Ryan's Recollections from Bo - Day 1

Yes, yesterday was absolutely insane here. I was absolutely exhausted with everything that went on. Plenty of stories to tell. No tears were shed by Bo or us, which was nice.

Our guide told us that Bo would not meet us until we arrived at the next location that we were going to this morning, so we were surprised to see him walk through the door - but it all went pretty well. He came with these 3 pairs of clothing that he had on, the bag that we sent him which included the disposable cameras (that look like they were used), two books that have traditional mandarin and pinyon (which is the phonetic pronounciation of each word in English characters), a Power Ranger-style toy that was evidently his favorite toy and the one he decided to take with him when they allowed him to take only one, and some workbooks that show evidence of him learning to write English letters, etc.

After a short amount of confusion as to whether or not we could follow him into the adjacent room and meet him, Alison brought him a stuffed tiger (the lsu mascot) which he didn't have much response to. He was very pleased to have a large bag of 'treats' that he was travelling with (about a dozen boiled eggs, hot dog/spam sticks, salty crackers, and sugar-free candy bars). We were definitely concerned about his diabetes and the fact that under the watchful eye of his caretakers from the orphanage must have had like 6 of the sugar-free candy bars (not small bars by any standards). I must have fought with him over those things at least 3-4 times before we finally made that bag disappear (though I was disappointed to find that we still have the bag in our hotel room when I returned - thankfully he doesn't know that).

We finally got his attention with the second toy that we selected, a matchbox car (Air Products tanker truck), and he was fine with rolling that back and forth with us or Aaron Smith (first-grader who is travelling with his family to meet his new sister, Chen). Funny story with these two is that Aaron had a very nice matchbox racing style car that he pulled out and tried to introduce to Bo. When the car was passed Bo's way he immediately pockets Aaron's car, and gave us difficulty in retrieving it.

From these instances with the food and the matchbox car, I quickly realized that I may have felt prepared by writing down various phrases that I might need to know, etc...but I never once thought to write down a phrase like - "Stop hitting me!" or "Do not bite!". Thankfully no blood was lost - but his attempts were fairly clear within the first few hours.
Other than the car, he really gravitated towards our camera. Thankfully we have these small 'affordable' digital cameras that we didn't feel too bad in letting him handle without giving him directions - and he must have taken two hundred photos between the waits at the notary and our long car trip to Baoding.

After the notary visit, we were instructed that we would leave for Baoding for his passport photo at 1:15 - but we quickly found out that this gave us about 20 minutes time to return to the hotel room, quickly test Bo's blood sugar (after the numerous carb loaded candies), and grab a needed lunch. We got into our hotel room, and Bo initially was a bit concerned over the appearance of the Glucometer, but he accepted it and did not fight his mother in her attempts to test his blood sugar (he was about 146 at the time - which was not bad at all considering the amount and types of food that he ate). One moment that I enjoyed was his interest in a Red Sox cap of mine that he found on a table. He quickly began reaching for it and once he got it he put it on and became attached to it for the remainder of the afternoon. No coaxing necessary!

We made our way into the KFC (I am not a fan personally, but knew it was either that or nothing as it was directly connected to our hotel building). As we walked in we diverted the first street vendor of toys that we found, but I had a feeling that this was not the last time that we would encounter him. As we walked to the counter to order, the cashier burst out laughing as we began to attempt to converse with her, but one of our heroes for the day stepped right-in and was able to speak a bit of English with us. The order may not have been everything we wanted, but it was effective in getting us food. Alison ordered milk for her and Bo, and we found that they only serve warm milk - which Bo thankfully enjoyed (as well as ketchup and french fries).

We wrapped everything up after a few minutes of eating at our table and took the remainder to-go as we were sure to be running late. Once outside, Bo made sure to pull his way over to the toy vendor, and after determining that the prices for his toys for 5 yuen (approximately $.80 cents American), I handed over money for Bo to pick one toy out. The street vendor then quickly confused the boy into enjoying a number of the toys by winding them up and what-not. Bo was eventually whittled down to 4 toys, and the vendor was paid (4 toys for less than 4 American dollars could have been much worse than it was). Once again Alison and I determined that our communication barrier with Bo and the vendor led us down a path we didn't want to go today, but it could have been worse I suppose! Besides, we didn't have much in the way of entertainment prepared for the long car trip we were about to take.

We loaded up into the car with our new toys, and Bo was relatively pleasant on the way up. After drinking both milks and water, Bo had to pee about 1 1/2 hours into our car trip, and we quickly pulled over while Michael in the front row of the van was able to make his way outside with Bo (this also happened on our return trip and is something that Alison and I must learn to be prepared for).

One funny story that we have from this trip to Baoding is that Michael, our guide, asks Alison and I to prepare the money that will change hands, and Bo catches his mom counting money and reaches his hand out for some. I decided to responded to his request by giving him a crisp $.10 cent valued bill. He thought this was the greatest thing in the world and made sure to make his way around the room and wave it at everyone that he could find at the passport location in Baoding. I had no idea what I was to do with this ten-cent bill, and I found a great way to get rid of them (thankfully I have a few more as well as some 50-cent bills). On the return drive (approximately 2 hours) we succumbed and allowed him to play the Nintendo DS, which he seemed to take a liking to.

We returned to our hotel after a very long day at about 7pm, and after checking Bo's blood sugar (high 400's) and giving him an insulin injection, we made a decision to go to a Korean restaurant in our hotel for dinner. If I would have been thinking at the time of this decision, I would have selected room service in a heartbeat, but the ladies at the restaurant were wonderful in all aspects of Bo (including some much needed translation - like I don't want rice, I want noodles. Good to know for next time I suppose!). I talked Alison down from going to the grocery store last night, and I think we are going to let him freely wander the breakfast buffet to tell us what foods he likes, wants, etc. He attempts to eat EVERYTHING with his chop sticks, and hopefully we are able to teach him more effective ways to eat things like soup! He also particularly enjoyed playing the drums with his chopsticks, so I have no doubt that he will be playing the drums while ba-ba is on the guitar playing Rock Band.

After dinner, we returned to our room and immediately began removing his layers of clothes and dropped him into the bath. He was OK with this and was pleased with his new toothbrush and pajama set. He eventually crashed out on the bed alongside me, but when Alison hopped up to get a blog published before bed (for all of you who wanted something to read in the A.M.), Bo jumped up to help her out and I crashed out on the bed.

As Alison mentioned, the scrap book really did help, as his care takers looked at it with him and went over each picture to help jog his memory and help bring across the point that we were the same people. I was surprised to see that Bo's reaction each time the care takers left was of understanding, I think that they prepared him pretty well for this day. Communication will be frustrating at times, but it can only get better (one would hope).

Today we have nothing on our itinerary, so I hope that we have a relatively peaceful day lounging around the hotel's indoor pool, etc. Wednesday is a shopping day, which may not be a real good idea, based upon our communication troubles with Bo and the street vendor! We will have to work on the phrase 'One toy' (yi banshu)!

It is now 2:30 am here, so it is time to head back to sleep. Will make sure to post more photos during our free day today.

Ryan