Last Day in Huanggang

From Jim:

This was the final day of being in Peiton’s home town of Huanggang. After breakfast we went back to the orphanage to take a tour of the facilities. We saw an older children’s room where there was a bunkbed where 4 could sleep. We saw a nursery which had about 15 cribs and a couple of play rooms. We went into a room with some handicap children from 3 to about 5 years old and spent a little bit of time with them. Next we went into a cafeteria like room where the had a ping pong table and a couple of boys playing. One of the boys was about 13 years old and could tell he had been badly burned earlier in his life. I play a few rounds of ping pong against him but he was much better. Some of the girls played and had fun for a few minutes.

The next room we went into had the files on each of our girls waiting on a big table. It had all Peiton’s original adoption documents, medical exam and pictures that we were given a copy of when we adopted her. There wasn’t anything new in the file. They also had all the photos that we sent the orphanage over the years including the ones we posted on the internet.

The next room was a presentation of certificates to each of the families for the donation we gave as a group that bought 2 air conditioners and 2 televisions for the new orphanage.

The last stop was meeting the foster parents. Peiton was foster cared by two different staff members of the orphanage. The first was the former Director of the orphanage who died in 2005 and the other was the lady that handed Peiton to us when we first got her in 2002. Her name is Zhou and is a doctor at the orphanage. She was also the foster mom of two other girls in our group after fostering Peiton. Zhou lives with her mother and also has a biological daughter. Her daughter was in one of the pictures that was given to us when we adopted Peiton, we often wondered who that older girl was. So Peiton had a sister, foster mom and a grandmother. While Zhou worked at the orphanage during the day the grandmother took care of Peiton. They gave the three girls each a pair of colorful tennis shoes which was very nice. You can tell they all missed the girls very much and were crying and hugging them for a long time. We got to spend about an hour with them. Zhou told me that when they took Peiton to us for the adoption that the older sister was crying and saying to her mom that she promised to stop fighting with her if she could stay, which was very funny. It was very emotional for all leaving the orphanage.

After leaving the orphanage we went out to lunch then to a beautiful park in Huanggang City. At the moment we are in the bus heading back to Wuhan for the next two nights.

Jim

From Peiton:

Today I got to go back to the orphanage and see where the kids live. I got to spend time with my foster mom, grandma and sister. They were happy to see me and kept holding me. They were very nice. My foster mom gave me a pair of really cool tennis shoes, I will be the only one back home to have these. It was sad waving good bye to them on the bus and I got teary eyed too. I am having lots of fun playing with the girls on my trip.

Peiton

The photos are of my foster mom, grandma, and sister.