Orphanage visit

Yesterday we made the trip out of Guangzhou to visit the SWI where Faith had lived since finding (at 4 days old) until Monday.  It was as I expected, though it surprised her father a bit.  She continued to be quiet and subdued throughout the trip down and during our short stay.  As we prepared to leave, the ayi that spent the most time with her (the one they referred to as 'her ayi') took her aside briefly.  I have no idea what was said, but Faith's eyes were moist when that interchange was over.  She wept a little as we drove away, but within a few miles was asleep beside me.  As her head bobbed I tried to lean her into me, but she jolted awake and upright instead of relaxing, then a while later she fell back to sleep, upright.

Once back to the hotel we were back to our usual 'routine' of quiet compliance.  We've brought a number of games that don't require language and she's enjoying them with us.  We also did some more 'school' this morning and she willingly repeated object names as we worked with flashcards.  (So wonderful to hear her voice!)   We've discovered during our 'school' time this week that she has all the times tables memorized and can name all the letters of the alphabet, both upper and lower case.  She also knew a few of Alex's sight words.  Sure would be nice to know what they'd been teaching in her English class this Fall.  We were told at the orphanage that she'd stay up until 10pm at night to do school work and is a very good student.  She clearly enjoys our 'paperwork' time each day.  She has beautiful handwriting.  I'm starting to think that our plan to delay school enrollment until September may need to be revisited.  So hard to know.