Pictures from the orphanage

Hi everyone -- After Darese and I received our referral for Hannah, we sent a care package to the orphanage through an on-line company (www.blessidkids.com). The care package included a panda bear and pink blanket for Hannah, and some candy, nuts, and other goodies for the nannies and other caretakers. It also included a disposable camera. We included a letter to the director thanking them for taking such good care of the children, and asking them to use the camera to take pictures of Hannah in the orphanage. Unfortunately, some institutes just don't have the staff to acommodate these types of requests. However, we were really fortunate in that we got the camera back, along with Hannah's pink blanket and panda bear. The blanket and panda bear don't seem to have been used at the orphanage, which is fine. We have to imagine it would be quite difficult to keep track of what toys belong to which child.

Our guide helped me find a camera store across the street from the hotel to get the film developed. I asked him to ask if we could get the photos put on a CD -- a pretty reasonable request, I thought, since there were 5-6 computers sitting there. However, this certainly was not an upscale camera shop. Our guide shouted back and forth with them for a few minutes (when I say shouting, it sounded like they were actually yelling at each other). Finally, he turned to me and said 'Yes, they can do that.' Total cost for developing, printing 22 pictures, and putting them on a CD in 30 minutes: about $4.00.

Anyway, here are some photos from the camera.





Hannah's report indicated that she liked music and TV, so I guess it was appropriate that they took a picture of her in front of the TV.












Hannah in her crib.










Hannah in her walker...it looks like she's outside on a patio, or something.














In her crib again. We're not sure who the other child is....she wasn't one from our group.











Here's Hannah with her crib-mate, Brianna. Brianna is part of our group, and is the daughter of Billy and Jill from Albany.