We took a 2 1/2 hour van ride with two other families to Zhoukou City (pronounced Jo Ko) to apply for Ellie's passport. It is a newer regulation in Henan Province that you travel to the child's orphanage home city to apply. We caught a little sleep, played some, ate at McDonald's in Zhoukou and all got sick (we don't like it in the US, so why would we like it here, I don't know...don't eat the lettuce!), and were able to drive by Ellie's orphanage (they don't allow visits) and finding spot (the place they found her abandoned). We were the only family of the three that had that privilege and I am so grateful! I took several photos of the city to share with her as she grows older. And I kept looking into the faces of the people of Zhoukou wondering who knew more about her story, who was her birth mother and father, and wanting to embed them into my mind and heart to somehow connect me to them, and therefore, to her.
2 1/2 Hour Van Ride-Still only baba's girl
Applying for her Visa (took 1/2 hour)
Photos of her City
Zhoukou City Social Welfare Institute
In this facility, it is divided into 3 sections. The main one is the workers living quarters. The one back behind is for the elderly, and the one to the right is the orphanage for the children.
Children from the orphanage come home for lunch during school. The schools in China have a 2-3 hour lunch break where all the students go home to eat (no school lunch programs)
Here we are in front of the orphanage with the Freeman family: Katie, Steve and Samual, whom Ellie lived with in the orphanage and calls him didi (little brother)
More of Zhoukou
Ellie was found abandoned in the courtyard of the People's Hospital in Zhoukou. These are photos of the hospital, courtyard, and the street the hospital is on. She had hydrocephalus when she was abandoned and so we assume that her family left her here because they could not afford to get her the help she needed. It was due to an injury after birth. She was 4 months old.
Sorry you got sick!
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