It is a delight to write to you every couple of weeks and share what is going on in our lives! Brad occasionally has to prod me to write a letter, but I am glad that you can participate in our adventures even as we think of you so often. To us, you are here with us, exploring and learning about this vast and paradoxical country.
Last week was about new discoveries. I had been trying to reach a local orphanage for most of the autumn. I had done research on the Internet, made phone calls, and talked to the students and faculty of our school, all with little success. Finally on January 21, as I was preparing to throw away the information I’d gathered, I decided to make one last phone call. I was thrilled to reach an American English speaker at the Philip Hayden Foundation! Brad and I made arrangements to go the next day.
The 30-minute drive to Tanjin was an adventure, but we arrived at the brand-new facility and were escorted around by Leah from Wisconsin, the director of guest services. Leah showed us around and explained that the Foundation was founded and (primarily) funded by Americans. The Foundation collects special needs children from orphanages all over China, and pays for them to get the corrective surgeries they need, before educating and adopting them out to their new parents. Most of the children are in need of surgeries for cleft lip and/or pallet, heart problems, brittle bones, or other deformities. A few children had developmental delays or downs syndrome. I held a little girl (Christy) whose cleft lip had just been repaired recently, and Brad fell in love with a little boy (Oliver) whose left ear was deformed. These children are otherwise healthy, but unwanted by their birth parents. It was delightful to spend the afternoon learning about this special orphanage, and the special children who live there. We are looking forward to going back in the future, and bringing some of our students along too.
On Wednesday, Shannon’s friends Allie and Allen picked up our train tickets for us, and on Thursday we joined Shannon, Peter, and Peter’s parents in Beijing. Brad and I had made reservations to stay in a hostel, but the Lucas-Roberts generously insisted on paying for us to stay the night in the Chongwenmen Hotel with all of them. Brad and I were given a lovely two-room arrangement. It was great to be right down the hall when the group wanted to play speed scrabble or talk about life! We had lunch together and then meandered over to the Forbidden City. Unfortunately, it was “forbidden” to us as well because we arrived at 3pm, just as the park stopped selling tickets for the day. So instead, we wandered through Houhai, and arrived at Beihai Park. We had a great time climbing stone stairs, investigating a cave, posing on statues of animals, and enjoying views of the city and frozen lake from above. We thawed out on the bus, and at dinner, enjoying the Lucas-Roberts attempts to eat peanuts with their chopsticks. Brad even managed to slip away to find a few cheap DVDs at the Pearl Market.
On Friday, we all put on our warmest clothes (temperatures were in the low single digits all week, with wind chill), and headed across town to look for a bus to take us to the Great Wall of China. At the bus stop, my student Vicki and her friend Andy joined us. They were in Beijing to audition to be volunteers for the Olympics. Vicki had called me on Monday to see if they might join us, and we were only too happy to have Chinese friends along for the day! We had a great time. The two-hour bus ride took us out of town, and into the mountains outside the city. At many low points, the highway went right through gaps in the wall. Vicki showed us the research she’d prepared about the wall, and told us facts about the wall as we traveled and arrived.
The weather was “bitter” cold and very windy, but we chose the steepest path up the wall. Within a short distance we were thankful for our choice, because there were few other tourists. It was great to have the wall to ourselves. We took a lot of photographs, and paused for a brief lunch at the end of the restored wall. Frozen through, we turned back for the descent. Unfortunately, I struggled with vertigo for most of the climb up and down due to the height and shear drops! The stairs were uneven in height and surface, and in some places one had to crawl up the stairs. I enjoyed the climb nonetheless, and was amazed by the views. Brad, Peter, and Vicki chose to keep going up the other side when we reached the bottom, but the rest of us decided to thaw out in…Starbucks. No lie. There was a Starbucks in the little one-horse town of Badaling. My favorite touch was the western-style toilet, paper towels, hand-dryer, and toilet paper! We don’t see those very often here!
After the Great Wall, Brad and I returned home for a very quiet week of vacation. Shannon and Peter brought the Lucas-Roberts to Langfang on Sunday, and Shannon made us all chili and cornbread. I experimented with foods too, making homemade pizza (ham and pineapple!), homemade salsa, and homemade chips (from Chinese flatbread). Mmm… Otherwise, Brad and I have been running a lot in the cold, reading a lot of books, and watching movies before bed. You can be thinking of us as we wait to see if the weather will clear up enough for us to go to Xinyang later this week to visit the grave of Brad’s great-grandfather. You are always in our hearts as we work here. Thank you for everything!
Love,
Jess and Brad
1) Peter is on the train to Hong Kong as I write this. He'll arrive at 5am Monday morning, our time. That'll be 29 hours on a hard sleeper!
