We got up early, ate, and went to the high-speed train station (which is pretty much set up like a smaller airport - pretty nice!). We boarded the train, and William enjoyed watching the scenery out the window, but at this point my stomach had plenty of butterflies. I was honestly pretty worried because lastnight was pretty rough for lil William, so I feared the orphanage visit would be catastrophic basically.
So we arrive in Nanping (where he is from). I was a wee-little nervous because Billy and Micah were in one taxi with our escort Iris, and Ms. Cosette, William, and I were in another on our own...and eventually we got separated and I didn't see their taxi and it seemed our taxi had gotten away (Nanping is a "small" [for China] and more rural city where quite honestly you stick out even more than you do in other places, which is saying a lot). Thankfully, we all met up, got out on the side of a street, and began walking to his orphanage. Nanping has very very seemingly poorer parts, then the downtown area is nicer which is typical. We walk upon his orphanage gate, and immediately see the "safe box" where he was found. My heart drops, but quite honestly, I couldn't even fully process it because my mind was so busy being concerned about the visit. The orphanage director met us at the gate to let us in, and immediately William goes to her, takes her hand, looks at us with a big smile on his face as if to say, "C'mon!! Let me show you this place!!" and while he seemed happy, I felt I was about to die just a little bit inside.
His orphanage comprises of different buildings, including a home for elderly/disabled. So we first walked into a building for social work and "therapy" rooms. I see a familiar face from William's album his director gave us, then another boy (8ish years old) who seemed eager for attention and immediately came to me and hugged me. At this point, I knew I needed to fight back any tears. The liklihood of some of these children being adopted is 0 to none. It got worse as we walked through the hall, and outside where I see this tiny lil boy (or girl) with Down Syndrome sitting in a wheelchair all by themselves, very obviously neglected...and just sitting there listless and fairly still. I think to save face someone quickly came out to bring them in.
We walked into this next building with the room I recognized from William's pictures - and probably the most impressive room in the whole orphanage. It has a small ballpit, and some neat lit-up water tubes that do different things - and he showed us some of the neat stuff. The whole time by the way the nannies and staff are making over William and so happy to see him once more, and he went to all of them very happily (expected), and the way he was acting had me so concerned, but I knew it was normal.
We finally get to the bigger playroom where his main nanny was along with his friends (including the one being adopted next month who's pictured with him in his photo album) -- he ran to his nanny and was very happy to see her. Eventually she was trying to get him to openly come to me and tell and show him that I was his mama but he stayed in her arms...and at this point I'm halfway wishing we hadn't come although I knew later I would be glad we went. Eventually we said bye to them all, and I thanked his nanny for taking care of William, and she got emotional but quickly said bye, and not wanting to prolong the moment, we left quickly. We then were walked to an office where the director offered fruits and water, showed us an album of past families coming back to visit, took his handprint for memories and had us sign his name below. As we left he started to cry and cry and it broke me. I knew deep down this was okay (and sometimes a good thing), but I just needed to hear it from someone else, so I asked our escort (who works with our agency and is used to this) if this was normal and she said yes. We then walked 10 minutes through Nanping to a restaurant (seemingly a very "fancy" restaurant for the area). Halfway through the walk, William perked up as we tried to play with him. We then sat down to eat, but I just couldn't relax very well..just trying to keep William happy as much as possible. We then left and walked into a neat marketplace, where we did some more shopping for William (mostly for dried peas which we found out he absolutely loves from getting some as a snack on the train). There was a neat and nice play-area in the shopping area, and so since we had time, we took William in to play which he loved! He then picked out a toy in the toy section (four trucks), and was a seemingly very happy camper (by the way, he doesn't like toys..he doesn't quite know how to play with them and just tosses them aside).
Many things today that I will need time to process, but I do know those children's faces will be forever ingrained...
With his main nanny (obviously very attached to her)
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