Moments: An Orphanage in Xinxiang

Goodbye, China.

I have moved back to the States to be closer to my family and attend graduate school. I arrived home July first, and in August I'll begin studying for an MFA in Creative Writing at Texas State University.

My biggest excuse for the year-long blog silence is that blogspot is blocked by the Chinese government, so I was not able to access my blog from my apartment in China.

I'd like to post at least a small taste of year two in China, so over the next week or two I'll be going back through my journals and posting any little "moments" that seem interesting. Hope you enjoy them. Here's the first one:

May 2010

What a weekend. I wish I had more time now to say just what has happened. I am at the orphanage now, and will probably turn the light out soon. I’ve never seen anything look so much like Oliver Twist – worse, actually. The girls sleep in one open room, all beds pushed against the wall. We played “Uno” in this room just now, before the kids went to sleep. Paint flakes off the wall and falls onto the cement floor. Blankets and clothing are piled in one corner, and on the other side of the room are desks littered with picture books, textbooks, Chinese checkers, playing cards, and colored markers. Each student has his or her own desk, and inside they keep whatever treasures they own. When I told one little girl she could keep the “Uno” cards, she yelled out something in Chinese, jumped into the air once or twice, then marched to her little brown desk and threw the cards underneath the lid. I gave them to her because she has repeatedly grabbed my arm and shouted, “Pai! Pai!” In English, “Cards, cards.” I’ve learned at least one Chinese word here.

Earlier we sat on stools in a circle in the courtyard and sang songs. They wanted the other foreign teacher and I to sing a song, so we gave them “Amazing Grace.” Colored flags are strung over the courtyard. It was here I played badminton with a boy a few moments after we arrived. Badminton was the first task I found to keep myself busy with, so I kept at it until the little boy put his racket down and said he was tired.

The dining room is another white-washed, paint-chipped space. There are two long, narrow tables lined with stools. We ate corn porridge, steamed bread, and fried fish for dinner. The meat, I'm told, is a rare treat for the kids. The kids stand in a line at the dining room door and quote a Tang dynasty poem before every meal. Then everyone pulls their bowls and spoons from lockers. We’ve eaten steamed bread every day. The aunties roll it into little buns and season it. It supplements the bland gruel – porridge made from rice or corn or wheat. Sometimes we have a plate of vegetables, too – salted cucumber, salted radish, or salted eggs. Most everything is very salty.

I believe the only rooms I haven’t described are the bathrooms, the little room where the volunteers are sleeping, and the boys’ room. That’s the orphanage. Not a very large space for all the people that live here.