A Trip to the orphanage and Chloe's finding location

Of the six families who had babies from Qinzhou, only three opted to take the trip into the city to visit the orphanage and take a photo of their baby's place of abandonment. After a one and a half hour drive through the countryside, we began our way into a small and very poor village called Dasi. The roads were dirt and pitted, almost too narrow for our small bus to navigate.

The scenes of poverty were some of the worst that we could have ever imagined. All the people are out in the street cooking and living. It is really very foul and no one looks happy. One lady on the bus burst out into tears when she saw them cooking a dog. This really must be where the poorest of the poor cling to life and fight for survival. We traveled further down the bumpy road to another small group of buildings. They told us this was the hospital and that Chloe was found at the entrance gate. It is hard to imagine her having to grow up and live in a place like that.

After that, we went to the other two locations. One baby was found in the center of a landscaped round-a-bout in the middle of a busy intersection. It seemed a very odd location, but the flowers and plants were beautiful and there was a perimeter fence to protect the island from traffic. The other was from another small village that looked much more typical of what I had envisioned how poor people in China live. Lots of little food stands and people in the streets. It didn't have the ominous feeling of doom and misery that we felt in the village of Dasi.

We then went to lunch at a restaurant in Qinzhou. They took us upstairs to a private room and we all looked a little unsettled. The dishes were dirty and our guide apologized for the conditions and said that there weren't any nice restaurants in Qinzhou. He ordered sweet and sour pork and they brought out a plate piled high with big chunks of fat..... yes pure fat, no meat. Each piece measured about 2" x 3" x 1" thick. There were a few pieces of pineapple mixed in. Even our Chinese guide thought this was a very disgusting dish as he turned his face up and apologized again. The rest of us were just laughing or in shock. We mostly ate rice that meal.

After a long day of driving all around Qinzhou, we returned to our hotels to rest for the remainder of the evening. This was the first day that Chloe acted like a healthy happy baby. She was great on the bus and socialized and played with the other babies. She even laughed and smiled at everyone.