Micheline's orphanage in Haiti only had about 35 children who were adoptable, and Ben's had over 500 at the time he was adopted, so visiting the Wuhan SWI was a vastly different experience from what Micheline knew in Haiti.

The director came out and met us in the courtyard and took us to his office. Even though I knew Director Li and Director Zhang had both retired, I was still a bit sad to have to greet a man who never knew our son. He was friendly enough, but as we were walking into the orphanage, a woman came running over who said "Li Wa?"

I immediately recognized her face from our adoption trip before. She had a big grin on her face and tousled Ben's hair repeatedly and said she couldn't believe how tall he was. She spoke very limited English so we mostly had to use our guide to interpret but she said she remembered Li Wa and that she was the one who had prepared all of his paperwork for adoption.

She was so happy to see Li Wa and thanked us for returning and told us she is now the vice director of the orphanage after Director Zhang retired. She followed us in to the director's office and stayed with us throughout the entire trip, and we were able to get some photos of her with Ben. She asked him about five times if he remembered her, but unfortunately he said he didn't. She seemed disappointed by this information, but he has been gone for 6 years and was only 4 when he left. Being deaf and not having been exposed to sign language in the orphanage, he also had no tools at the time with which to imprint her name.

Director Chen proceeded to give us a history of the orphanage which we already knew--that it was funded by a Taiwanese charity back in 1997, and that it is one of the most modern and well equipped orphanages in China. They have very good medical services there and the medical services are even used by neighborhood
children.

When we adopted Li Wa, there were over 500 children in the orphanage, but thankfully now most of them are all in foster families. There are currently only about 80 children still in the orphanage, all of them disabled to varying degrees.

We gave him our donation of many blankets and knitted caps and some baby toys and although he was appreciative, he said that next time he would prefer money since he can buy triple in China what we brought, for the same price. I don't think he understood that these blankets and hats were handmade, because he said the reason he could buy them cheaper was that they were probably exported from China to begin with.

I could see Shasha's face blanch when he said this and as we left his office to tour the rooms, she said "Please don't misunderstand him. He is very grateful for what you brought. He just knows it is inconvenient to bring them in suitcases to China when he could buy some here instead."

Even though he didn't understand, I hope that the babies who are wrapped in them can somehow feel the love that went into making these blankets and hats.

Continued...we meet his nanny!