Our Journey to the Middle Country

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Wednesday 22 March 2000: Nanning

We put together the photo album for Delainie's foster mother. I videotaped it, just flipping through the pictures so that I'd have a record of what all was in it and the order of the photos.

Delainie was enjoying the mix of the Three Dears formula and the Infamil soy formula. We started out mixing it 50-50. In the morning, before we went down to breakfast, we mixed up a full 8 ounce bottle and gave it to her. We wanted to make up thinking that she'd not eaten enough the previous day. She wolfed down 6 1/2 ounces of the bottle and then rolled over on her stomach and spit it all right back up on one of the beds. It didn't make her sick, she was just way too full. I called down and asked to see if someone could come and change the bed. That was a small adventure in itself. When someone from housekeeping arrived I ended up explaining with gestures that Delainie had spit up on the bedding. It was comical.

Breakfast

I was finally caving in to my craving for milk. I opted for some coco puffs cereal. We regularly had breakfast with Mary Lou, Miriam and Amy Li.

Nanning Department Store

At about 11:30am, we went out to the Nanning Department Store with Kris, Steve and their children. I went to the music and TV section which was right downstairs and had no luck finding anything by Tanya or by Pretty China Dolls.

Kris and Steve were up in the clothes and we ran into them again. It was odd to see children's clothing with English lettering on it. There was one shirt with "PHizzaut" spelled just that way with the same font as the restaurant uses. I seem to remember it over laying a McDonald's golden arch. Other strange text on clothes seemed to be from a beer label since it talked about history or brewing of beer. It was quite odd until I realized that it was just interesting and different lettering. I'm certain that people in the US have worn clothing with Chinese or Japanese characters that would not make exact sense to people from those countries.

We ran into Vickie, Dennis and Brynn in the toy department.

The most amazing thing was that at the escalator stops on each floor were both potties and diaper pails. They were there as a convenience to parents with children. I really wish I had taken a photo of it. It was nearly unbelievable to some people I've talked with about it.

• china map puzzle
• calculator
• a red cordoury pants suit for Delainie
• a pink pants suit outfit with a vest
• 1 dark green jade bracelet with faceted balls for 160 Yuan ($ 19.82 USD)
• 1 pair squeaky shoes
• 1 pair black shoes
• 1 pair white shoes
• 1 pair tan cloth shoes

Guigang (Mother's Love) welfare home

Visiting Nanning welfare home and Guigang (Mother's Love) welfare home. We brought a gift for the orphanage director and nearly all of our extra gifts for the aunties. I wish we had a chance to get a group portait infront of the statue in the courtyard. We did get a photo of Delainie in what might be the same chair as the updated picture we received. However, it was the last shot on the roll and I don't think it turned out. Perhaps it was for the best, she was not very happy about being put down alone in the chair.

Mingyuan Xindu Hotel

We wrote up a note to give to the foster mother and David was kind enough to translate it into Chinese for us. It included our thanks for the foster mother for caring for Delainie, our hopes for our daughter and what her new name would be.

Foster Mother visit

We had gone over and over bring Delainie with us when we went to visit the foster mother. In the end, we decided not to bring her. Delaine stayed at the hotel with Diana, Steve and their girls.

Joy and the social worker went with us. On the way to the foster mother's home, we stopped off at the Notary office and Joy picked up our paperwork. Joy said that because of where Delainie was found, she was most likely of Zhuang ("Jung" with a hard J sound) minority. Nanning is in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region where the majority is Zhuang people. She said that Delainie seemed to have some of the same facial features.

When we arrived at the foster mother's address, she was waiting to greet us. Joy and the social worker were surprised that we recognized her. We told them about seing the foster mother downstairs at the hotel when we arrived in Nanning and also of all of the pictures she send with Delainie.

She was sad that we'd not brought Delainie; she'd prepared food for her. We followed her upstairs to the main room. She had a cooking area outside on the porch with a twin burner gas stove, just as I had imagined. Her home was very cheerful and clean. The main room was a combination of a bedroom and living room. The neighbor children were there too and we were treated like celebrities. Some of these children were at the hotel when she brought Delainie. They are also in many of the photos that were given to Delainie.

It turned out that Delainie was the 7th child that she had had as a foster child. She really enjoyed caring for babies. She had three children herself, which lead us to believe that she must be a member of a minority in China. She had a son and daughter who lived nearby and a younger son of about 15 years who was there for the visit.

We spoke with her for about 20 minutes. It was quite emotional meeting her and we were all very near tears when it was all done. Everyone looks somber in the photos. We read the note that we gave to her, along with gifts just for her and a photo album.

As we left, she went back to get us a gift. She came down with a bag of apples. We said that it was too many, and it was. I tired a bit of humor telling her through the social worker that Delainie didn't have enough teeth for that many apples. She smiled at this. In the end, we took one apple for each of us and one for Delainie. It was very touching.

We cried on the way back in the taxi.

Neighborhood Grocery Store

In the evening, I went over to the grocery store across the street from the hotel and bought four bottles of water (Robust, 600 ml) for 10 Yuan ($1.24 USD). David had told me about this store. They also had maps of Nanning and Guangxi but not out on display.