Heroines

Wang Zhao (center) doesn't have much to say about her seventeen years growing up in an orphanage. She is a content, amiable, smart girl. She's shy with new people, but once you've been around for awhile she lets her personality show. She's got a sense of humor...picking on our other mutual guy friend, attacking him with our nerf gun and locking him in our bathroom once. Last week she told me she wasn't coming to our house as usual on Saturday, then showed up at the door grinning, "Ha Ha! Surprise!" This year she is a freshman Clerical Studies major. She goes home to the orphanage on weekends. She was abandoned right after birth and says it left no impression on her.

Li Ci (right) has volumes to say, with tears, about her upbringing in the orphanage. But she's got such a heavy speech impediment that I can't understand most of what she says, and Wang Zhao seems disinterested in translating. But I do know that Li Ci is deeply hurt that she was not allowed to study, and she bears emotional scars from older kids bullying her. The Welfare Center gave her a job with a program called Half The Sky. She is a teacher's assistant for the preschool within the orphanage, meaning she helps students go to the bathroom, eat, change clothes, clean up, etc. Li Ci says that she got lost one day going from one relatives house to another, at about age two or three, and was taken to the orphanage.

Ok so! Again, these pictures were taken ten years ago when a little girl who had been adopted returned to see the orphanage when she'd lived as an infant. She met up with other kids from her nursery -- kids who had not been adopted and remained, including Wang Zhao.

she is so cute!

Wang Zhao says to me, "This is where I grew up!"
the building is still in use 

yep, this building is still there, though others have popped up around it
the wall is gone now... it says "Changsha is my home"

former entrance to the welfare center, now totally different
that's the adopted girl who returned for a visit, with her parents

these rooms are still in use

girl in blue/yellow is visiting -- former nursery mates still in the orphanage

the girl could no longer understand Chinese

 

 

I have been on this exact spot many times!

 

some of the older kids
by the way, there are notably more people in China with facial burns -- could be due to unsafe equipment (like the nice gas tank in our kitchen...) or lacking treatment. some children are abandoned because of their facial burns.

on the sidewalk outside the orphanage gates -- it looks completely different now!
Wang Zhao is on the left, in pink

What I am trying to say with this post?

I don't know, I suppose...

1. It's incredible to think how these lives diverged, as one baby girl was adopted abroad and another stayed in the orphanage for her entire life thus far.

2. I greatly admire Wang Zhao and Li Ci for their strength and courage, not holding a grudge against the world, but rather accepting their circumstances, enjoying friendships and moving forward. They are heroines in my book!


Unrelated...

We are headed to the countryside tomorrow, to celebrate Chinese New Year with Drew's best bud and his family! Probably returning on Tuesday. So see ya back here next week. Happy New Year!!!