Progress

The second trip to the orphanage went much better than the first. We started off by meeting with the orphanage director and presented her with gifts for her and the orphanage staff. When most of the other people were at the car retrieving gifts, she told me (through a translator) that they had chosen Mai especially for me. Mai is one of their favorites and they wanted someone young and beautiful. Now she is certain they had made the right choice; we are the perfect match :-) Hahaha, thanks lady!

One of the main things that made yesterday's visit so hard was her caretaker. But today we found out as of this morning, that caretaker is gone for good and another has taken her place. The new caretaker was more open and friendly. She told us all about Mai, how she likes watermelon and bananas, prefers to play with blocks, and likes to sing songs and count on the potty. Mai was still very shy when she saw us, but we came prepared. The musical dinosaur doll held her interest. Then we showed her the new dress we bought for her. They immediately stripped her down and put it on. She was clenching the dinosaur and let the caretaker feed her one M&M from us. I started showing her more pictures of con cho (Bruno) on my ipod. She loved it. Then Hang instructed the caretaker to hand her over to Dan. She started crying and Hang told us to leave the courtyard, take her for a walk. For the first little bit, she was trying to wiggle away from Dan, but since one-armed white woman was the only person to break her fall from 6 ft up, she soon started clinging to him. Hang was there comforting her in Vietnamese. After about 5 mins, the hard crying stopped. I was wiping her tears and nose and she got this look on her face like, hey these people aren't so bad. She stopped crying all together as we took her for a walk around the compound (prison yard). We said hi to the prisoners, looked at some flowers, and played with the dinosaur. I did my best motor scooter impression when we saw a parked bike and she seemed entertained. When she caught a glimpse of her caretakers again, she started to cry, but it stopped after they were out of site. I'm very happy that she was clinging to Dan. Even without a broken shoulder, I don't have much stamina to hold a 2 year old for that long and I want to make a good impression here. At the end of the day, they brought her back out to say good-bye. She let me kiss her on the cheek and Dan kissed her on the head without any tears or resistance.

I am not sure what will happen tomorrow. We leave for the Giving & Receiving ceremony at 2PM. Its located at POJ's office in Hanoi, so the drive will be much shorter. The director of the orphanage and 3 caretakers will bring the kids from the orphanage to Hanoi by car. After the ceremony, we will bring them back to the hotel kicking and screaming as a group. Hang suggests we put them all in the same room to settle down and play together. For best results, cram it full of toys, candy, and milk! We'll have to bathe and medicate them right away, but one step at a time. I'll probably be too busy tomorrow night to post pics after the G&R, but will do my best once I get a chance. Pics from today are posted in a new album (should be titled Dan and Gianna).