An insider's report on the China quake

People have asked Lisa and me if we were traveling near the China earthquake epicenter last month or if either of the girls have a connection to that area. The answer to both questions is "almost" -- Sophie is from Hubei provience and BiBi from Chongqing, each of which border the Sichuan province where most of the destruction took place. If we'd been in Chongqing, we probably would have felt the quake but not been affected by it.

Every day we read emails and online posts from other people in the adoption world who were affected, and I'd like to share one of those emails. It includes links to a charity we recommend that usually assists with adoptions but has lately been throw into disaster relief. Jenny Bowen, the executive director of Half the Sky Foundation, writes:

Dear Friends,

It's Monday afternoon here in China. As I write this, the entire country just held 3 minutes of silence to commence a 3-day period of national mourning. It began at 2:28 p.m., marking the very moment the massive quake struck in Wenchuan County, Sichuan. Flags flew at half-staff, the people wore white flowers and, heads bowed, held hands. Across the country, horns
and sirens wailed in grief.

There are 32,477 people confirmed dead, more than 35,000 still missing. ...

Ziyang Social Welfare Institution (SWI) – Building sustained severe damage. They care for 48 children, 20 of them under four years-old. They request 50 cribs and cots, bandages, 10 milk pots, children's clothes, 100 sets of bedding, bowls, spoons, chopsticks, toys and stationary supplies.

Deyang and Nanchong SWIs both have received notification that they should prepare immediately to receive newly orphaned children. All the children are living in tents. HTS will provide additional tents, beds and other requested items.

Guangyuan SWI – The children remain in tents. They were notified that they will be receiving several newly orphaned children (perhaps 50-60) very soon.



Shifang saw many of its schools destroyed, hundreds of children and their teachers buried. They sent us this heartbreaking story during the rescue efforts at Hongbai Primary School."

Here Jenny re-tells a story that will always be with me.

"'We found him!' Teacher Zhang Huibing's body was finally discovered, frozen in a posture of pushing against the door frame. According to the students saved by him, when the earthquake happened, Teacher Zhang was on the platform of the classroom on the second floor, which was very near the door. He yelled to the students, 'Run outside! Hurry!' And he somehow held the door frame up with both arms as the children ran out, one by one. Just as all the students were safely evacuated, the building collapsed on him. Teacher Zhang, who was only 30 years-old, had a 4-year-old child of his own."

About 30 children, from Yingxiu and Dujiangyang, were taken a Chengdu city park, the Qingyang Sports Center, which has been converted to a refugee camp. ... Most of the children in this camp who survived were in their teens. They told us that many younger children in their town did not survive because those in the primary schools and kindergartens were napping when the quake hit and could not run. ... The youngest camp resident was 16 days old.

Perhaps today's most heartbreaking story was about some of the 70 injured children who'd been carried down from the affected areas to Huaxi Hospital. ... A few children remained alone and unclaimed. They were required to sign their own consent forms so that the doctors could amputate their limbs to save their lives.

There are two ways to donate to Half the Sky. The first is their Children's Earthquake Fund via Global Giving. GG takes 10%, but it allows HTS staff to focus on relief efforts rather than processing funds. That URL is www.globalgiving.com/pr/2100/proj2086a.html.

The other way is directly to Half the Sky at give.halfthesky.org/prostores/servlet/Categories?category=Children's+Earthquake+Fund.

China by the numbers

• Number of amazing daughters with us on departure: 1
• Number of amazing daughters with us on return: 2
• Hours of back-to-back travel time on return trip from Guangzhou: 37
• Days required to overcome jet lag: 7
• Days required to overcome mutant Asian flu virus: 5 (and counting)
• Approximate percentage increase in cost of Chinese products due to inflation and the dollar's decline compared to two years ago: 20
• Number of extra suitcases required to bring home cheap kids clothes: 1
• Percent difference in the cost of a $3 pair of kids squeaky shoes bought on the streets of Guangzhou and an identical pair at U.S. boutique: +1000%
• Number of short Chinese men who told us they planned to move to the U.S. to play basketball: 1
• Number of people in China who remembered us from our last visit: 1
• Time of day, as expressed in military format, that we listened to UNC's losing NCAA semi-final game: 09:30
• Number of months earlier that 3 people died in stampede for cooking oil in the Chongqing Carrefour where we shopped: 5
• Number of different Carrefours we visited during our two trips: 3
  

BiBi speaks

A little anyway.

