We met our guide, John, this morning for a full day of visiting the spot where Peter was found and his orphanage. The finding spot is approximately an hour and a half drive from Nanjing and the orphanage is about an hour further. Peter was found outside of a Civil Affairs office. This means that his parents took a great risk to make sure that he would be found by someone who would be able to help him. John explained to us that Peter's parents could probably not afford the costs of his health care and knew that his medical needs would be paid by the government if he was abandoned. This part of the Jiangsu province appeared to be a "suburb" of Nanjing with nice, new residential areas, businesses, factories and universities.
Peter and Grace both fell asleep and had good naps as we drove to Peter's Social Welfare Institute (orphanage). The director met us and treated us to a lunch of traditional Chinese food. Dave even tried the eel! Grace and Peter enjoyed the noodles. The director is very nice woman who seemed to take a special interest in Peter. He liked her as well and was content to be with her. After lunch, we went to Peter's wing of the campus and met his three nannies and the children that he lived with. One nanny in particular was very fond of him. It was naptime so some of the children were sleeping. Others enjoyed seeing us and playing with Peter. We brought Dum-Dums for the kids but we gave them to the nannies to distribute after naptime. When the time came for us to leave, Peter was very distressed and cried. It broke our hearts but he settled down shortly after we started the drive back to Nanjing.
Please check out some pictures from today on this
page.
