Thanks so much for visiting us during our journey, Steve, Heather, Ed, Joe, Emily, Hana, Zeke and Samuel!
November 29, 2007 Our Guangzhou Zoo Day
Today we went to the Guangzhou Zoo. What an experience. Leila had thought the visit would take about an hour, but she underestimated the Allen and Patzer families. We left the zoo after about four hours and could have spent longer, but we all felt that it was time to head back to the hotel.
The Guangzhou Zoo was really nice. It’s not like the zoos we’re used to in the states since there are a lot more cages and obvious pens, but there were lots of trees and flowers and nice grass areas. The people visiting the zoo, like everywhere we’ve been in China, were so friendly and nice too. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
We think the highlight of the zoo was when the boys had a chance to ride some rides. We learned that Sam had seen rides before, but had never actually had a chance to experience a ride firsthand. Also, this was his first trip to the zoo. He had a blast.
After the zoo we had a late lunch, visited with some new friends we’d met from Denmark, and then met up with our longtime friend Kelly Rumbaugh, her mom, and new son, Joey. What a blessing that was. They had planned on arriving Friday, but were able to expedite getting Joey’s passport so they could get to Guangzhou early. Today he had two medical exams, and the Consulate appointment, and tomorrow they will take the oath at the Consulate and Joey will be issued his visa. They leave to return to Maryland on Saturday. Please pray for Joey and for the family as they travel. Joey is seriously ill with a heart problem and they are trying to get him home as quickly as possibly, hence the reason that everything is being rushed. He has an appointment at John’s Hopkins on Wednesday and will soon be facing two surgeries. Please pray that all goes well and that he is able to have the heart surgeries he desperately needs as soon as possible. He is the cutest little boy and God has brought him this far. We feel God will get him home and through these surgeries.
We met the Rumbaugh’s on our first trip to China when we adopted Hana. They were with our same agency and adopted their daughter, Cassie. Cassie and Hana were from the same orphanage, Shangrao SWI in the Jiangxi Province. The Rumbaugh’s adopted a second time, Jonny, just before we adopted Zeke. And now, on our third trip to China, we’re here together once again. We will always have a special relationship with, and love for, this very special family.
Now, on to the list of what we need to “fix.” Remember we spent four hours at the zoo? We didn’t go into much detail above, because we didn’t want to repeat ourselves now. There are a lot of “fixable” opportunities that became evident during that little excursion. First, zoos typically have special diets they feed the animals and would prefer that people not feed them. We learned that Sam has no qualms about picking any plant or flower, or pulling decorative plants out of the ground by their roots, and heaving the vegetation long distances into various animal pens. For example, we learned that he can heave some really attractive plants across a moat and chain railing all the way to the elephants. However, in this particular case, the elephants didn’t like what he threw in. Basically, if Sam could find anything that might be potential food, he’d try to feed the animals. We attempted to stop him, but it happened each time so fast, we failed. When we did catch up and ask Leila to talk to him, she said something like, “it’s okay, people do that.” We attempted to explain that if you do this in the United States you’ll get thrown out of the zoo. The translation was lost somewhere along the line.
Also, did you know if you hang as far as possible over the railing of the bear pit, and dangle your yoyo down as far as it will go, that you can really tick off a bear? When you tick a bear off it will stand up on it’s hind legs and swing it’s front claws at the offensive dangling yoyo. Sam learned this. We all learned this and it will not happen again. We hope.
It gets worse. You know those barriers erected to keep people out of the animal enclosures? They mean nothing to Sam. On several occasions he was actually inside a pen, like way inside, before we could stop him. He could vault or leap anything. In fact, on one occasion he leapt over a small stream to what looked like an off-limits area of an aviary enclosure. This is where it gets worse. Joe screamed, looked horrified (this is when we noticed where Sam was), pointed and said that Sam had just jumped on a rat and killed it. Sure enough the rat was lying on the ground looking quite dead. Now two things might have happened here: One, Sam killed a nasty, plague-infested, disgusting diseased rat that just happened to be hanging out with the birds. Or two, Sam killed some rare, endangered, exotic rat that was happily living there until our son murdered it. Hard to know, but then at the time, in a foreign country, we just walked out of the aviary quietly (except for Mr. Excited thrilled that he’d made a kill in the zoo). Joe was still horrified that the rat was twitching and needed to be put out of his misery. We didn’t see any twitching and decided it was best to get Sam out of there.
And then on a minor note, did you grow up being told to eat your food because children are starving in China, or something like that? Well, we did, but whoever started that saying had never met Sam. We were eating lunch and were learning that one should wipe ones mouth periodically, especially when stuff is dripping down ones chin, when Sam decided to try Joe’s meal. He took one bite (read that to say one really huge chopstick full of food hanging inches below the sticks) of Joe’s food, looked totally grossed out, spit the food out on his plate (with a disgusted look on his face and appropriate sound effects,) and started to yell for the waitress to take it away. We stopped him and it was clear that he felt the food was not prepared properly and they needed to bring Joe a new lunch. We think that he felt the fried noodles were fried a little too much and not wiggly enough (remember we’re translating from Mandarin to English so there’s a little interpretation problem on our part here). We were able to calm him down, assure him that Joe was fine with his meal, and we weren’t calling the waitress over. He did manage to call the waitress over three times: Once to direct her to another table to wait on someone there; Once to bring him Tabasco Sauce to put on his spaghetti; And once to bring him salt and pepper. He was going to call her a fourth time to clear our table, but we were able to stop him.
We’re sure there are at least several more incidents that we are forgetting, but you get the general gist of our day. Overall, Sam is doing great and we’re on top of things over here. He has learned the meaning of the word “stay,” and we use that frequently. It did NOT work at the zoo though. Obviously we have a little training to do once we get home.
If anyone has seen the musicals, “My Fair Lady,” or “Oliver,” those keep coming to mind often during these initial days with Sam.
Well, that’s pretty much all for now. Take care Ed, Emily, Hana, Zeke, Grandma and Aunt Sue. We’re not sure what we’re doing tomorrow, but we’re not going back to the zoo and the scene of the rat murder.
Blessings to all our friends and family,
Steve, Heather, Joe and Sam in China
Ed, Emily, Hana and Zeke at home, along with Grandma and Aunt Sue
