We visited Kiera’s orphanage and foster family in Shenzhen today and thankfully it was not nearly as of an emotional day as when we visited Matteo’s birth city. So for those of you caught off-guard by that tear-jerker of an account, I promise you that this visit was much different. It was an adventurous day in some respects, but overall quite fun.
Shenzhen is only an hour and twenty minutes by train from Guangzhou, so instead of paying for a driver and a guide, we opted for the train. Our guide booked our train tickets (1st class!) the night before and wrote out instructions for us in Chinese so we’d be able to get from the train station by taxi to the orphanage. Our hotel shuttle made great time during morning rush hour and we ended up at the station 45 minutes before our 9:42 a.m. departure.
At the Guangzhou train station, visitors pass through security to get into the main station area where you can buy tickets. To get to your train, you have to scan your ticket and pass through turnstiles. We watched everyone else go through and thought we had it down until our passes wouldn’t scan. We later realized that for crowd control purposes, they only let you through when it’s close to your departure time. A sympathetic guard had waved us through, so we ended up in the crowded corral of people waiting for their train. About ten minutes before each train left, a rush of people headed towards the concourse. When it was our turn, we each scooped up a kid and followed the throng of people up onto the platform. It was a relief when we finally made it to our seats. Since kids under 120 centimeters can ride for free, we only needed to buy two seats, but bought a third (at a half price child’s ticket) to give ourselves some extra room.
When we arrived in Shenzhen, I had my directions ready and we tried following the signs for the taxi stand, but they weren’t super clear. We saw a group of taxis and made our way towards them when we were approached by one of the drivers. He quoted me a price of 150 RMB (about $25) and my gut feeling told me we were being ripped off. We’ve taken enough taxis to know that you can take a 20-minute cab ride for less than $7. We were in a new city and perhaps the orphanage was farther than we thought, so we followed the guy anyway. But when he lead us to his taxi, it wasn’t one of the taxis with the “taxi” light on top, but a private car. It was one of those “black taxis” I’d been warned to avoid. Not only did they quote us an outrageous price, but we probably would have paid well above 150 RMB when we finally made it to our destination. Chris and I told him we were going to catch a real taxi and turned around and headed back to the station with the “taxi” driver running after us. We finally found the taxi stand where you can catch a legal taxi and we paid 43 RMB. I’m glad we trusted our gut!
However, when we arrived at our destination, my gut also told me we weren’t at the right place. The taxi driver didn’t speak any English and he kept motioning at a particular building and seemed pretty confident it was in fact the right address. So we got out. And we were not at the right address. Luckily, when I presented our taxi directions to someone we found sitting at the reception desk of the building we were dropped off in front of, he knew where the orphanage with us. When it was clear that we did not understand a lick of his directions on how to find where we were going, he motioned to us to follow him.
I was so happy to find the orphanage, except that the people our guide told us would be waiting for us, were not there. We stood in the lobby unsure of what to do. It was an adventure making it as far as we did, but there we were standing in an orphanage in a city in China we’ve never been to before and we didn’t speak any Chinese.
We saw a group of people carrying their lunches towards the elevator and we recognized the two orphanage staff members who had brought Kiera to us on Monday. They were Ms. Pan, who works in the office, and Kiera’s preschool teacher/nanny. It turns out our guide had not notified them that we were coming because they were definitely not expecting us! I was horribly embarrassed, especially when they dropped everything they were doing and rearranged their day to show us around. Since they were about to eat lunch, they started by taking us back to the staff cafeteria and insisted on getting us lunch, which we ate with the director of the orphanage. Thankfully Ms. Pan can speak English pretty well and translated for us.
After lunch we went up to drop our things in Ms. Pan’s office before getting a tour. We were walking down the hallway when a woman popped out of a room and yelled Kiera’s Chinese name, Jie Yu. She scooped her up and chatted lovingly with her. We learned that she was the other teacher in Kieras preschool classroom. Half the Sky, the American organization that works in orphanages across China, runs a preschool (among other things) at the orphanage in Shenzhen and Kiera attended every school day. We visited the well-stocked room and it was cool to see the room where so many of the pictures we’ve received of Kiera were taken.
