New Adventures...

Today was our first day in the orphanage. We woke up (for most of us
around 4 and couldn't go back to sleep) and went downstairs to have a
Chinese breakfast. We had steamed bread with sweet condensed milk (SO
GOOOD!), sticky rice, bread with vegetable fillings, mushrooms, and
CHICKEN FEET! (and yes, I tried one, it wasn't that bad, but
definitely not my favorite). After breakfast we walked to the
orphanage. It was about a 10 minute walk and throughout the whole
thing we just got stares like we were aliens and had five eyes. :) We
also got to finally encounter the craziness of the cars and bikes on
the street. There are no stop signs or stop lights so they just go
whenever they feel like it, and the people, well the locals, just walk
straight out when they want. The motorcycles and scooters usually
never stop for you, but the cars will occasionally. We finally got to
the orphanage and had a meeting with the directors, and we got to try
a fruit called liches (sp?) they were pretty good, I have a picture of
them, but it's hard to put pictures up since it takes so long. After
our meeting we got to go look at the rooms, first we walked into the
older kids rooms (4-12 probably) and they immediately went crazy! They
were so happy to see us it was precious. :) Then we got to go up to
the newborn room and we got to hold and rock them for a while. Right
away my mom found a little girl that sucks on her middle and ring
finger, just like I used to and immediately started crying, and the
little girl absolutely loved her, it was so cute! When we were
finished looking at the newborns we got to go into the toddler room
where they were playing. We all went in to sit down and play and hold
them. Right away I found a little girl that absolutely LOVED doing
"superman" she would laugh the whole time, and stick out her tongue so
I could see it. She had so much hair and it was just going EVERYWHERE,
it was crazy. We got to play with them for a little while longer and
then we had to go back to our hotel so that they could take their
naps. When we came back we had lunch in our hotel again. We had
eggplant (our favorite), green beans, beef, rice, steamed bread (of
course), and lots of other foods that I can't remember right now.
After lunch we all went back to our rooms and Charlie, Megan, Molly,
and I all went to Carissa's room to play cards until we were going to
go back to the orphanage. At about 2:4o we met in the lobby and headed
back to the orphanage for part 2 of our day. We got to go back to the
toddler and baby rooms and play with the little ones. One of the
little girls that I was playing with would just watch me everywhere I
went, she was so curious. She would also do the "eyebrow pop" when you
did it to her, then she would do it back. After we were in there for
about an hour we got to go down to the first floor to play with the
older kids. Once again they went insane! When I was sitting with them
on the floor they were drawing on chalkboards and the boards where you
can write then erase it. One of the little girls I was sitting with
would give me her marker type thing and I would draw her hearts,
stars, and a bunch of other things. Then she would try to do it by
herself. She also LOVED to get her picture taken so I would take a
bunch of pictures of her and then she would get to look at them all,
it was so cute to see her reaction to seeing herself. While we were in
the older kids room my mom found a little boy who was 11 years old. He
was very shy and at first wouldn't even let her look at his drawings.
Towards the end Lily (our translator) told us that he has told them
that he was taken when he was 6 years old. He said he was going to
school, or coming home and he was taken, so he is very traumatized and
nervous around a lot of people. He also keeps saying that his parents
are going to come back and get him, it's heartbreaking knowing that he
thinks that and that we know that they probably don't even know where
he is. He started showing my mom how to count and was drawing pictures
with her and Lily by the end of our time there. The nannies were
surprised because he usually doesn't interact with anyone so it was
really cool. When we were leaving he let my mom hold his hand and even
give him a hug. By the time we actually left he was outside and gave
her 2 more hugs. It was really sweet to see how he warmed up to her.
We had to leave at 5 sadly, so we said our goodbyes and headed back to
the hotel. My mom and I needed some bottles of water so we went to the
supermarket by our hotel. While we were going there we saw the outdoor
market by the supermarket so we went down to look around. It was quite
the experience, I will have to put up pictures later. Mostly
everything was live, except for some of the cow parts etc. if you
know what I mean.. haha. Anyways, we saw: eels, ducks, chickens,
pigeons, frogs, turtles, crayfish, crabs, and all types of fish (all
live) & we saw: duck, tongue, intestine, stomach (we don't know what
animal they were from) and a bunch of other animals that were already
cooked. It was so funny because for some of the meats they would just
have a cut of it on the dirty table and they would stand there with a
fly swatter to keep it out of the way, it was very different. We
finally went into the store and got all of the stuff we needed. One
thing that was quite interesting was the potato chips and pringles.
They had seaweed, lime, cucumber, chicken, and a lot of other flavors
to choose from... I stuck with the original pringles. :) Okay, well
this blog is getting pretty long, so basically after we went to the
store we came back and had dinner and now we are in bed about to go to
sleep. So Goodnight or Good morning to you all. We love you and we'll
see you soon. I will try to post pictures but I am just not quite sure
when exactly it will be. So, just keep checking back.

P.S. sorry for any errors I am very tired and had a long day!