Our Journey to the Middle Country

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Monday 20 March 2000: Beijing - Nanning

At 10:30am Wesley, Lori and their son Adam flew to Hanzhou in Lanxi to get their daughter. We would met them again in Guangzhou.

As we packed up and made ready to leave the Holiday Inn Lido, I stopped by Diana and Steve's room. I was surprised that he was watching an old movie in English. I was enjoying watching television in Chinese.

Beijing Airport

We bought some snack foods and drinks. One item were these very good cheese sandwich crackers. We would later try to buy these in Nanning and buy something close but not nearly the same.

Each family each paid 80 Yuan for our luggage being over weight. This is about $9.91 USD.

Kris and Steve's son Jonathan had to check the small sword he bought at the Great Wall with the rest of the baggage and not bring it in his carry-on luggage.

X2 157 - China Xinhua

Fly to Nanning. This was for me, the best of the airline food. I think that this was when Kim was sitting next to a man who was continutously trying to clear his sinuses by making the most horrendous hocking sounds.

We flew on China Xinhua airlines and they surprised us with a free gift: a small thermometer for each of us. It's labeled in Celsius.

Nanning, Guangxi

Nanning is in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The region boarders with Vietnam and the city of Nanning is just a few hours north of the boarder. Nanning is at nearly the same latitude as Havana, Cuba. Guangxi is famous for the city of Guilin and the Yi River. This flows among the limestone hills which are called karsts. Back in January of 2000, I did a watercolor pencil sketch of karsts from an idea in my mind.

It was incredibly humid as we got off of the plane and made our way through the airport. The floors were marble or some other dark stone. Water was puddling up on them and it was being moved about with a few squeeges. It was quite slippery and someone made the remark that it was a lawsuit just waiting to happen.

Everyone would be receiving their daughters that night and we were all very excited.

We boarded a cramped bus for the wild and bumpy ride into the city. It was early evening. The area was heavy with agriculture and I kept looking for views that looked like Guilin. It was pretty country and I wish we'd had just one stop for photos. The road was wide and there were trees lining each side. There was an band or white paint around the trees that was about 3 or 4 feet high. It was a shoulder mark of sorts for the road.

David jokingly said that the babies may be afraid of us because we all had big noses.

Mingyuan Xindu Hotel - Nanning

Mingyuan Xindu Hotel
Phone: (86771) 283-0308
Fax: (86771) 283-0811

We arrived at the hotel (the Mingyuan Xindu is also called the "Majestic" Hotel) as an excited gaggle of expectant parents. We had heard that some of the babies might be at the hotel already.

On the way up to the room, we went through the lobby and could see several women with babies. Everyone freshened up and came back down through the lobby to head upstairs to a meeting room for paperwork.

Delainie

On our way, Tammy and I spotted Delainie in the arms of a woman who would turn out to be her foster mother. She held Delainie up and pointed to each of us saying "Ma ma" indicating Tammy and saying "Ba ba" while indicating me. It was so very hard not to go over and just talk with her.

We went upstairs and filled out paperwork which we would need for the trip to the Civil Affairs Office tomorrow. We were in the room with the six families who had daughters from Mother's Love orphange. We went first, and then the other six from Nanning Social Welfare home.

Finally, the children began to arrive. Delainie was the fourth or fifth one. The woman who brought her up was not the same woman who was with her downstairs. She was the social worker for her foster mother. Diana was taping for us and she handed Delainie to Tammy. She didn't cry. She looked at us both. We kissed her and she looked up at Tammy and reached for her glasses.

I remember touching the back her head and leaning down to kiss her. Until my dying day, I will never forget how wonderful it smelled. It was baby's hair with the faintest touch of what seemed like wood smoke. It conjured up all sorts of wonderful images of a home and a harth. We were also given a bag of her posessions from her foster mother.

Delainie finally noticed the sea of crying babies around us and that's when she began to wail.

As a group, exhausted and crying for joy, we took our daughters upstairs.

Pealing all of the layers off of Delainie:

• red quilted outfit - only wearing the pants - hat and coat with the items from her foster mother
• colorful crocheted booties
• black split pants with purple near the cuff and an orange wool sweater with a rabbit applique
• light weight white cotton long pants and long-sleeved pajamas of sorts
• and finally... a diaper

She was very sweaty underneath all of this, but didn't have any signs of heat rash or anything. I'm amazed at how people are so acclimated that they could wear so many layers.

Delainie cried for nearly 90 minutes before drifting off to sleep.

Marycatherine and Doug's daughter Sarah walking out in the hallway - at 10 1/2 months! At some time on the trip, I remember her biting Doug's nose.

rented stroller from hotel

dirt from planter for dox

camping in the hallways

loaning snugglie to Lauren and Bud

Nanning - napkins everywhere