More pics

Sifting through our ever-filling memory cards, I find I just want to put all the pictures online. But I can't. Not yet anyway, and no one would want that anyway. But here are a few.

The night before we leave Chongqing. Lisa is trying to pack, but the girls have other ideas.


At our new hotel in Guanzhou. Once again, the bed is the favorite hangout.


Playing at the Shamian Island park just few hours ago. BiBi isn't as athletic as Sophie (yet), but she knows how to to have fun.

Nighttime is the wrong time

Right now, Lisa is stretched out on the hotel couch reading her book and enjoying an adult beverage. She has to tilt the book in an odd way because there's a little girl asleep on her chest, still strapped into a carrying pouch. This has been the routine for several nights now.

Nighttime is still hard for BiBi. She shrieks and calls out for her foster mother. She begs Lisa to hug her ("MaMa ba" is her cry, over and over). She even begs Lisa to put on shoes so that we'll all go out rather than fall asleep. There's no indication that she has nightmares once she is asleep, but somehow just the act of falling asleep is terrifying to her.

With that one exception, BiBi is as calm and easy-going a kid as you could ask for. Whereas Sophie might break down crying if she can't get her shoe on right, nothing seems to faze BiBi -- nothing until bedtime, that is. They're going to be a study in contrasts.

Live from Guangzhou

But just barely. The two-hour flight from Chongqing turned into an exhausting trip that started at 6 a.m. and is still wrapping up 12 hours later. Traveling with two kids and luggage is exponentially harder than just one, especially when one of them (BiBi) is still clinging to Lisa. Sophie had a nice little meltdown in the middle of the Guangzhou airport, but is feeling much better now.

It's great to be back on the Shamien Island part of Guangzhou -- it's one of those places that, even though there aren't tons of things to do, you just enjoy being here. Everything is strangely exotic and entirely non-Chinese, from the palm trees to the lack of traffic to the peacocks that are current strutting around in the building outside our hotel window. (The same building also houses an ostrich, a monkey and pigeons.) And even though adoption-related traffic is way down, the White People Density Indicator (WPDI) is higher here than probably anywhere in China. I ask you, does this look anything like the high-density, polluted, industrialized China that we see over and over on TV?



We have a medical exam to do, a little paperwork, and a U.S. Consulate appointment, but other than that the week is ours to just walk around, eat, and haggle for touristy merchandise like Rolex knockoffs and girls' silk dresses. And unlike other god-forsaken parts of this country, beer is actually easy to find and is chilling in our mini-bar now.

Sophie and BiBi present: A day in pictures

A pre-zoo picnic:


The ride to the zoo:


The zoo:

A funny story about our public humiliation

Ironically, on the same day that the whole family took a trip to the Chongqing zoo, it was we who were the beast-like attraction when we tried to make a quick dinner outing.

We'd heard about a "deli" in the mall adjoining our hotel, so the four of us went in search of it. The deli turned out to be a Chinese-style food court, with 10 different places selling dumplings, rice and noodles. Excitedly, we scanned offerings trying to negotiate what everyone would eat, while hanging on to the two wiggling hungry kids in our arms. This alone made people notice us. Even in a sophisticated area like Chongqing, people aren't used to seeing two Caucasians with two Chinese children, and their intense stares remind us of that.

But rather than smoothly order our food using the normal point-and-indicate-quantity-with-fingers method, we were thwarted by a rather complex system of monetary exchange that took 15 minutes and some helpful translators to figure out. You see, each of the food court vendors accepts a special debit card instead of cash, and the card is obtained at a desk in the middle of the food court. Then at the end of the meal, you return the card and get back the cash balance. It all seems so simple now, but in the midst of kids, fidgeting, hunger, and a complete lack of language skills, we looked like a crazed pack of escaped monkeys trying to get the vendors to give us our dumplings and rice dish.

