” No answer to that one, just a polite there are some other hotels down the road, go there.
So Chris and little guy booked the youth hostel by the train station downtown Beijing. They were arriving at midnight by train and taxi drivers after dark in Beijing are especially likely to drive in circles, so they needed an easy place to walk to. Kudos to the youth hostel for taking them in with out any problems.
Yesterday we were reunited. My husband, the orphan whisperer had worked wonders. Little guy is a new little man. He was so happy to see his sisters and me. He was all smiles and hugs and kisses. We walked places with no fits. When I told him no (well, signed), he handled his frustration much better. He stomped his foot and faked going to hit my hand. When he and Princess disagreed at dinner, he put his head down and gave himself a little time out from her. No big battles! They actually met me at the school in the cafeteria. He likes Korean food! All the students were interested in him and he was able to handle the attention. Little guy seemed much more relaxed and was able to share his dad. He definitely was watching Chris to see what to do, but was not anxious when Chris was out of sight. He has so many new signs!
The medicals went as well as could be expected. Nothing besides being deaf was noticed. We’re waiting for Thursday when the labs come back, but it looks like he’ll be able to get the visa in Guangzhou. One ear has an eardrum, yeah! The other ear has “something in it”. A foreign object of some sort. Maybe a bead, maybe an earplug. Chris thinks it may be an airgun pellet. We have a picture of little guy and his older foster brother who is toting an airgun. Anyway, they can’t get it out. We’re not sure what to do about that. Clearly it’s been in there for the whole time we’ve had him. We have specialists lined up in Harbin, but don’t know anyone in Beijing. Chinese hospitals are pretty scary. We know he’s deaf, but we’d hate for them to damage his ear anatomy if it is in there. I’ve seen the Chinese do some things to ears in my visits to the hospitals that I know should never be done to ears. But we’d hate to have him be in pain too. The dental exam showed he has good teeth and is getting his molars, so probably has been given the correct age. Little Guy is little, only 15kg.
One good thing about Huai Rou is the park near our apartment. It has a hill with a pagoda ontop overlooking the reservoir and several horse statues. There is a farmer who brings in his horses everyday for rides. He is pretty good to the horses and doesn’t take them out in the heat of the day. So we decided to celebrate the last week by letting the kids ride everyday. Little Guy (who is well named in the real world) just loved the horses! He rode like he was the grand marshal of a parade. Waving at everyone, so happy!

Beijing, China