Keep out
This is as close as we got. I mentioned before how we wanted to visit the town and orphanage from where we got my younger daughter. Well, it didn't quite work out as planned. The rule is that all orphanage visits must be arranged through an agency called Bridge of Love. We contacted them and got the whole paperwork thing going. But somewhere along the way we hit a snag. I won't go into details, but basically we heard less than two weeks before our trip that we'd have to travel to Guangzhou to pay a service fee. This was a step that would probably be no problem for a family visiting from the States, who'd most likely be traveling through the city anyway. But for us, traveling by train from Yunnan, it was quite a pain--one that would undoubtedly require an overnight stay in Guangzhou. We decided at that point, quite crankily, to forgo the orphanage visit. We shot off an e-mail saying that we couldn't afford this new development and cancelled our request. A few days later, I started having second thoughts, realizing that I should be willing to spend whatever time and money required for my daughter to get the visit that she needed. When Yau Neih and I discussed it with Siu Wan, however, it turns out that she didn't need the visit that bad. She said that she was a bit disappointed, but that we were more upset about this than she was. Smart kid. So we bailed on the orphanage visit, settling for a walk past the facility. (Okay, three walks past, actually. Two with the kid.) And if a few years down the road Siu Wan decides that she really needs to make that orphanage visit, well, we can start saving our shekels and try to make that happen.
posted by John @ 7:50 AM
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