Oath and the Pearl River Cruise

Well, the U.S. Consulate has now agreed that all of the paperwork is in order for these little girls to become U.S. citizens.  We all went to the offices so that the parents could take an oath that all of what had submitted was true and everything was finalized.  No pictures of that are available because we were not allowed to take any electronic devices through security. There were 6 families altogether taking the oath and adopting children.  We were told that in 2005, there were 8000 such adoptions from China to the U.S.  The number of adoptions has slowed considerably and the proportion of children being adopted with special needs  has increased each year.  In 2010 there were about 3400 adoptions.  As recently as 2 years ago,  30% of the adoptions were of special needs children.  So far this year, 73% of those adopted have had special needs.   All we await now are the visas for the girls.  At the first city of entry into the U.S., when we present the final packet of completed paperwork, they will actually become U.S. citizens.  For us, that will be Chicago.

Poor little Avery is now suffering through her 6th day of diarrhea.  We went to the hotel clinic after returning from the consulate.  The doctor had no explanation for us.  It may be that she is alergic to the formula, or something else we are giving her that she has not had before.  Her rash has quit getting worse, but is not yet getting better.  He had the nurse grind up some medicine, which she then put into little tissue paper squares containing enough powder for a single dose.  It seemed like something from a different era or out of a movie.  We put a dose of powder into some drink for Avery and she, of course, will not drink it.  Hmmmmmmm.  Despite the issues and the many blowout diapers, she remains in good humor.  She played in the hotel baby playroom today and Anya has had fun with the dragon bathrobes in our hotel room.  Kristie and the girls went out for Starbucks while Ginny caught up on her work.

The blowout diapers have resulted in more trips to the Chinese laundry.  That is another story.  We had heard it was very inexpensive to have laundry done and so in Nanchang, we sent out what would have amounted to two small loads at home.  While it came back clean, precisely folded, and packaged neatly in clear plastic bags, the cost was $70.  For women used to doing their own laundry, there was a lesson here:  define "inexpensive."  Regardless, we have no choice for the baby items.  We are good at catching and preventing, but there is still laundry.

Even Anya had some bathroom disaster laundry.  Please skip to the next paragraph if easily offended; however, this must be reported because Anya thought it was a very big deal.  You see......the toilets here are frequently not "Western" toilets. How women manage to do this is still unclear to me, except I am thinking it involves incredible thigh muscles.  Plus, these Chinese women nearly all wear spike heeled boots.  It is beyond me. Anya refers to these as  "squatty pottys."  All I know is there was a desperate situation today that involved a tiny cubicle (the one pictured here is spacious by comparison), one of these non-Western fixtures, Kristie with Avery in the baby front pack in the stall assisting Anya.  Somehow the end result (no pun intended) was that Anya's pants are in the laundry collection for the morning.  Although Kristie laughed later, it was reportedly not amusing at the time.  Ginny was assigned to take Anya to the restroom later in the day.

The evening brought the Pearl River Dinner Cruise.  The views were spectacular and really showed off the billions spent by the government to beautify the city for the 2010 Asian Games.  After viewing the sites, on the return portion of the trip, the most bizarre entertainment occurred on the boat.  There was suddenly a loud whistle and loud Ricky Martin music playing with the appearance of what must be the Chinese version of a clown.  It was a woman dressed up as a rabbit (this is the year of the rabbit).  She began with balloon animals for the small children and then she began to juggle.  She was really quite good and Anya got to be a part of the act at one point.  It was pretty incredible and we were glad we had gone.

Cruise Boat

Guangzhou Tower by Night

White Swan Hotel where we are staying