Yesterday, we visited the unwed mother's shelter. I was really looking forward to this visit, as we were going to do activities with the mothers that we have never done before.
After watching the video presentation of the facility, we all made bread together. It was some sort of a sweet bread with a sweet chestnut filling inside. The unwed mothers learn this vocation to possibly use in the outside world whether they have their child with them or not. While the bread was baking, we toured the facility. This was the first time our group was able to see some of the babies. If the mother chooses to keep their baby, they are able to stay in the facility for a year to continue her education and/or vocational training all while still receiving medical care for herself and baby.
When the tour was over, we all ate the bread we had just made. Then came time for the introductions of our team members and question and answer period with some of the unwed mothers. Once again, I thought I was safe not bringing my sunglasses with me, WRONG. A couple of the mothers were crying, one mother had given her baby up for adoption three months ago and she was feeling emotionally terrible. Once more conversation occurred, more of the mothers and us team members were crying.
For some of the adoptees, with this being their first trip back to Korea, this day was very hard on them. As an adoptee, I have always considered myself very lucky to have had the chance to be adopted. The big fear of the mothers is that we are angry at them for the decision they had made. I have never been angry at my birthmother, I know, as a mother, this was the hardest decision of her life. But for us, it meant life or death. For them, it meant a life of hardship, struggle, and heartache for the rest of their lives. This was another tough time to have to leave, we all tried to comfort the mothers before we left.
There are two young kids in our group so the mothers really attached to them. We were taking the bullet train back to Seoul and two of the mothers had met us there to give the two kids and a couple of the adoptees presents. This was the mother that had relinquished her baby up for adoption three months ago.
Once we got back to Seoul, which only takes an hour on the bullet train from Daejon, we went shopping at Namdaemun market with a few of the team members. We all took the subway, which was, once again, an adventure since one of the members has to walk on crutches. In order to get down into the subway system, you have to walk down two sets of stairs, but THEN there is an elevator available to go down yet another floor to ride the subway, doesn't make sense!
After walking the market and it getting colder and we were all getting tired, we all decided to take taxi's back to the hotel. I would have taken a taxi back no matter what, I was tired! And we hadn't eaten dinner yet and it was 8:30. We all decided we would try the chicken our tour leader had told us about and have it delivered. No other places in the hotel were available to gather in , so we had the chicken delivered to my room, which came at 9:50pm, late dinner! But we had a wonderful time together, sharing dinner and talking. It was actually nice to just have this little intimate and quiet dinner together. It was a great way to end such an emotional day.
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