Day 11 – Visit to AnQing & Orphanage – Part 1
This morning Mr Ding and our driver came to our Hefei hotel to pick us up for the long drive to AnQing, to visit the orphanage where Sophie lived for 8 months.
The haze from the pollution was very dense. The day before I had wanted to visit a park with a pagoda that we could see from the 5th floor lobby of the Holiday Inn, but I decided not to because I could barely make out the pagoda through the smog. I have certainly been in worse pollution in China – my trip to Beijing 10 years ago was spent in a dense fog of pollution – but the cumulative effects of the 2 weeks of breathing pollution was taking its toll on my lungs and eyes. I decided to admire the pagoda from a distance.
On this morning we bundled into the car and set off quickly on our long journey, with much anticipation. This one day was the highlight – the whole point of the 15 day trip to China. On this day we would return to Sophie’s invisible roots and try to find a strand of the red thread connecting to her early life.
Like many cities in China, Hefei is sprawling and growing fast. Mr Ding told us about the history of Hefei. It is the capital of the Anhui Province, and was known as Luchow during the Ming and Qing dynasties. (15th to 19th centuries.) We were told it was home to a lot of manufacturing of household appliances such as washing machines. There is a great deal of pride in Hefei’s long history.
As we drove on the elevated highway through the city, we began to see the forests of high rise neighborhoods that are being built to re-house the farmers. It was explained that these farmers have been living in poverty and now they can live in an apartment with a higher standard of living. I asked what kind of work the farmers would do after they moved off their traditional farms. I was told that many of them still have plots of land near the high rise neighborhoods. I assume that many of them end up also working in the manufacturing industry.
Eventually we left the forests of highrise buildings and traveled into the countryside. Hefei has seen rapid growth from the city center, enveloping the surrounding countryside and farmlands. So the transition from city to country was rather abrupt.
Now we were out in the rural countryside, with farms, rice paddies and fishponds. We had many miles and hours driving through these areas, and when we left the highway to drive on back roads, we saw the rural poverty up close on the sides of the road. About halfway to our destination, there was one rest stop, more like a truck stop, with snack shops and tea shops, and public restrooms. After the last 2 weeks’ experience, Sophie was afraid to go to the bathroom, so I had a look first. Up a long flight of stairs, I went through an open door into a huge frigid room filled with stalls. There were dozens of stalls with squatty potties, and no signs for a Western toilet. However I found one stall for “Special Needs” which had a sit-down toilet. (but no paper) I pulled out my packet of tissue, cleaned off the seat, laid down a clean layer of tissue, and had a quick cold pre-emptive pee. On the floor of the stall was the ripped packaging of a new toilet seat which had just been installed. The packaging had a large image of the Mona Lisa. It was just so surreal, to see Da Vinci’s work in such a setting… I had to laugh out loud. Then I ran down the steps and convinced Sophie to brave the chill and take advantage of the facilities.
I was thinking I could really use some coffee, or some hot tea. Up until now coffee in bottles or cans had been readily available, but here there was a case with no coffee, only warm bottled tea. I chose a lukewarm bottle of Milk Tea and some biscuits. Then it was back into the car to continue our drive through the farmlands.
One scene that remains in my mind was a woman squatting on the edge of a muddy fishpond, washing out her laundry. We passed through small villages with rows of 2 story dwellings lined up along the main road. There were small businesses on the ground floor, and residences above on the 2nd floor. We saw multi-generational families out on their front stoop – babies waddling in snow suits, mothers and grandmothers in padded quilted cotton jackets, fathers and sons working on broken down trucks.
Our first stop was to be the new location for the Social Welfare Institute. Here we would see the most recently abandoned babies and children, living in a new building, in a new complex which also houses seniors in assisted living, and those with mental and physical disabilities. This was not the place where Sophie lived, but it is where these abandoned children live now, and where the staff now works to take care of the children and adults that can’t live on their own.
As we turned off the road and into the complex, the director came out to meet us at the car, smiling. Sophie took a deep breath, looked at me with big eyes, and got out. (continued, Part 2.)
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