My children, the old and the new

Life has been good, if busy. We have been short staffed here at Marias and at all of our units with fewer Filipino VISAs being renwed there are fewer nurses here to work the units. Luckily everything is very fluid here and everybody is very willing to take up what ever slack must be and fill in where needed. My contribution is, I am sure, quite a bit less than some of the more experienced nurses, but at least I am able to take over a little of the daily work load. It has taken me a little bit longer to get back into the swing of seeing to my own floor than I hoped. Things have been different with fewer staff membersand everyone working together. Sometimes it makes it more difficult to figure out just what my role is. Getting a stomach bug didn't help, but now at least, I think I am finally finding my niche and being able to be of help. Some little ones are not doing well while others are starting to flourish. There have been bugs that come and go, taking more of a toll on some than others. It is the way of it here, both the amazing healing and growth, and the heartbreaking all wrapped up into one very unique building in this world.

When I was last working in Marias I had an entirely different floor I was caring for. Now that nurse has  returned I am caring for another. I had made it my priority to know and love and take the very best care of those children that I could. Now they have their nurse returned who has known many of them since birth. She knows them far better than I could have in the short time I cared for them. I am happy for them to have her back, and I know they are happy to have her. Besides, I know how much she loves them and lvoes being back. It isn't interesting to me to now have this opportunity to meet and learn of these children on my new floor. Just as I had to win them over and get to know each of them on the other floor, I get to start that adventure on this one. I have been here for a month or so now and I love to see them openning up to me. I know I am no longer a passing face when they start to run out to greet me, or show me their toys, or babble all of their exciting stories when I walk in. There is one little girl who was always very shy and would be scared if I passed too closely, now  it is the most amazing reward to have her light up and start enthusiasticly waving when she sees me coming. Our relationship still mainly consists of happy waving and me handing her toys and asking her about her day, but that is enough for now. Her little friend who cried the first time I got too close now starts "talking" (more accurately described as enthusiatic babbling) to me when ever I come in. I try to make sure to take a moment to enjoy his conversation as he points to  random things in the room and explains all about them. Then he will chase me crawling on the floor and laughing as I check charts. He is also a bit too fond of the responses he gets when he starts blowing rasberries and spitting, a delightful trick another little girl kindly taught the whole room. My "no, not good, don't do that" is apparently endlessly amusing. Another of my little ones from my other floor was moved to this one while I was away. Seeing how much he has grown and what he can do now is absolutely wonderful! He is, thankfully, just as fond of cuddles as he always has been. I could go on and on about all of my new kiddos. They are just as wonderful and each have so many unique stories and quircks. I will try and save some stories for other blogs, and try not to surpass attention span limits. I have a couple other blogs I am hoping to put up soon about cooking, things you typically see driving in China, snow days, and the grocery store. But we'll see :) For now here are some semi adorable pitcures of amazingly adorable children!

This is one of his favorite faces

Xin nian hao!

I think I have just experienced the most Chinese holiday there is! Xin nian hao everyone! It is a couple of days after Chinese New Year and I had so much fun with the entire experience. I am so glad I could be here for it! My New Years celebrations were probably more of an abbreviated version, but still wonderful for me.

Most of the holiday is based on the eve, as with our New Years. Chinese famillies put up couplets on the doors wishing for luck and happiness and such。For us， we started out giving gifts。A couple of the family we work with were sick and unable to go to the celebrations, so Linda made sure we went to get them New Years gifts and jiaozi. As she said, they were part of our family and had to have family jiaozi! Linda is wonderful! She is lovely Chinese lady who was one of the first ayis when Joyce and Robin started New Hope. She has been with them throughout the entire process, and now she runs Maria's house of hope taking care of and organizing all of the workers, and pretty much being a mom to everyone here. We then ate lunch together with everyone downstairs, beccause at the heart of the tradition is family and eing together. Jiaozi seems to be a  very important part of the tradition, everyone in the family must help make the jiaozi together and eat it together on New Year's Eve or early on New Year's Day for luck for the entire family. Afterwards you set off your fireworks to scare away any bad luck. The last people to let them off are most likely going to have an unlucky year because New Years sets the tone for the rest of the year. If you are lazy and slow on that day, it is thought you will be the rest of the year as well. That is the same reason you want to make enough to leave half of your New Year's dinner because you want to know that you will have plenty and even leftovers in the rest of the year. We participated in these traditions as well with our whole building. The cooking Ayis spent most of the day makin jiaozi for the entire house. Which is about 20 jiaozi per person and around 2000 jiazi. Apparently traditionally all of the ayis in the house take turns coming downstairs to help a little. The set up a tray for the rest of us in the other room so we could make our own. Most of them were the easy and traditional shape since they were making so many. A lot of the kiddos (Dr. Steve's childrren and the Renichs) got a little more imaginitive. I recall a smiley face, a moon, a giant pillow, and a mouth to name a few. Polly got to help us. She is the wonderful lady who helps translate, organize the stock room, and  be the intermediary with a lot of the Chinese hospital, translate medical documents, and generally organize the records of the children's comings and goings. She is also one of the silliest and most fun people I have ever met in my life. We certainly have a blast and she keeps me constantly laughing now that we share the 2nd floor office. She brought some exciting jiaozi patterns she found on the internet that she wanted to try, so we of course had to try thosee too. 

