We are logged in!

We are officially logged in with the CCAA ( China Center for Adoption Affairs) as of September 3. Now we are just waiting for our LOA (Letter of Acceptance) from China. Travel will still be in January or February but at least we are one step closer to meeting Levi!

Here is some info about Levi's city. He lives in Wenzhou, Zhejiang at the Child Welfare Institute of Wenzhou City. The population is 7.5 million.

Wikipedia has these interesting things to say about Wenzhou:

Business Culture:

"Due to both cultural and geographical remoteness and its lack of natural resources (land, minerals, etc.), the Chinese central government has left the people of Wenzhou relatively autonomous. Away from the center of the political and economic stage, its people are more independent, self-reliant, and generally more business-oriented. Numerous books have been published about the the business sense of people from Wenzhou. The people of Wenzhou are equipped with business sense and a commercial culture more dominant than anywhere else in China."

Religion:

Most people are Buddhist, around 80% of the residents, and there are numerous Buddhist temples in the city. But recently there has been a rapid growth of Christian community, one source claims that between 15 and 20% of the city's population is Christian. For this reason the city has come to be known as "China's Jerusalem". Cool huh?

Language:

The language there is said to be "notoriously eccentric" due to the geographic location (surrounded by mountains and sea) and the influence from other Chinese languages. For this reason it won't do us any good to try and learn Chinese ( Mandarin) before we go. The guide that we have will teach us basic words to communicate with Levi.

Here is a link to a page that the BBC has called "In Pictures: A Day In The Life of Wenzhou"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/asia_pac_a_day_in_the_life_of_wenzhou/html/1.stm

I can hardly wait to check it out for myself!