Packages of Hope - China 2005

YongMing and I went over our game plan one last time at breakfast. I had already packed my bags the night before with all the items we needed for our big day.

We met Steven Tao in the lobby of our hotel, and he pointed to one of the many Chinese men sitting casually in the leather chair in the lobby. It indeed was Mr. Song, the Director of the Bengbu Social Welfare Institute, in the flesh.

With a low and even voice and calm demeanor (which I would later discover would be how he would communicate throughout our time together), he greeted us with a smile and a handshake, and beckoned us to follow him to his car.

He then personally drove us to the place where so many of our hearts are, the Bengbu orphanage.

(I have my GPS with me, and for those of you who would like to know EXACTLY where it is, it is
N32' 55.823" E117' 23.884")

It is a calm site, with a dirt road entrance, and is on the edge of a large lake.

With the hairs on my arms standing on edge, our troupe exited the van, and Mr. Song directed us to the first floor meeting room.

(It is here that I'll start to rattle off the facts as I recorded them, and they contradict an earlier post by my wife. I'll try to be as accurate as possible in this post).

As we walked in, I was happy to see all 16 off the boxes we had worked so many hours to finally ship. They were all intact and stacked neatly against the back wall. We went to a common greeting room where we made some preliminary introductions with Mr. Song and the director of "children and family", Ms. Wan, along with some of the nannies. We laid out our plan for the day, including all the items we wanted to cover. We figured we would start out slow, depending on how well we were received. Of course we were there to take as many pictures as possible, but I didn't want to breach the subject right away.

Without further ado, Mr. Song thanked us and the families for the donations, and then suggested that we first take a tour of the orphanage, and then we could do the sitdown discussions. I carefully then asked if I could take some pictures. He replied, and YongMing translated, "of course, take as much as you want."

I was waiting for the other shoe to fall.

But it never came.

I started to take advantage of this "free license" by snapping a lot of pictures in the first room we went to, which was filled with unbelievable cuties.

But before I get into that part, let me state some of the facts as I recorded them.

Mr. Song has been in this position for 4 years. He comes directly from the military, after a 21 year career in the army, being stationed in his hometown of FungYa, which is very closeby. He achieved the rank of Regiment Commander.

Mr. Song is head of the Bengbu SWI, and in charge of 4 main branches: The "hospital" branch, which is headed by a Mr. Chen, the "Children and Family" which is headed by Ms. Wan, a branch of the elderly which is akin to our "assisted living facility" in the USA, and a branch of the elderly which is akin to our "nursing home" system in the USA.

Nearly 3 years ago, the entire Bengbu SWI population was moved out of its location (at N32' 55.074" E117' 21.113"), because that location was/has-been incorporated into a shopping mall complex. The current SWI population is being temporarily housed in 5 sites around the area. The first site I visited (which is where the babies were), had one building that housed 0-3 year olds, another held a contingent of elderly folks in an "assisted living" facility building (I visited this building as well), and another building which had nursing home patients (elderly)(I did not visit this building). The buildings on this site were originally designed to house resort workers (for the resorts on the lake, I assume). They have been in this building for nearly 3 years. They are anxious to move out of this building, and apologized to me for its poor visual appearance, even as I was snapping away pictures.

I learned that the Bengbu SWI has 180 children throughout the different sites. There are an additional 60 in foster care. Currently there are 80 children in the 0-3 year-old building, 20 are SN.

He told me that around 90 to 100 children (overall) are adopted each year, 80% to foreigners.

The old orphanage was contained on 60 "Chinese acres" (I have yet to find the conversion on this one), and the buildings contained around 10,000 square meters of living space.

The new orphanage, which I was told will realistically be completed by May 2006, will be contained on a 80 "chinese acre" site, and have 20,000 square meters of living space.

The new orphanage site (which I visited - N32' 55.155" E117' 21.982") will have 8 floors. The first 3 floors will be for the hospital facility. When completed, it will house 500 people, from infants to the elderly.

Sorry, but I'll have to get back to the kids in a later post. There's still so much more to tell! It has a great ending, thanks largely to the openness and kind hearted nature of Mr. Song. It's 2:30am here, and I still have a big day ahead of me tomorrow. I'm way behind on posting, but I really want to get this right for everyone. I'm already in Lanzhou right now, with a wonderful story to tell about Mr. Chen and his family.