Even after we figured out the system, I went and caused a second-tier scene when I bought an apple for the kids and a beer for us. That part, at least, seemed to have one well, until 10 minutes later when an unexpected drink showed up at our table. It looked and tasted like apple juice, but we hadn't ordered apple juice. Was it an alcoholic cider? We had to know because the girls wanted to drink it something fierce. We tried using a complex system of finger pointing to ask the waiter if the drink was, in fact, for the girls or was it alcoholic like the beer? The only response we could discern -- over and over -- was that it cost 3 yuan and it was ours.

Exhausted but full, we returned to the room where Sophie had her real dinner of cereal. I also vowed that, having now learned the system, we must return tomorrow and have a more dignified meal where people stare at us for the color of our skin, not the ineptitude of our food ordering abilities.

Gotcha Day revisited

Gotcha Day is the big moment when an adopting family meets their baby for the first time. It's fraught with tension because you literally have no idea how it's going to play out. Lisa doesn't write much, but she did sit down and share her memories of BiBi's Gotcha, a long long four days ago.

You would not believe how hectic Gotcha was. They met us on the side of the road at a rest stop, and we thought they were meeting us and we would follow them to SWI (the orphanage) for Gotcha. I was on the squatty potty when Jacob yelled in: "They brought BiBi with them!!!!" I hurried as fast as I could, and Jacob waited outside the restroom for me and Sophie. We had already decided that she would be placed in my arms because of how Sophie's Gotcha and attachment went two years ago.

I quickly washed and rinsed my hands (but no towels for drying), ran out and just adored little BiBi. They put her in my arms, and she was quiet and looked at me and then got very upset. Then Sophie and I quickly got into the car with BiBi and the SWI people while Jacob rode with our guide and driver for the 10-minute ride to the SWI. They took us to an office and then a very fast tour of one floor which is the orphanage and into an empty Gracie's Room. The few babies who are not in foster care and living at the orphanage were already in bed for naptime.

Then we left the SWI campus for lunch. The girls hit it off immediately. The SWI director and two others, including one holding a baby to go to Chongqing, went to lunch with us and then rode back to Chongqing with us. The SWI folks didn't really talk to Jacob and me very much.

OK, I don't know if this all makes much sense, but I think you get an idea of how hectic it was.

The foster mother was at the SWI, but they were trying to hide her so that BiBi would not see her. The foster mother was crying and we didn't meet her. [Jacob here: In fact, the formed a human barricade so the foster mother could get close to Lisa and BiBi.] They all did an excellent job of preparing BiBi for her MaMa and JiaJia, but she didn't seem so knowledgeable about BaBa. At bedtime now she calls out for someone, and I'm certain it is the foster mom. She grieves until she falls asleep for about 20-45 minutes. It is heartbreaking. And she won't let me put her down. Then when she wakes in the morning she is happy to see MaMa and JiaJia (and I'm sure Daddy too). It takes her a while to wake up -- very quiet for a little bit, but then starts talking nonstop.

Lisa's description is right on the money. The hurried gas station Gotcha was a world away from the professional conference room atmosphere when we got Sophie. In fact, just about everything about this trip has been different, except for the fact that both girls are amazing and beautiful.

Just tell me what I'm supposed to do

Ironically, I understood what to do better before I read the English than after.

Lost in Translation, China style

It's day 3 with BiBi, and the word of the day is copacetic. (Sorry if you have that song stuck in your head now.) We got up, had breakfast, ran around the hotel, played with toys, jumped on the bed, and everything is just peachy. Everything except for the growing dread that the days are starting to run together and we'll never get out of this hotel again. But for the girls, at least, it's a blast.

In fact, Sophie wrote a new song to express her utter happiness at having a sister to love and share her happy childhood memories with. It's called "The Boobie Song," and Lisa (aka "The Man") absolutely doesn't want this posted to the world.



