Burgeson China Journal

It is raining again for about the third day. We are all tired of being in the hotel or even going to the shops. How many shoes can the women buy anyway? Everyone is ready to go to Ghounzou to get our paperwork finalized. Reidar and I have been swimming and playing video games at the shopping center arcade but these activities are getting old. Plus the swimming pool or “cement pond” as I call it (because of the low chlorine content and greenish tinge) is not the most palatable activity. They do have a hot tub we can soak in and the men’s locker-room is very fancy and well appointed.

Ari’s personality comes out more each day. She is talking a lot, smiling, and laughing at Reidar’s antics. She says “da”, “mei mei” (sister), and is calling Tiana “Mama” (yea!). We thought we heard “bu cheong” a couple of times (don’t want) and “she she” (thank you). We speak English to her mostly because the Chinese was upsetting her either because it reminder her of her foster family or our pronunciation was hurting her ears (that’s my theory). We keep calling Reider “Gei Gei” (big brother) and Ari said it this morning and pointed at Reid. We’ll work on actual names over the next few days.

Today we are going to the Yellow Crane Pagoda which should help to kill a couple of hours. We are taking pictures of the entire family in front of the pagoda in our Michigan State shirts. The Ann Arbor people in our group can eat their hearts out. A couple of families in our group are going to Xiagon City where our girl was fostered but we decided not to go. What if she saw some familiar sights that upset her or G-d forbid we ran into her foster family or someone she knew? We told them to take lots of pictures, though and I hope the experience is positive for them.

All of the girls seem to be warming up their families. We are seeing some of the more shy girls open up more, lots more smiles and laughing, and the babies who wouldn’t go to one parent or the other are starting to split their time more between the two. The girls are all eating like horses and their nutrition level is getting closer to where it should be so I think this is helping with their moods as well. The one bowel movement she had per day as reported in her file is now more like three or four (guess that’s the Chinese exchange rate for American bowel movements).