Us all together about to start making jiaozi

The meat, veggies, and spices that stuff the jiaozi.

The kitchen Ayis making jiaozi.

Some of the many trays of completed jiaozi

Lillian making her jiaozi. I believe that one was a butterfly.

Polly and her fancy triangle one.

My fancy triangle one

My one of the fancy fish type. 

I never grew up so I have to brag about my creations and am always inordinately proud of them :) 

Our results! After we made them we never saw them again. I don't know if they gave them to the Ayis or not lol :P 

Next we went to light off our fireworks, because it was so dry they had slighty more regulations than usual and we weren't allowed to set them off outside the orphanage. I personally think fireworks in China might be one of the best features. You can buy tons of amazing fireworks of every shape in size for vrey little on most street corners. This includes the huge ones that would count as a firework show in and of themselves. Jin had bought a ton of them and we all met to go an empty field and let them off. It was AMAZING! Lighting off huge firework displays and standing right under them as they sparkle and crash in the air in their varied rainbow glory is absolutely brilliant! Especially when you have enthusiastic little ones around you  making it perfectly acceptable to jump up and down, clap, and gasp at the brilliance. Lilly would have me spin her under the firworks and we both had an absolute blast! Not only werre wee lighting them off, but so was everyone else everywhere, all day and night. In China it doesn't really seem to matter the time of day or night, the place, the clarity, or if it is dark or not. The reason for the fireworks isn't the beauty, so it doesn't matter if you can see them or not. It was just so cool, and amusing to see. I probably should have been more concerned seeing fireworks set off from the back of cars, tied to railings, between apartment building with sparks bouncing of the walls and windows. I would be interested to see the statistics on firework damagee on New Years. But there is no end to the enthusiasm. I didn't get any pictures of the display, but here is a picture of one of the ridiculous little ones they let the cchildren let off at the end. 

It is a chicken that you light, and after a great deal of high pitched squeling it lays an egg.... The blast and the propulsion backwards inflates the balloon.  It is completely ridiculous and thoroughly humerous. It has deflated at this point, but I am sure you can imagine it in all of its glory. 

When we returned we were able to eat the Jiaozi together as a "family" downstairs, and it was wonderful. The Ayis are always amused to see the pale, blue-eyed, blond children and their attempts at eating Chinese food, especially with chop sticks. It was delicious! I found the idea of eating at least 20 to be ridiculous, until I started eating them. I decided to refrain from counting. That seemed healthiest. Though some how we still have some left over in the nurses fridge. 

That was mostly  the end for us. I did make sure to stay up till midnight, the time to traditionally let off the fireworks. I was reading in my room to stay awake when I started hearing thunder roaring. A sure sign that midnight was fast approaching. I ran up 6 flights of stairs to arrive on the roof pre-breathless, just in time to see what it looks like when your whole world is celebrating together everywhere. I jumped up on the picnic table and just turned slowly around, able to see fireworks in every direction. If one show slowed I had only to turn to see another more to my preference. Unfortunately here there is always an underlying smog that makes it difficult to see too far in the distance, and what you can see isn't usually clear. This is especially true for winter when they start coal burning for warmth. Inspite of that it was incredible! Those I couldn't see I could hear, and just feeling like I was part of a whole country celebrating was truly a moving experience. But my favorite part had to be when they let off the fireworks next door in front of tthe prison. Mariah assures me the guards get pretty bored, which accounts for their lovely display bursting every gorgous, colorful, sparkly blast right at my eye level. Have you ever had fireworks shatter right beside you, so close you could almost reach out and catch a spark? Yet, just out of reach so your eyebraws remain intact. I can now say I have. That is one experience I doubt I will ever get to repeat in America.  Jumping up and down clapping and gasping in awe on a rooftop picnic table in the middle of the night on Chinese New Years is something I will never forget and will probably be one of my favorite things about China.