Chengdu Civil Affairs office
I’m told that the Chengdu Civil Affairs office is closed right now. This means that all adoptions in the Sichuan Province are on hold until the Civil Affairs office can reopen.
I know that many had been told their agency wasn’t going to send them to Chengdu for the time being for a variety of reasons (continuing aftershocks, lack of medical facilities right now, etc.) but it would appear the decision has now been made for agencies and families.
I have not seen any speculation on how long it may take for the Civil Affairs office to reopen.
UPDATE: A quick search of news shows that the Chengdu Civil Affairs personnel appear to be helping to distribute items to the quake victims. The following comes from http://www.cctv.com/english/20080528/101796.shtml:
The civil affairs office is also listed as a donation spot for those wishing to donate supplies (it’s only cost effective for those in country to donate supplies, from the U.S. it makes much more sense to give money to an organization that can buy supplies in China. Please don’t look up the address and send things there. Money is much better spent buying supplies in China than it is in buying supplies overseas and shipping them to China. If you want to donate, HTS is still in need of help.)
The point of the update is basically to say that the Civil Affairs people seem to have their hands full handling the earthquake aftermath right now.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:48 am
I’m just wondering what that means for us…LID 1.19.06? Does it just depend on where our daughter lives now? Are all Chinese adoptions on hold? This feels overwhelming!
I love this community. Thank you for keeping us posted, RQ!
May 29th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Any news on how this will affect Hanzhong? It’s in lower Shaanxi and was also affected by the quakes? They had an aftershock on Mon of 5.9 or so. Our daughter is waiting there.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:23 am
In the face of such adversity this makes sense….but only to some degree. I am at a lost why if children already referred to IA families are not allowed to join them, possibly in a neighbouring Province. Wouldn’t this then allow some of the earthquake effected children access to housing, care etc.
Chengdu Civil Affairs is at a guess absolutely swamped with trying to reunite as many families as possible ( or would a different department be doing this?) I am not trying to be cold, but come to terms with how long this may take.
My heart aches for all the children, families of Chengdu and waiting families from IA.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:34 am
RQ…although adoptions are on hold from Sichuan Province in terms of travel to the province, did it sound like that referrals would be halted from this province? It makes sense to me that they MIGHT be, but not for sure.
Thanks for getting the forum back up!!
May 29th, 2008 at 8:49 am
The only thing I’ve heard being closed is the Chengdu Civil Affairs office.
I do not know if the CCAA will refer babies from this province in this batch or not.
And, bornfromtheheart, I don’t believe it is as simple as “just let them do it in another province.” Think about it, could Nevada step in and finalize a case that had been in the California court system, just because a courthouse in California was closed for a few weeks? No, they might be able to move it to another courthouse in California, but to move a state issue to another state would never be able to happen if the child lived in California and had always lived in California.
And for everyone who hears this and starts asking bizarre questions, let me try to go back to the Katrina analogy again. When the hurricane hit, pretty much everything in the immediate area was halted if it wasn’t part of the lifesaving process (rescue operations, food and water delivery, shelter preparations, etc).
But, life went on as usual in Atlanta, GA and Memphis,TN and Birmingham AL, so of course things went on as normal in farther away places like New York and Chicago and San Francisco.
Don’t turn this into something it isn’t. China is really big. All of China is not “shut down”.
May 29th, 2008 at 9:10 am
RQ, well said. I was just thinking the same thing. Lisa
May 29th, 2008 at 9:15 am
RQ,
Just a quick question. I noticed that I cannot log on to the latest poll. Is this down also?
Thanks-
May 29th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I also believe that it would alleviate some housing problems, but I believe that paperwork at this time is problably hard to get to. Also most of the priority is where it needs to be helping those that need help. This is such a huge devastation, I read somewhere that if this quake would have happened here it would stretch from california to maine. If thats huge I hope we never have another catastrophe this big anywhere in the world again. My thoughts and prayers are with the people of China.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:18 am
My little girl is waiting for us just outside of Chengdu in Nanchong, we got LOA on 5/19 and I was hoping for a quick TA… that hope was just flushed down the #*%#*@! Our agency rep had checked on this the week after the earthquake and the civil affairs office said it would process them no problem. I know they need to help with the relief effort, but I’ll be honest, this really sucks for us and the other families that are waiting on TA for our little ones in Sichuan. Selfish as that may sound, that’s the way I feel. I also happen to feel like I may throw up, get me off this ride please!!!
May 29th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Melissa - California to Maine? I can see that maybe it was felt in an area that wide, but there was not damage in anywhere near that size of an area. Think the size of two medium sized states - that’s more the damage zone… and the zone that needs rescue is even smaller than that.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:33 am
IansMom - my heart breaks for you. To know your child is there and to not be able to get there…. nothing anyone says is going to make it any better. Knowing on a logical level why they can’t process things right now doesn’t really help the emotional side very much.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:45 am
IansMom,
I am so sorry for your circumstance. My husband and son received our little girl in Chengdu on March 18th. I can’t tell you how many times I have thought about the fact that they could have very well been in China when the quake happened. We waited a very long time from LID to LOA, 190 days thankfully that was all it took. I do wonder about her foster family and how they are doing now.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Hi RQ
I am also wondering about the current poll. I cannot access it either. Any plans to fix it?
May 29th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Yes, the poll is broken. And it seems that someone has deleted all of the blog images as well. I mentioned that for everything that gets fixed, something else is broken, right?
If I didn’t have that rule about watching your language I’d be getting pretty colorful right about now.
May 29th, 2008 at 11:16 am
I heard the Californina to Maine statement, I think that was in reference to the amount of population that was affected.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
The damaged area is roughly the equivalent of the distance from L.A. to San Francisco, about three latitudinal degrees.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Is the current poll gone for good?
May 29th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
mtpca - I hope not, but it’s broken and has to be fixed and it’s probably not going to happen today. I just got the images back up on the blog, and I have three or four other things to fix as well and real life is interfering right now (in the form of a boss who just handed me a bunch of stuff to do.)