The lyrics, in case you missed it, go "When the Boobie Song is over... When the Boobie Song is over... When the Boobie Song is over... When the Boobie Song is over..." It's actually quite a mind-bender of a song because it, in fact, never ends, and thus we never learn what happens when the Boobie Song is over.

We have vague notions to go to the Chongqing zoo or maybe dinner or maybe shopping, but it's really hard to plan things. BiBi is a runner, which means that she has to be in a sling on Lisa's front at most times. If we put her down, she's gone, and it's up to Sophie to catch her. Sophie is probably the one person who will come home from this trip weighing less. BiBi eats everything we put in front of her, and Lisa and I just load up on breakfast buffets and then take lots of pictures all day.

The Girls at play

It's 9:30 p.m., and once again we're all wiped out. Jetlag is hanging around like an unwanted houseguest. So, there's really only time for one picture today. It's one of the sweetest yet.

Oh, what the heck -- here's a video about noodles:

Day 2: More of the same, some of the new

BiBi woke up today in a fantastic mood, apparently unconcerned that she was still with us. Seeing her mommy and sister first thing was definitely a good move, and she proved to us once again at breakfast that she can eat with the best of them. Lucky for us, it's an all-you-can-eat buffet in the hotel.

BiBi is an all-around happy kid. With one exception (details later), she just rolls with punches and doesn't get too upset about things. Still, Sophie It's hard to believe they're just 4 months apart.



Monday was the day we officially adopted BiBi by going to a government office and signing, stamping, thumbprinting and collating everything they threw at us. Everything went off without a hitch. Sophie is still suffering some jet lag as she fell cold asleep on my shoulder twice. And then was awake at 4 a.m. wanting to play.

The girls are just perfect together. They play, they bounce, they wrestle, they run. BiBi even tries to say the things that Sophie says like "Bye bye" and "Hello." So far, Sophie has shown none of the jealously or aggressiveness that you sometimes hear about. But their time together has just begun, so that check may be in the mail already.

Last night's bedtime was the one dark spot in our trip so far. As we were all going to bed -- and I literally mean "all" as Lisa and I were bone tired -- Sophie and BiBi tried to switch positions in the bed. That would have put BiBi on the outside of the bed, and when I picked BiBi up to move her to the center, all hell broke loose.

For the next hour, BiBi shreiked and wailed -- grieved is the only way to put it -- and even her beloved mommy couldn't calm her down. She called out in Chinese for her foster parents and home and anything else she could think of. Lisa was exhausted, but eventually they fell asleep together. It was definitely our first true trial together.

Gotta run -- the Backyardigans DVD is almost over, which means parent duty starts again.

We can't take them anywhere

Less than one hour after BiBi and her JaiJai meet for the first time, we were at a restaurant with her orphanage director, our tour guide, our driver and various others. Luckily we had a private room, because the girls were already cooking up ways to entertain -- and soon enough -- to drive mom and dad crazy.



Our friends with two kids say: Welcome to our every day.

Gotcha!

BiBi has only been with us one day, but some things are already clear: she eats like nobody's business, she's smart as can be, and she LOVES her mommy.

She's only been with a few hours now, but already she and Sophie are fast friends. They're running, jumping, yelling, shrieking, and playing all kinds of games that apparently don't require them to speak a single word of the same language.

Sophie's got a considerable height and weight advantage (especially after we peeled off the 5 pounds of clothing they had wrapped BiBi in), but energy-wise they're perfectly matched.

It was an amazing day, and as I write this both girls are sound asleep next to each other, both as beautiful as can be.

Up and at them

It's 6 a.m., and Lisa and I are awake and checking temperatures in Guangzhou and Chongqing. The car is packed, and Sophie is still sleeping, hopefully dreaming about her new sister who's just 48 away. Everything is ready to go as soon as I finish this and walk into Sophie's bedroom to wake her up.

Here goes...

