This morning we went to visit the Xi'an Children's Welfare Institute.



This is where Shen lived before we received him four days ago on Sunday. It was just a short visit, and not very well organized, basically a walk through of three of the floors where the little children live. Our guide, Tori, had a bit of a hard time with this visit. She is very young, and this is the first time she has ever been there. When Tina asked if she'd ever been before she said she wasn't brave enough. It is very, very difficult to see so many children in this situation.

Today it has rained hard all day after the lightning storm last night, and it was pouring hard during our visit.



We were there at the same time as three other families with a total of almost 20 people. It made it somewhat difficult to communicate with the nannies. We did not meet with the director, or see Shen's main nanny there at all. We had a list of children who have families waiting to adopt them, and we did our best to get pictures of these children. We brought a few gifts: some little favors for the nannies, some art supplies and clothes for the children.
Kai enjoyed the visit. He particularly liked seeing the babies - he loves babies, and I saw him rubbing their heads a couple times. We had our guide explain to Shen that we were only going for a visit, that he was not going to stay there. We wanted too make sure he understood this because we were told he went home with foster families for visits from time to time, and we didn't want him to think that was what his time with us so far had been. (He actually seems to be bonding pretty well with us, as he already does not want other people helping him with a range of things.)
The visit had a bit of a desperate feel to it, as we wanted to accomplish so much. Ultimately we only sort of brushed over all we hoped to do. We did get to see the space and take some pictures and video, so Shen will have a little more to help him know about this part of his life.

I was surprised that I didn't have a harder time while we were there. I felt a lightness and purpose that made it pretty easy to be there. But afterwards, when we were back in our room I broke down. When we were there on the floor Shen had last lived on we visited and played a bit with the preschoolers, and younger school-age children. Since I was trying to get as many pictures as I could, both for us, and for other families, I started taking pictures of all the kids and them showing them their faces on the camera. These kids have watched a number of their little friends have visitors come and hunt for them with gifts and get their pictures taken. We had brought some candy and a handful of token gifts for them. I hugged them, and took their pictures, laughing with them as they looked at themselves on the little camera screen. Then we drove back to the hotel and left them all there.
Here are a few pictures of children no one asked to see...