Saturday

This is our first day in GZ.  I got a call about 9am from a staff person from WACAP she wanted to come up and meet us.  When she got here, I realized it was the president of our agency and a case manager!  We visited with them for several minutes.  It was kind of cool.  They were here for a Journey of Hope group.  They got to meet 34 other older kids (or kids with high levels of special needs), visit with them, video them, etc. so they can focus on finding families for as many of these kids as possible.  Then we met the other families from our agency and they are very sweet.  There is another family from the Denver area who adopted an older child (I believe she's 10).  The other 2 families are adopting younger girls.  All are absolutely adorable.  Rachel is doing great.  We met with the group today to go get our medical exams done.  The guide, Elise, asked Rachel what her American name was and she said she forgot.  So Elise laughed and asked me what it was.  In Beijing, I had the guide ask her what name she wanted to use Chinese or American.  She said Chinese.  So I've been calling her YangLan. It didn't surprise me today that she couldn't remember (we hadn't talked about it since Wednesday), and it didn't bother me at all that she wanted to go by YangLan.  Not even an hour after the interchange with Elise, I needed to get her attention and I said "YangLan!" she turns and comes back to me and says "NO YangLan. <insert waving her hands 'no'> Rachel!"  Well, then!  It was very cute.  A little while after that, I said "Rachel YangLan" and she again said "No YangLan!  Rachel."  Okay, okay, I get it!  She's making it very clear what she wants. :-)  Then tonight I explained to her that her name IS YangLan...and she just "No YangLan. Rachel."

We went to a Carrefour store today.  It's like Walmart, only cheaper (I didn't think that was even possible!).  She got some sandals, several shirts, a pair of shorts, a couple cup of noodles and water and it was less than $45.  Crazy.  She is very particular on her shirts.  They cannot be v-neck or scoop neck. She does not like her scar showing at all.  And honestly, it is not really that obvious at all, but she is clearly aware of it.  Two of the shirts I brought were "rejected"...as the necklines went too low.  Hopefully the shirts we got are all high enough or she'll be nixing them, too! :-)   Consequently, she's had 3 different outfits on today...yes, its starting already!

We had to do paperwork later this afternoon, so I worked on grading while she watched a movie with Rodney Dangerfield in it.  It was one I had not seen before, but it was all in English with Chinese subtitles.  That is one thing I've noticed here...everything has Chinese subtitles, even if they are speaking Chinese.  I think it has to do with dialects (think American deep south vs north easterners).  When the language is so tonal (each vowel has 4 tones that mean entirely different things depending on where the emphasis is...makes a non-native Chinese speaker have a very difficult time!), words can sound differently when the tone is so important and meaning can be misconstrued very easily.

I am tired...its been a long, busy day.  And it is so warm & humid here, I literally thought I was going to melt walking to the medical and back.  I was sweating like a pig, and I hate that feeling.  That is one part I HATE about GZ...the humid is ridiculous.  Think Hawaii. On steroids.  Yuck.  And Rachel wore a sweatshirt on top of her shirt when we walked to the medical.  I tried to get her to take it off and she kept saying "no", but the guide convinced her.  Eventually.  It took a lot of persistence on both of our parts!