In a nutshell, everything has been great. Iris is adjusting very well and we are also adjusting well! She is quite healthy as far as we can tell and probably the largest of all the babies in our group of 11 (all of whom seem to be quite healthy overall w/ very few problems). Here is what we can tell you about Iris so far: - she likes to eat, she sucks her thumb (very cute but we will have to figure out how to stop eventually, as good as a pacifier for now I guess), she likes to be around the other babies in the group, she likes to say, "Ow-Woo," she likes to see herself in the mirror, she is just figuring out how to crawl (at the orphanage they use rolling chairs so they probably don't get to crawl very much - we had a photo of her in one of these with our referral, she likes to grab things, she makes gaga noises when happy, she is not too picky about toys (seems perfectly happy w/ a set of stacking plastic cups at the moment), she is teething (but we're not sure how many teeth she has at this point). Well I guess you get the point!
As to being in China, all I can say is that it is almost as amazing as having a child handed to you and becoming instant parents. It is so very different than back home in ways that are hard to describe. There are so many people here for one thing. Jiangxi is a fairly small province in area and population but has a pop. of 40 million plus. The fairly small city of Nanchang where we are has 2 million people (more than the whole state of Idaho). The people have been friendly, indifferent, or curious. Nanchang does not get many western tourists so a whole group of westerners is quite a spectacle and we have gotten some stares (more about this in upcoming posts). If you are interested in learning more I would suggest checking wikipedia.com - we learned a lot about Jiangxi & Nanchang from wikipedia (which quite impressed our local guide!). One point of particular interest is that Nanchang is where the Communist Revolution started in China in the 1920's. This is because Jiangxi is rural, agricultural, and a relatively poor province compared to the rest of China, conditions perfect for breeding revolution. Just down the street is the August 1 Square (People's Square), which is on August 1 Avenue (August 1 was the first day of the communist revolution).
We finished up some paperwork and met two officials from the Yujiang Orphanage, trying to get more information regarding foster care vs. her time in the orphanage.
I also I have to tell you that we went to the Wal-Mart Supercenter here in Nanchang on the 25th, which is fairly new and quite popular (it was a good place to get baby stuff, snacks, etc.) We ran into an American woman from Atlanta at the Wal-Mart who is teaching English language teachers at one of the universities here in Nanchang - she seemed quite pleased to run into us. Surprisingly there is quite a bit of English on signs, stores, etc. here. Most of the hotel staff understand and speak at least some English (some quite well). English seems to be quite popular here (the local dialect is "Gan" and most people apparently also speak the common Mandarin dialect).
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Charles Swift
Moscow, ID
chaetura@gmail.com
http://www.uidaho.edu/~charless
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