October 25, 2008

We went to the park!!

Our guide Linda said that although there is probably a little play area at the orphanage, AJ is too small to have played there. She thinks it is likely the first time he's gone down a slide. He is a typical 2 year old. He went down once and then we couldn't get him off. He went back up and down over and over. He laughed and laughed.

There was a Chinese lady there who wanted to know where the boys' Chinese mama was. She kept asking our friend Tom and following him around. Finally, our guide went over and spoke with the lady and told her that the boys were orphans. That we were their parents. She was very curious and asked Linda many questions. We are pretty sure that a lot of the people here do not know of the existing orphan situation.

We also met two young mothers from America there. They both had a small child and are here at language school. The one gal seemed especially homesick. They were fun to talk to and made us miss home even more.

We went to the lake and they have birds there. I mean big birds...like emus and peacocks and cranes. Aron was pretty brave. He fed them little fish out of his hand. Not me! The one emu started to follow me around and so Aron threw it some food to distract it so I could run away. AJ thought it was so funny. He is not speaking Mandarin according to our guide. He is talking his own language she said. It is very funny though. He laughed and jabbered at the birds and chased them. Aron had to rescue him several times. He is fearless! THe guide told us that he looks so happy. She said that usually the babies at the orphanage are small. Since he is so big he looks like an American baby! It's funny the misconceptions people have about each other. She said that when she was small, she was told to stay away from the Americans because they eat little kids. She is only 30 years old. She said that it's only been in the last 20 years that the Chinese have really started to accept foreigners. She is very bright and has a lot of potential. It is very difficult to change jobs once you are in a profession or skill. Most of the time you do that job for your entire life. When the next generation has a child the grandparents take care of the grandchild so that both parents can work. They often live all together. Very different culture. Here are some pic's of our bird adventure.