Earthquake in China

Collapsed perimeter wall at HanZhong City SWI, Shaanxi
Evacuated babies and nannies in tent

The recent earthquake in China’s Sichuan Province has brought terrible devastation; nearly 20,000 confirmed dead with the toll expected to exceed 50,000, hundreds of thousands injured and many thousands more buried in collapsed buildings for whom time is running out. It happened during the middle of the day, 2:28pm, when schools were in session, office buildings were full, and families had separated for the day. Tragically there were many schools that collapsed and as many as 7000 of the dead are thought to be school children.

The Chinese government has launched a massive rescue attempt, but roads are cut off, electrical power is out, and communication has not been reestablished with many areas in the remote mountains. Rain and cold weather are hampering rescue and making life for survivors, many now homeless, miserable. Equipment to clear debris, food, temporary shelter and medical aid are first priorities.

Unlike past disasters, the Chinese government is accepting international aid, though with restrictions. Donations can be made through many international agencies. There are also specialized agencies that work with children in orphanages that are on the site and have the advantage of already being established in China. Unfortunately the quake will create many more orphans for them to aid. Please include the people of China in your thoughts and prayers, those who have lost loved ones, who died in the quake, who may still clinging to life as they await rescue, and those moving mountains of debris to find them.

Lian’s SWI is in HanZhong City in southwest Shaanxi near the Sichuan border, about 250 miles from the epicenter of the quake. It is within the quake damage zone. The perimeter wall collapsed and there are cracks in the old brick building that housed the babies. They have moved the babies into tents as a precautionary measure because of aftershocks. (see pictures above)They did lose their water lines. Caring for China and the English Language Association, a Christian mission group with volunteers from England, Australia and the US, run the special needs unit where Lian received such good care. Their earthquake relief fund is found at http://www.caringforchina.org/resources/donation.htm No one at the SWI was injured but a relative of one of the staff was killed in a building collapse in HanZhong City.

Red Thread Maps has created a special map of the Children’s Welfare Institutes and Social Welfare Institutes (SWI’s are a combination of child and adult/senior care, very common in China – Lela’s SWI had many floors of senior care) in the effected area. Lian’s is found in the upper right hand corner. http://www.redthreadmaps.com/sichuan_earthquake.html

Half the Sky is an orphan aid agency that works with both Lela’s SWI in Guangdong and Lian’s in Shaanxi. The pictures from Lian’s SWI in HanZhong are from their website. You can donate to their earthquake fund at http://www.halfthesky.org/?gclid=CPakk6KGq5MCFQo2GgodMzuYng

Children’s Hope International is the agency through which we adopted Lela. They also have orphan aid programs around the world. Director Melody Zhang is in China in the earthquake zone right now bringing aid. This is the link to her blog. http://www.melodyzhangorphans.blogspot.com/ You can also donate via the blog links.

NPR had a team of reporters, Robert Siegel and Melissa Block, on the site for reports leading up to the summer Olympic when the quake struck. The blog has excellent reporting of the ongoing aid efforts and personal tragedies, and links to international charities that are providing relief, like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders
http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu/
Doctors without Borders http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=2706
The NY Times has also had excellent reporting http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/earthquakes/sichuan_province_china/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier

Love Without Boundaries, another orphan aid group has updates at http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/earthquake.cfm
Donations can be made at https://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/donate.cfm?category=147&child_id=0

Families with Children from China of Greater New York (our chapter) has established an Earthquake Orphanage Relief Fund for donations to specifically help those orphanages hit hardest by the devastating earthquake. FCC-NY’s will donate 100% of all proceeds contributed to those orphanages with the greatest needs. Donate at www.fccny.org/ Please indicate ‘Earthquake Relief’ as the Donation Project. CONTRIBUTIONS BY CHECK CAN BE MAILED TO: FCC Orphanage Assistance, PO Box 237065 Ansonia Station, New York, NY 10023.

Donations (non-tax deductible) can also be made directly to the Chinese government aid effort
Donation Bank Account for Sichuan Province Earthquake Disaster Relief
Ministry of Civil Affairs, People's Republic of China
Foreign Currency (US Dollar) Bank Account
Account No.:00100252328091014
Beneficiary: Ministry of Civil Affairs
Beneficiary's Bank: Bank of China, Head Office
Bank Address:No.1 Fuxingmennei Street, Xicheng District, Beijing
SWIFT CODE:BKCHCNBJ
HOTLINE:58123111 58123222 58123611 58123612 58123617

Lela's Mother's Day thoughts

Lela the seadog. She had her first sail on a big boat last Saturday. The Soundwater, a two-masted schooner used for environmental education around Long Island Sound was taking a boatload of town and village officials and environmental leaders and one kid out for a cruise around the Bay. Guess who got the most photos ops.

In our house it’s really Mothers’ Day. Lela was drooping around at the end of coffee hour after church on Sunday and I asked her what was wrong. She said, “I just feel a little sad.” I asked her if she wanted to talk about anything and she just buried her head in my shoulder. When we got home, and Jamie was putting Lian down for her nap, we talked again. I reminded her we had talked about writing a letter to her birth mother when she had felt sad around her birthday in January. Did she think that would help? Yes, it would. So I transcribed while she talked.

