Last night was fairly uneventful. We welcomed several new families to our group who had adopted with CWA from another province, and had now joined us in Guangzhou for the finalization. Following another nice dinner we stopped by a local store similar to a Wal Mart called Callefour Hypermarket (a French company). This was an interesting experience. I will never complain about the crowd at a Wal Mart again…..this place was packed with folks, and I mean packed! The prices were roughly comparable to the States given the current exchange rate. The store was 3 stories, and you took an escalator to each floor. The escalators did not have steps, though, but rather were a moving incline. The carts also had all four wheels turnable rather than just the front two like in the States…..these things really could turn on a dime! And at the entrance was a chicken feet kiosk, with different types of this popular cooked snack available for shoppers. Needless to say, we were the only Westerners in the store, so the stares were aplenty! At one point in the evening, Jane was introducing the new families to those of us who had arrived earlier. She introduced him as Dang Niu to one family and he jumped in with, “My American name is Cameron!” Then, he proceeded to correct her pronunciation of his name. Needless to say, she has retold this story a number of times today she was so tickled by it.
This mornings breakfast was typical fare. Cammo tried his first piece of bacon and decided he did not care for it. Unfortunately, he had decided to put about five slices on his plate, so mom and dad are now bacon’ed out for awhile! Once again, Cammo opted for two full plates of fruit, a boiled egg, and 2 containers of yogurt. At one point while eating, his egg disappeared. I asked Angie about it and she said he probably put it in his pocket. Sure enough, when we got back to the room he opened his pocket to show us the egg. Oops! Turns out it was a soft boiled egg, and was now a soupy mess in his pockets! We hurriedly got him to change shorts so we wouldn’t be late for the zoo tour. I also showed him how to use a knife more effectively this morning. He tends to hold it in his fist and tries to cut, but this does not work very well. I showed him how to use his index finger to apply pressure and guide the knife. He tried this method on a sliced peach and it worked awesomely, but he still decided to use his own method. If that works for him right now, so be it!
We were pleasantly surprised this morning by a call from our Owasso, Oklahoma friends, the Burnetts. Angie was beside herself as this was a quite unexpected, but delightful surprise. Cammo had to get in on the action and jabbered away on the phone as well. He is certainly a social butterfly!
The Guangzhou Zoo was an interesting experience. Quite a bit different from an American zoo. Some of the animal enclosures were quite nice, while others were fairly small (tigers, leopards, etc.). As seems typical by now, the landscaping was impeccable. My attention was immediately drawn at the entrance to the entry fee sign which noted that children were charged based on size (height) rather than age. I have never seen that before. Of course, we had to see the panda display where, due to the heat, he was lounging on a block of ice! We were particularly enthralled by the enclosures of several apparently rare and endangered species: the chipmunk and squirrel enclosure, as well as that of the milk cow. Not sure I’ve seen these animals in zoos before! Please note the attached picture of Angie posing next to another…..ummmm…..rather interesting animal enclosure! We were only at the zoo for an hour, but were absolutely drenched with sweat from the insane humidity. Nevertheless, we enjoyed it immensely.
Tonight we are going on a dinner cruise on the Pearl River. Tomorrow Elvin, our guide, will take the American part of the paperwork to the U.S. Consulate to issue Cameron a visa for his passport to be able to enter the States. Wednesday is the visa appointment and swearing in ceremony at the U.S. Consulate.
Angie here. I just had my first Mother meltdown. I know all mothers can sympathize here. I was washing a pair of Cameron’s shorts in the sink. Thought I checked the pockets but apparently not enough. I washed his MP3 player. I feel absolutely awful. He bought this with his own money and has his Chinese music on it. How do we explain this to him? This child does not have much and I accidentally did this. I’m crying and Scott explains it as best he could on the translator; that if it was broken we would replace it and that we would need his help in putting his music on the new one. We could tell he was a little bit upset but was more concerned that I was upset and kept giving us gestures that it was OK. I held his face and told him I was very sorry and that I loved him. Thirty seconds later he was onto something else. Right after that he is blowing me kisses. What a wonderful kid. Lesson learned for me. Oh, this was Cameron’s first time to the zoo. It was neat experiencing this with him, but hard because of the language barrier. He had so many questions. Luckily Jane and her friend, also with CWA, explained things to him but we could not understand his reactions. We will take him back to the zoo in Tulsa. Till tomorrow.
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