19
Location: Beijing, China
Day 17 of this trip was a jam-packed day for everyone. In the morning, I visited the baby home. I was joined by Lauren and Mia upstairs in baby room 4. Loving on some precious babies, I played around and paid special attention to baby YoYo. As YoYo listened to my heartbeat, she eventually lulled away. During this period, little ole Fufu came upstairs for a visit and to explore around the rooms. Between snapping adorable pics of children to cuddling with babies to feeding babies, it can get a little busy at the baby home. Later on we all went to complete our final service at Roundabout. Packing up and lifting heavy boxes can be exhausting and strenuous yet the unique and sometimes flagrant titles of books seems to always pass time. After our shift, all 17 of the group crammed into a 7 seated bus for the ride home (I would believe that that’s illegal but it’s China so oh well!). Finally, after some stressing and nice dressing, we all headed out to dinner for some HOT POT! After dinner, we were all surprised with a karaoke session at the local KTV place. As our room basically turned into a club, we all danced and sang until our voices died. Some memorable songs we sang were Touch My Body(Eric and Pablo haha), 23, Love More (Laura, Hannah, and I hahahahaha), Royals, My Heart Will Go On (Thanks for the lovely performance Thomas), and I’m Yours(the group favorite). After 3 hours of jamming out, the night ended sweetly.
-Sarah
Today I was in the group home, with all the older kids. Since tonight was our fancy dinner, I was slightly dismayed by all the dirt and dust to come. Thankfully, I was soon informed that we would be showering before we left, so I was free to run around. Many of the kids are older, so they aren’t as alarmed by my pale skin, light hair and alien sized eyes. The slight wariness was preferable to outright wailing, so I dealt with it until they warmed up to me. We mostly sprinted around outside but I spent an entire hour following around a little girl who insisted upon pushing around someone else’s wheelchair, even when they needed it. Some of the boys were making a castle out of cigarette butts and sand and one (now one of my friends) was taking the sand and dropping it on their heads. I told him I would spin him around if he didn’t stop, so when he didn’t, I spun him around. Unfortunately, since he had a prosthetic leg when I spun him, it flew off. I went to set him down and suddenly noticed that he was missing a leg. He pushed me off, hopped in a dignified manner until he reached his leg and spent about 10 minutes ignoring me. However, after he stopped, he didn’t want to do anything except for throwing a ball back and forth with me to the extent that when another kid tried to join in, my friend pegged him in the back with the ball. By that point, we had to leave for Roundabout. After a few hours of sorting things, we headed back home to get all dressed up for dinner. Dinner was hot pot. Each person had a little hot plate in front of them and a pot of their choice of broth: tomato, spicy, mushroom and plain. Beef, mutton, noodles, mushrooms, and assorted other foods were placed on the Lazy Susan in front of us. Everything was amazing and I ate so much I was 90 percent sure that I was going to burst out of my dress. I somehow managed to waddle to the KTV, where we sang until eleven o’clock. Some sang duets or solo songs but most were screeching at the top of everyone’s lungs. We all went home with sore throats and fell straight into bed, awaiting the inevitable….awakening.
-Emery