We spent our morning touring the countryside. We hopped on our bus and took off out of the city. The small town that we went to was not too far from Nanchang, and according to Veronica, is much nicer than where Makena is from. One crazy thing that we've also become accustomed to is the bus driving (and all traffic in general). The bus was driving down the road and them proceeded to do a U-turn in the middle of a two-lane road...with traffic coming in each direction. We were completely sitting ducks...a bunch of Americans with their Chinese babies turning right in front of people just trying to do their jobs. It was pretty funny and people are generally nice to us. We started walking and got to see the pig carcases for sale, the toilets (small shack buildings with a hole in the ground), babies in split pants, people working in the fields, and retired persons playing mah jong. It was a beyond depressed area by American standards. Makena fell asleep about 35 minutes into the walk, so I was happy when we headed back for the bus. She sure can get heavy! Charlie stayed with the tour guide for another 30 or so minutes to see a bit more of the countryside. What an interesting morning - everyone was very accommodating, even if they looked at us like we were very strange!
Makena finally fell asleep right as I had to head out to complete some more paperwork. Charlie said that I would be the only mom to show up, since the last time we had to complete paperwork as a group (about two hours after gotcha!) it was all dads. This time it was all moms - it was also all of the complicated US paperwork. It took us about 2 hours to get everyone ready. The three of us made a lot of use out of the playroom that was right down the hall from our room. We ended our day with a group pizza party in the playroom - yum! We also got our girls' Chinese passports! Mak's has her picture from before we met her in it and is all ready for her US Visa!
That was to be our last day in Nanchang and also in Jiangxi province...Makena's home province for her first year of life! It was happy and sad for us. We grew accustomed to the area and the food (although the pollution was not very pleasant) - we were probably the only ones in our group who weren't thrilled to be heading to the next step! What I wasn't thrilled about, but did make it through, was packing. The day we arrived in Nanchang, I unpacked everything. And I mean, everything! So putting the puzzle back together and making sure that neither of our bags exceeded the 44 lb weight limit was great fun! We did it though! One more step closer to home!
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