One thing that the workers got a laugh out of, but was painful because it was at Micheline's expense was that two of the toddlers were deathly afraid of her. Having never seen a black person before, when she approached two of them, they screamed in fear. Shasha started to explain to her that they had never seen anyone who looked like her, which I was not happy with. I tried to gloss over it and tell her that they were afraid just because they didn't know her. Thankfully, none of the other children reacted this way and she was able to interact with some of the babies very positively.

As we left the orphanage, the vice director thanked us once again for coming and asked us to please come back again in at least 5 years so they can see Li Wa once again. They all kept saying they couldn't believe how tall he was and were amazed that he could hear now and use speech. He spoke for them and signed for them and they were clearly touched and happy by how much he has changed in 6 years.

We promised to send them copies of the photos that we took today and the vice-director told me that she had received the photos that we have sent in the past with other families who traveled to adopt.

As we got on the bus to leave, they said "bye-bye" and I asked Benjamin to say "Zai jian", or "goodbye" in Chinese. He even got a close approximation of the tones and they were thrilled to hear him say it. They waved to him until we drove out of the gates of the orphanage, and I had to turn away as by this point the tears were just streaming down my face.

I will be forever thankful to the dear people at this orphanage who loved my son and kept his spirit alive until we were able to adopt him. To have photos of him with his nanny is a priceless treasure, and that alone was worth the entire trip back to China.