We've been home three weeks now and Haifeng has made amazing strides.
The first two weeks she was very depressed and missing her friends in Zhuhai orphanage. Since then, we have had a wonderful interpreter over who has helped her immensely. A vietnamese grandmother, friends of us, has also done some "teensitting" for us. We have set up her computer and she is talking with her friends now.
Today, she got a clean physical on her first visit to the doctor. Perhaps China's signing of the Hague Convention was the reason our doctor here accepted her vaccinations she got at the International Immigration Clinic on Shamian Island, Guangzhou. She got four shots there and thankfully, they were accepted as valid and she's good to go for school. We plan to start her on February 28th. We had resolved ourself to the fact that at 13, her adjustment would probably be very slow. While her acquiring of english is still ahead of us, we are very thankful for the great strides she has made in the last week and the enormous number of people who have helped.
Our local chapter of adoptive families also held their Chinese New Year's celebration last saturday night, Feb. 12th. They very thoughtfully seated us with a family whose 18 yr old daughter had come over at 13. She talked with Haifeng throughout the night. Haifeng was also able to see all the adopted kids smiling and enjoying themselves. This also had a very positive impact.
We are looking forward now to the Spicy Hunan Reunion in June and continuing to make progress in the intervening months. We feel so blessed at her progress, but the credit goes to Haifeng who has gone through a month that the rest of us can only marvel at and done remarkably well.
Here is a drive-by of the memorial to Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Chinese Republic in 1912.