Before we visited, our guide had warned us that the orphanage doesn’t look very nice, but assured us that it looks that way because all the money goes into helping the kids. I thought that was really apparent during our visit. Kids who age out continue to live at the orphanage if they want to. Ms. Pan talked about how some have gone on to university and when I asked who pays for that, she replied, we do of course. As we walked through the orphanage, she knew every kid by name, their ages and what they were up to. She proudly introduced us to two 13-year-old boys who are being adopted by families, both from Arizona. Everyone we passed knew Kiera and were so excited to see her and meet Matteo, Chris and me.
We left the orphanage to walk over to where Kiera’s foster family lives. The orphanage rents 10 apartments nearby and hires couples to live in the apartments and take care of up to five children. The foster dad usually works outside the home, but the foster mom is employed by the orphanage. Foster parents are not allowed to have any other non-foster children living in the home. The orphanage also has more traditional foster families who take in one foster child from the orphanage.
We carried the kids up the five flights of stairs to reach the foster family’s apartment. When the foster mom opened the door, Kiera walked in like she was coming home. Her four siblings still live there and will do so indefinitely since two have aged out (when kids turn 14, by Chinese law they are no longer allowed to be adopted), another is not eligible for domestic or international adoption and the other has more extensive medical needs that make him harder to adopt.
Kiera was the baby of the family and very well loved. She shared a bed with her eight-year-old foster sister, who loved showing us her room. As Ms. Pan translated, Kiera’s foster mother shared funny stories about what Kiera is like as a kid and all the things she likes to do, such as color. Her foster sister explained how she and her foster brother would teach Kiera how to say new words and draw characters. They were really sweet how they included Matteo in their fun.
As much as Kiera’s foster mom clearly loved her and was open about how much she’d miss her, she had prepared Kiera and the other kids well. We happened to see the foster sister back at the orphanage at the end of our visit. She said goodbye to Kiera one last time and then excitedly told her friends that we were Kiera’s family and proudly said we had visited her home. Kiera’s foster mom always referred to Chris and me as Kiera’s dad and mom. At one point, she handed out snacks to the kids and told Kiera to give one to her mom. She happily pointed out how Kiera had looked towards me and not her when she said that because only a week ago, Kiera had only known her as “mom”. She was so gracious in how she was willing to let someone else be Kiera’s mom. She was interested in Kiera’s new name and even asked me to write it down on paper. The Chinese have such short names and she laughed when she saw that Kiera now has four names. Before we left she told our guide she was happy she met us because now she knows that Kiera has a good family. Chris and I were relieved we met her approval!
Kiera’s foster mom was such a friendly, jovial woman, but the only time I saw her get sad was when it was time to go. I thought we were going to say goodbye in her apartment, but she insisted on coming down to the street with us and carrying Kiera, because she said it was the last time she’d get to hold her. We walked down the street and I wasn’t sure if she was going to come all the way back to the orphanage with us, but I let her take the lead. She eventually put Kiera down and I saw her get teary-eyed as she hugged her. When Chris picked Kiera up, he said she was breathing hard, like she was trying not to cry, even though she didn’t look like she was about to.
Back at the orphanage, we sat down with Ms. Pan and went through some of Kiera’s file. We learned some surprising new details. They don’t sound like much when compared with what one knows about a biological child, but that fact that we know what day and time she was born, where she was born and how much she weighed is pretty amazing. We also learned a few other details that answer some questions, yet create so many more. I asked a lot of questions that began with “why” and mostly all Ms. Pan could answer is, “We don’t know.” When Kiera and Matteo get to the age of asking questions, sadly, we'll be repeating, "We don't know."
The kids had gone without naps today and we didn’t want to push the warm welcome we had gotten, so we decided it was time to start the trip back to Guangzhou. Ms Pan didn’t like our guide’s idea of us taking a taxi back to the train station and trying to buy tickets on our own (even though I had everything written out in Chinese) and insisted that get a car and send us to the station with two woman from the office who would buy the tickets for us and get us to the right concourse.
Because of rush hour traffic, our car dropped us and our guides off at a subway station and we took the metro the rest of the way. They bought our tickets, escorted us through security and talked their way past the guards to be able to escort us all the way to the concourse.
It was almost the kids' bedtimes by the time we made it back to our hotel room. It was a very long day, but obviously such an incredible experience. Just like we had done for Matteo, I'm thankful we had the opportunity to go back to where Kiera spent the first part of her life, take pictures, ask questions and meet (and thank) the people who cared for her.
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