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2013 China Adventures: Part 1
What a day it has been. We left Hong Kong to head Guangzhou, where we were to catch a plane and fly to Guiyang, which is where we will meet Min.
First, I realized I was off a whole day and I had 24 extra hours to wait to get her – which was heartbreaking. As I write this now, it is 2:33 a.m. here in China. We leave in exactly 12 hours to go get her. Now I am positive I have my days straight. Anyway, while we were crossing the bridge from Hong Kong to China we were stopped in immigration, not for the 6 large suitcases we carried but because there was something wrong with my mother-in-law’s passport. We sat in a hot van for 2 1/2 hours while we waited and in the process missed our flight. We finally were allowed to leave and headed to the airport. We were originally set to fly out at 12:30. We now had a flight for 18:15 and they wouldn’t let us check our luggage until 16:00. Three hours to wait. The out of place Americans with their boatload of suitcases. Boy, were we a sight.
I spent quite a bit of time at the KFC counter trying to order chicken. This was no small feat considering no one spoke English. I pointed to what I thought were chicken nuggets and got a Pepsi because no one understood diet Pepsi and there was no cute little picture for it. Come to find out they don’t sell diet, probably because everyone is a size double zero here. (See back to the size issue here. I feel like a giant here. It’s just the way it is.)
Anyway, back to my story. I sit down and take a bite of my nugget which is in fact some breaded, hot, spicy, fish bite. I was a bit confused since the picture clearly looked like popcorn chicken bites but hungry enough to try a couple more. Went back up to the counter and tried again. I pointed to the two pieces of chicken. I paid my money. They handed me two wings. I’m ordering chicken for my husband, seriously, how hard can this be? I am at KFC for goodness sakes. Our guide finally comes back and I beg her to help me. She argues with the girl about me getting two pieces of chicken and we finally do. Dan was happy, I was relieved, and Cassie was in tears laughing at the hilarity of it all.
We waited and waited and waited. We walked around with our three trolleys of luggage and everyone stared. I am absolutely positive we were conversation and laughs for many people today. Even our guide asked if we brought our whole house. I explained again that we were getting four and we brought two suitcases of clothes packed in those “suck out the air” bag things to donate to the orphanage. We learned that the orphanage has no heat and asked if there was anything they could use. They informed me one summer and one fall outfit for each of the children. I have quite a few sets of clothes in my luggage. My worst fear was immigration opening those bags to search them. There is no way all of those clothes would have gone back into those suitcases.
We were tired and we were hungry. I’m not even going to go into the horrors of the “squat toilets” or the fact that the American toilet had a sign on the outside that said “only for the weak”. We were obviously frustrated and heading towards cranky. I hate days like this. Days that should be joy filled but little things keep chipping away at your happiness. We like to call it “the attack of the mosquito”. We all know where those doubts come from. Attacks like this are just the same. Chipping away at our joy so we lose sight of what a blessing we have in front of us. I don’t like when I lose sight even for a minute. My eyes are where they should be and after a good dose of reading a very good book, I’m back to feeling happy and excited!
It is now 2:59 am and at 15:00 tomorrow, 12 hours away, I will be seeing her in person for the very first time. I didn’t expect my journey to get her to be easy and today didn’t let me down. The really good things in life are never easy.
We will post pictures tomorrow. What a joy it will be to finally touch her sweet face and say “wo shi ni de mama” – I am your mama!
My heart feels such love for this little girl. Dan and I were sitting in the airport talking about how we both saw her picture at the same time, on different computers in different rooms, and fell instantly in love. For parents who had agreed to never adopt an older child, this was no small miracle. Someday she will hear this story and hopefully fully understand just how much she was loved from the very first moment we saw her face.
