Day 9: Finalize Adoption
We visited Tess's orphanage today. We found out that she has never been in foster care so this has been her home her entire life. Her orphanage is the Dongguan City Social Welfare Center at 1 Guanwen Road, Zhushan, Dongcheng District, Dongguan. We were asked not to take pictures of the children in the orphanage. There were over 800 of them. They wanted to talk and touch and see what was in our bags. About 45 children get adopted out each year. Most had special needs.
The orphanage is about two hours away from our hotel in Guangzhou. Tess gets motion sickness. This is the second time she has gotten sick in a car.
Dongguan City. Apparently this is a manufacturing hub. It is southeast of Guangzhou.
This photo was taken right outside of the orphanage.
Dongguan City Social Welfare Center. This is the main building housing the school age children. It was very nice. Our guide said that the orphanage is sponsored by a local factory.
To the left of the main building were these apartment buildings. These buildings contained two bedroom apartments. Each apartment housed 15 children. It appeared that only children under school age stayed in these apartments. The 15 children were overseen by 3 nannies with at least one man serving as a nanny. The orphanage is trying to make the environment seem like a family environment.
Tess stayed in the second floor left side.
Entrance way to Tess's apartment.
Main room in Tess's apartment. See the cubbies on he floor? There are 15 of them. One for each kid. I suspect that kids are put in them during feeding time.
As soon as Tess saw her main caregiver she squirmed to get to her. We were nervous about this because Tess is only slowly warming up to us. We let her out of the carrier and let her nanny hold her. Her nanny told us that she was very sad to lose Tess. Tess easily came back to Michelle. The man in the photo is our guide Jason.
This was Tess's crib. No mattress. Just a sheet over a wooden board. It was awful. Most cribs had children in them with no toys. A few kids were walking about the apartment. Most of the kids had special needs. Visiting orphanages makes you want to adopt more kids.
Bathtub (really, a sink) on right and drying area on left.
Kitchen.
The following photos show what the orphanage was like in the main building that housed the older children. It was very nice and contained a school called the Sunshine Academy. When we arrived there they had about 10 stations set up with student hair stylists giving free haircuts to the children.
The children learn English. I said "ni hao" to a little boy and he quickly told me "Ni hao means hello". Another little boy asked Michelle where she was from in very good English.
Bunk room for boys.
It is sad to see a picture like this.
Practicing writing English letters just like at home.
