A mother´s love

Hi there!

This is me now. I´m sitting here on my bed (read: floor) in my little room, preparing my next interview with Chinese orphans. I´ve already done 4, and it was amazing to hear the girls´ and boys´ stories, but also very emotional. So many things I take for granted, the most essential things in life, like being thankful for my mother yesterday on Norwegian Mother´s Day. What is more important and basic in life than having a Mom? I don´t know. I feel like I don´t ever want to complain again about petty little things when I know I have some of the most basic essential in life - a mother´s love.

I don´t cry when I am here, and sometimes it feels like my emotions are shut off. Maybe it is so I can handle living here, with them, or to be able to have an objective view when I interview and write about them. But when they told me their stories of losing parents or long years of waiting without parents, I could feel tears filling my eyes, just seeing how vulnerable they are in some ways, and how small, yet in a stage where they really want to be adults. I wonder how their lives will continue in a year or two... when they are definitely not kids any more. I wonder how they´ll be able to make it in the big, scary world without some of the foundations normal to most of us.

Yet there is so much joy and love in this place, much more than you would imagine, and so much more than I have found in other orphanages I´ve been to. Sometimes it sounds just like a big large, happy household. There´s all generations here, old and young living together, there is a lot of hugging and fun fighting, and a lot of laughter. And I see the older kids take care of the younger ones, loving them and instructing them, and what comes to mind then, is strangely enough the word family. Because I do see family here, even though it´s not an ordinary one. I do see mothers and fathers, even though not in the normal sense.

22 minutes left before a traditional Korean dinner meal (I´ve had a stomach ache the whole first 3 weeks, probably due to the strong spicy food!) and then I´ll sit down with a fine young man.... and learn more about his thoughts on life and his experiences.

I hope my heart can handle another one. That´s how I feel now. But I think I´ll be okay!