Seeds of Change: Renovation and Building Plans
I am haunted by the circumstances that have overwhelmed the Hengdong SWI, months now after my visit there. But as early as the long return flight home in February 2005 I began to try to think of ways that I could help. I decided then that at least I could supply those interested with more information from my trip so I began adding to my earlier weblog posts important bits and pieces from my notes--having noticed for example that my original description of the orphanage was probably far too cautious, and therefore too vague.
Next I proposed to the yahoo news group for Hengdong SWI adoptive families the idea of raising money for the orphanage, suggesting a project that would paint and caulk its interior as a means of providing the greatest benefit for a relatively modest investment.
Halfway across the planet and through a third party contact in Hunan, I uneasily proposed the painting project to officials in Hengdong then waited for a reply, and worried that they might see the proposal as an attempt to meddle with their priorities and that this might cause them to second-guess their decision to allow my visit there. In a few weeks news came back that officials had agreed to the project, but then the date on which they promised to provide a cost estimate came and went with no further contact. I began to worry again. Finally, three weeks overdue, I received an email message from my Hunan intermediary. It relayed some stunning news.
In the attempt to determine the costs for the interior painting project, Hengdong county officials had determined the obvious: too much was wrong with the basic structure of the building that painting and patching wouldn't address. Therefore, they had sought and obtained a permit from the Hunan Provincial Civil Affairs Bureau for a more complete renovation of the entire building, a much larger project that would begin almost immediately. The longer term plan to eventually build a new orphanage was still on the table, but directing nearly all the SWI's revenue toward this far off goal, several years away, wasn't worth the adversity suffered by the children and staff at the present facility in the meantime.
Omigosh, I thought as I read this, and promptly knocked over a cup of coffee next to my computer keyboard.
The project was to begin in June 2005 with seven planned phases to be completed by a target date of January 1, 2006. The building's interior space would be remodeled to accommodate as many as 150 children. It was interesting and perhaps indicative of the urgent need there that despite several groups recently adopting more Hengdong SWI children, the renovation plan also said there were 87 children presently housed at the orphanage, a net increase of more than a dozen since my visit there just three months before.
News of the renovation plan was a critical milestone in improving the situation at the Hengdong SWI, but I hoped that adoptive families of Hengdong SWI children and other interested parties would continue to look for ways to support the orphanage to reinforce the sense that a lot of families around the world really care about conditions at the Hengdong SWI and the children there. This, as could now be demonstrated, makes a positive difference.
A few months later I received a message from China saying that officials in Hengdong had decided not to renovate the present Hengdong SWI building as an orphanage but instead to begin construction of an entirely new orphanage building and before the end the year. The present building would still be renovated but to eventually house only the seniors and war veterans that it was originally built for, in keeping with the plan to separate these two groups.
I suspect that Hengdong officials probably determined as work began that renovating the present building to house so many children simply wasn't the best use of their funds, given its structural condition. Hints to this futility in Hengdong may have been the cracks in the roof of the orphanage that were mentioned in the renovation plan, in addition to the cracks I saw in the building's walls and around window frames.
This latest change in plans may also have been a victory for Hengdong SWI Director Chen Ming and the orphanage staff, who could have been worried that the renovation project would delay or dim their hopes for the new building. In any case, it seemed the Chinese government was ready to direct more resources toward the Hengdong SWI.
This all brings me back to the twin subjects of fate and responsibility, thoughts of which kept me so occupied in the wee hours before that frosty morning in February when Leon, Chen, and I were greeted and welcomed through the entrance to the Hengdong SWI. If only in the sense that if this story were to end here, it's within these subjects that those verbs I first mentioned at the start--hope, love, help--can best apply.
