Off to the Races

First of all, thank you all for reading and supporting me on this trip!
Tomorrow after a grueling arisal of 4:30am, I will be on my way to Vancoover and then Beijing,China! Time has flown and I'm finally going to board that airplane! This last couple of weeks have been unexpectably calm, though in the past 10 minutes my dearest mother has reminded me twice to not forget my passport and three times not to forget to dress modestly. That's one huge thing that I didn't expect, the dress code in China. Right now, thanks to what everyone has told me, I'm expecting people to run around in 80 degree weather in long sleves and jeans.... So we'll see what happens. At least I got a shopping trip out of it!! The thing I'm most worried about right now is buying my train ticket from Beijing to Zheng Zhou, and the actual arival. Aparently the woman who's picking me up doesn't know any English, quick shout out to my Chinese teachers... THANK YOU SO MUCH. Another worry is the phone situation, I'm going to call my aunt the second I land in China, however I may need to get a new phone, which surprised me because you'd think with all the technology we have these days that international cell phone service might be pretty essential. Anyways I'm just about to go have my goodbye dinner with my best friend Maria, certain tears for this one.

Kira

The Beginning

So I'll start with my story,
My name is Kira James Burleson (Kira Bee) and I was adopted from Hunan, China when I was 10 months old.  Currently I live in Boulder, CO and have been studying Chinese for more than 9 years (off and on). There is little to no information on my biological parents and since Hunan is a huge province there is only speculation that my home town is Chang De. Through CCAI, my parents, Laura Caruso and Joe Burleson, were able to bring me back to the states and I became a citizen in 1997. I have just recently started to understand and explore the emotional aspects about being adopted because up until about a month ago I was in complete denial of the issues that come with being adopted.

Recently I was offered an amazing opportunity to go to Zheng Zhou, China and volunteer at Lily's Care Center. I will be the youngest person to ever volunteer with CCAI in this capacity. I leave May 27th and return July 7th, flying in and out of Beijing and taking a high speed train to Zheng Zhou. I will be staying in the orphanage and will assume the duties of a nanny, which means I will be assigned a couple of babies that I will be responsible for (feeding, changing, bathing). Words cannot even start to describe my excitement about this trip! I hope to gain closure and grow as a person throughout this journey.
Kira