JSQ's Adoption Blog

Fairly frequently, I experience difficulty sleeping after working late, and I end up either watching tv or pointlessly browsing the Internet until I think I'm tired enough to fall asleep. One of the sites I sometimes visit is an adoption forum I frequented prior to our trip to China this past January. On the rare occasions where I return like I did tonight, I typically look for families adopting children from Huizhou SWI like us. It's a small group, and it's interesting to share experiences and pictures.

Unfortunately, I didn't find what I was looking for. I found something else:

Smoke chokes 8 disabled children to death in fire at southern China welfare home

The actual story the post pointed to disappeared from Yahoo so I'll summarize the content here. In March 2008, 8 children from Huizhou SWI, ages 4 to 8, died of smoke inhalation when a blanket fell on a lit mosquito coil. The Governor of the province, Huang Hua Hua, has promised severe punishment for those responsible.

Unless I'm mistaken about the SWI (which I don't believe I am since they mentioned the adjoining retirement center), these were children Violet probably knew. If we hadn't brought her home in January, she would have probably been in a nearby room. "Those responsible" could very well be one or more of the caregivers we met, and severe punishment in China usually means much more than fines or jail time.

For her first 2 1/2 years, Violet likely considered the kids in Huizhou SWI to be her brothers and sisters and the nannies her parents. For all intents and purposes, this was her family for those 30 months, and she may have lost several of them just 6 weeks after she joined our family.