Hi Mama,
I really miss you. I really enjoyed living in China. My name is Lela. My sister is Lian. My papa takes really good care of me. My mama does too. I really love my family. We live with our cats and dog. Their names are Sneezer, BigEyes and Sally. We take very good care of them, even the fish in our pond, when we feed them they get very big and healthy. They enjoy swimming in the pond, they like to swim, swim, swim until their fins get tired. All our pets are very happy.
If anything bad happens to my parents, I’ll go live with another family.
From Mama and Lela

Then we wrote to her Ayis, the caregivers at the orphanage.

We love you, nannies.
I know I enjoyed living with you. If anything bad happens like a tornado comes, we’ll hide in grandma’s cellar or garage. If anything bad happens there, just tell me. You will always be the nanny of me. I like to be Cinderella and watch Mary Poppins, and we like to watch all day, but when we do we don’t go to sleep.
Love Lela

Note – we live in a part of NY that gets tornados once in a blue moon, but papa showed her tornado clips on the Weather.com after reading the Wizard of Oz (kids version.)

Then she made up and sang an original song, “Livin’ with the Pines Family”

“When I’m live with the Pines Family, I love twinkin’ my eyes, I give out a yell and I cry now, I just like livin’ with the Pines Family, Lela loves me.
I am a little, little girl named Lela. I am very happy that I live with the Pines Family. I love the Pines Family!”
I had the foresight to grab the camera and get the song on tape (on chip rather, which is how I know the lyrics. There were more words, but they started to get very silly once she realized she had an audience. And no, I’m not posting it because then you’all would see my very messy kitchen.) She watched the playback of herself several times and then cheerfully trotted out the door to go visit Grandma. I love her complete lack of self-criticism, there’s none of the issues yet to come, like how I look, sound, am dressed etc. Right now she can bask in the certainty that she is the center of our universe. I am so glad she can talk to me and tell me what’s on her mind, I hope to retain that as she grows. And that she has connection and ownership to her life in China. So much history for someone so young.

Who is a Mother?

The celebration of Mother's Day and the recent online uproar over the NBC Mother's Day Contest's ill judged placement of adoptive moms in a category called, "Non-Moms" had me thinking about what exactly is a mother. The NBC blooper brought it to the center of topic on most of my adoption e-mail groups. It got NBC deluged with e-mails and calls from the highly Internet connected China adoption community within hours. Annoyed "Non-moms" all over the US shared that they had to take time away from their "Non-kids"to write scathing e-mails asking just who did NBC think was picking up after the kids, making their dinner, kissing away tears, putting them to bed - the maid? NBC did back down quickly and changed the category to adoptive moms,but still used it as a catch all including grandparents, stepparents, foster parents, single dads, an orphanage director etc. - all non-traditional mother roles. There was still the segregated flavor of being less than"real" mom if you didn't physically give birth.

So it still begs the question, "Who is a mother?" Many listed the things that moms do for their children, but those are also done by fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, step parents, foster parents, and friends. This is not to disparage the 8 million day-to-day things that mothers do for their children, usually un noted or remarked. I thought about my mom, and other women who have been surrogate moms to me, being a daughter, sister, friend and about becoming a mother by adoption myself, late in life.

Sometimes it's as simple as being sure there is one person in the world who will love you no matter what. As Miss Spider says, "For finding you mother,there's one certain test, you must look for the creature who loves you the best." It's being able to scream, "I hate you" to your mother and know she will still love you, feed you, kiss you good night, forgive you. And it's loving and understanding the angry teen who is yelling, "You don't understand, you stupid old BLEEP." It's about emotional connection and comfort, someone to kiss your boo-boos, even when those boo-boos are lost jobs, divorce or illness. It's the irrational state where you love your children so much that you want to kill them for doing something dangerous. It's that moment of heart stopping terror when they get off your radar. It's the 24/7 give and take as they grow, change and try to make their own order of the universe - and you try and remember all the baby love and kisses that once came your way. It's moments when you wonder, "Who are these strange short people and why are they in my house?" It's being annoyed that your children are distracting you - from writing about your children.

It's being the "real" mom of a child not yours by birth. It's trying to give your child a heritage that you don't share, to help them find their story. It's about trying to cushion their losses and comfort their grief - even when they don't want you to. It's also about loving children that have become lost or damaged. And loving mothers who aren't able to fully love or are like children themselves. And sometimes it's about knowing that love is not enough, that life can be full of complexity and shades of gray. And knowing you can't save them, no matter what you do. That giving them up may be the only way to save them. It's finding out from a doctor, late night phone call or knock on the door, that you will not see your child grow up - and going on living.

It's remembering all the families that you have made during your life and knowing one day you will not be the center of your child's universe. And hoping that with a little luck, you might happily be displaced by your grandchild. It's knowing that families grow, change, open and close, and there may be times when you will hope for a phone call or e-mail, and others when you want to kick your kids out the door and shout, "Get a life." It's knowing your family is messy and imperfect, but that life is not meant to be a sitcom. It's knowing that love is not bound by birth or blood or time, and that no matter what, you will always be a mother.

Happy belated Mothers' Day (the apostrophe is in the right place)