Holding Back Winter (as long as we can!)
It has turned cold in China and of course life at the Home of Hope holds no exceptions to the weather.
The other day we decided all the Nursery babies and Kindergarten children needed to get outside for some fresh air.
The sun was shining and over all it was a beautiful day… the only thing was it was cold!
Most of the older children were in school but the children in both the Nursery and the Kindergarten were starting to go stir crazy after a very lively summer then suddenly being cooped up all day in the Nursery and classroom.
So we bundled up all the Nursery babies and the Kindergarten children and took them outside along with several of the older children who were home from school due to tests and other school functions. We put a lot of blankets on the concrete and everyone sat in the sun and just soaked it in.
Some of the House Nannies took their sewing and / or knitting outside with them. In the picture at the left House Mother Mai Xia is sewing one of the blankets back together.
What they do is they have a blanket that is very similar to two sheets being sewed together like a very large pillow case creating a very large envelope type blanket. On one end it is sewed together loosely so it can be undone easily.
Then inside the blanket is a very thick sheet of cotton or else another quilt type thing full of Goose Down. When they need to wash the blanket they just take out the stitches on the loosely sewn end, remove the ‘filling’, wash the outside and then put the filling back end and loosely stitch it back up. Those blankets are warm.
In the pictures above, the little ones are getting attention from the house mothers (left) while Rachel is getting a piggy back ride from Joseph (right).
Rachel and Dawn are showing their individual personalities as they respond to this new activity of going outside, all bundled up and sitting on a bunch of blankets…
Rachel (above left) is the curious one and her looks are usually ones of curiosity or just laughter. Dawn on the other hand cries at everything new that comes her way. The house mothers told us that if she wore one color for several days and then they put a different color on her, she would cry! This is all part of the joy in watching these children grow.
It is a tradition in China (this one goes way, way back) that if you don’t eat jiaozi (Chinese Dumplings) on the first day of winter your ears will freeze and fall off…
Jiaozi is one of the things that takes many hands to prepare… especially when you are preparing it for more than eighty hungry children and staff… it starts out with a small piece of dough about the size of a silver dollar pancake. They then fill it with a mixture of some sort… (what sort depends on the cook and who can talk the loudest) fold it in half then steam it. One could say it is a little bit like the Southern fried pies in the States only not fried and much smaller and the filling is not sweet but usually very garlicy.
The photo above give you a little idea of how it looks in our kitchen when something like this is going on… We wish you could hear the sounds that are associated with this photo… -smile-
Posted: November 18th, 2007 under Abandoned Babies, Home of Hope Staff, Our Children.