Faces of the Abandoned

Nearby, a boy and a girl, both 2-year-olds with encephalitis, lay on pillows on the play surface. Internal fluid had inflated the top of their heads to about the size of a soccer balls. Their delicate skin looked shiny and translucent, the tautness pulling a vastness into their eyes, as they looked around wildly. They held my hand tightly when I slipped my finger in their palms. They smiled at dangling toys.

Some of the children had to stay in their cribs, spina bifida curving their backs into an extreme S shape. The ayi wheeled their beds into the main playroom, so they could join everyone else.

This home only gives up when the last thread of hope is severed.

The young girl with encephalitis, Tai Tai, went to doctors around the country to see if an operation could save her. All the doctors said they could not place a shunt to drain the fluid, but the hospice workers still want to try one more doctor in Hong Kong.

A dying life, hospice workers say, is just as valuable as a living one. They bounce the children up and down, played ball with them and hugged them to fill the babies' pitifully last few days with affection. Although the organization itself is not a religious one, some Roman Catholic staff sometimes baptize the babies before they die, hoping to give them a heavenly Father in absence of an earthly one.
                              
ON ADOPTION
Permanent adoption is the best option for these children. Jun Jun was one of the lucky ones. Her ride arrived in the early morning, while the directing staff was still eating breakfast in the kitchen and Jun Jun was still asleep. The ayi gently shook her awake and dressed her in the prettiest clothes they could find--green pants with embroidered flowers, a yellow dress with a collar and tapered sleeves, and pink plastic sandals. When it was time to go, Jun Jun climbed into the van herself. She was smiling as the door closed.

For the most part, where adopted children live remained a mystery to the ayi. Children who still had physical or mental abnormalities could not be adopted within China. But those like Jun Jun, who had come to the children's home with a cleft palate, could go anywhere in the world if they were in perfect health.

Esther, the youngest ayi to take care of Jun Jun, left before Jun Jun rolled away in the orphanage van. I found her inside the kitchen washing applesauce off plastic bowls. Her glasses seemed to need constant cleaning that morning, and she took them off frequently to wipe on her tunic.