An Amazing Journey (so far)

Today was the day, the reason Clay and so many of his family traveled to China. Today, Clay returned to Zhuzhou City, where he spent the first three years of his life. Zhuzhou City is (confusingly) in the Zhuzhou region of Hunan province, a region that encompasses several counties including the county of Chaling, where Clay was found by policeman and brought to Zhuzhou.

It feels less like a circle being closed and more like a spiral moving onwards and upwards, returning to a friendly and familiar place, only from a different altitude and perspective.

From 2000 are faces that have stayed with us:


And, now it's 2008:



In the pictures above are Clay's teacher (whose name is Liu Yan Xia', where "a'" is the rising tone "a") and his "auntie" (caregiver), whose name alas we could not get written down and I am not going to attempt a faulty reconstruction purely from poor memory. With them is the director of the orphanage, who was a vice director back in 2000. All remembered "Xiao Xiao" and his auntie could not stop marveling at his height and his muscles.

In the background, you can see Jiu-Jiu (Jim) fussing with the computer. We had the video Vickie made that included footage of them on Clay's "gotcha!" day, and they giggled and smiled to see and hear themselves from 8 years ago. We all marveled at how a haircut can make a person (Liu Yan Xia') seem much older than she is.

We met in the same reception area that Vickie, Clay and Jim met children from Zhushou in 2000, with the *exact* same furniture.

The director allowed us to visit the top floor of the main building, and Clay could see his old room again.


While much looked the same as before, and Zhuzhou families will be happy to know that Jim saw the same warmth coming from staff toward the children (and more importantly, from children toward the staff), and saw that many of the improvements Zhuzhou Families have helped make (decorative tiles with cartoon characters thruout, air conditioning, a nice-looking play area in the back, equipment for basic physical therapy) are making a difference.

It was a school day, and many of the children were at school, so we saw some adorable toddlers and children unable to go to school. As before, we were all touched by various children that we got to meet. While Nuse indicates that Chinese families are adopting many, many more children now, it is also clear that there will always be children who will be difficult to place, and the heart breaks to think of it.


Liu Yan Xia' came to lunch with us, and then helped us shop for things the orphanage really needed. Per Clay's desires, we bought food for the babies (a large supply of formula) and clothing for the toddlers, as well as a simple boombox-style CD player that Yan Xia' said was really needed.

Clay was given a very nice certificate of donation from the orphanage, and he fell asleep upon getting back onto the bus, holding his new prize as well as the toy (stuffed) panda bear "Moffa the hiding panda". The rest of us reflected on an amazing day.