Note to myself

In packing for our trip to China, the following items can be either carried on or checked:

• Camcorders
• Camera Equipment
• Laptop Computers
• Mobile Phones
• Pagers
• Personal Data Assistants

The following can be checked, but not carried on:

• Billy Clubs
• Black Jacks
• Brass Knuckles
• Kubatons
• Mace/Pepper Spray
• Martial Arts Weapons
• Night Sticks
• Nanchakus
• Stun guns/Shocking Devices
• Throwing Stars

And the following can neither be checked nor carried on:

• Blasting caps
• Dynamite
• Fireworks
• Flares
• Hand Grenades
• Plastic Explosives
• Realistic Replicas of Explosives
• Flammable Items
• Aerosol
• Fuels
• Gasoline
• Gas Torches
• Lighter Fluid
• Common Lighters
• Torch Lighters
• Strike-anywhere Matches
• Turpentine and Paint Thinner
• Realistic Replicas of Incendiaries
• Chlorine
• Compressed Gas Cylinders
• Liquid Bleach
• Spillable Batteries
• Spray Paint
• Tear Gas

Seeing BiBi's home

If there was one thing we regret from our first trip to China, it's that we never got to see where Sophie lived. Her foster family was (and remains) anonymous, and we weren't allowed to see the orphanage where lived. This isn't unusual -- requests to see orphanages are approved and turned down with a strange bureaucratic whimsy.

This time around, the bureaucratic winds have blown in our favor, and we've been approved to see the DianJiang orphanage where BiBi has spent a large part of her life. This is obviously pretty exciting. We've only see it in pictures and a video taken by another mother who was approved to visit a few months ago. Other people who see their children's orphanages report any range of emotions, from respect to sadness to anger. There's simply no telling what it will be like, but at least we'll have one more piece of the puzzle in our memories.

It's a 4-hour car ride to get there coming just a day after the 16-hour plane flight, but there's no doubt it's worth it. Our first meeting of Sophie was in an impersonal hotel conference room. Our first meeting with BiBi will be in her home.

The countdown is on

BiBi is waiting. We'll be in China three weeks from now to get her, but in the meantime she has to hang on just a little longer.

This journey began last July, when Lisa found a 2-year-old girl named Jiang Mei Bi on a list of children waiting to be adopted. In a whirlwind of doctor consultations and paperwork, we started the process of bringing her home. It's been long -- but not as long as last time.

Then last week we finally got the news that everything was in order and we had China's approval. We would travel at the end of March, with gotcha day on March 31. Nothing left but to book the tickets, start packing and enjoy the end of our Zone Defense family structure. Time to start playing Man-to-Man.

Sophie's been excited about her sister from the beginning, but now it's reaching a fevered pitch. Everything we own has become hers and BiBi's, from the sides of the bed to her candy collection.

It's fun, it's exciting, it's scary, and it'll be here in just a few days. And as if a new daughter wasn't exciting enough, March promises the usual work, ACC basketball on TV, NCAA games in person and a mini-Geek Weekend (featuring two side-by-side Rock Bands on HD).

Hang on, BiBi. We're almost there.

Love Without Boundaries Ain't Nothing to F With

Almost two months ago, Lisa got involved with an online fundraising challenge that ended today. And no matter what happens in the Super Bowl on Sunday, it won't be as remotely exciting as this contest.

The rules of the 50-day-long challenge were this: Whatever nonprofit has the most unique donors (not the most in donations) at the end of each day wins $1,000. And at the end of the 50 days, the one with the most total donors wins $50,000. Plus, the groups all keep their donations.

Oh, and all the donations have to come via Facebook.

Lisa and I supported Love Without Boundaries, a nonprofit that provides surgeries for Chinese orphans. And after giving our two donations, we didn't do much for a while. Then the final week rolled around and LWB was trading first place with a Free Tibet group, and we suddenly found ourselves rounding up every Facebook user we knew to give. And then we went to those we didn't know. Then we started harassing people we know to join Facebook and give.

In the end, we probably pestered 35 people to give, some of them in the closing minutes. And even though the West-Coast-based Tibet group started the final day 170 donors in the lead, LWB won by 42.

Not that Tibetan Freedom Movement was hurting. They ended the challenge with $130,000 between donations, daily prizes and their $25,000 second-place prize. LWB finished up an amazing $155,000.



If only all charity work were this much fun.