Chengdu, China

September 2004. We again teamed up with Half the Sky to build natural playscapes at orphanages in China. We had visited the sites in January 2004 to scope out materials, possible contractors, plants and the site itself. One site was a huge weedy pond and the other was a giant concrete slab! Phew! (at least we knew whatever we were able to accomplish it would be an improvement!) My wife and I returned in September and the first 2 weeks were our "Prep weeks". With a support team of our interpreter/negotiator extraordinaire Mr Ji and the help of the directors at both institutions we began racing around getting materials together for the build. We visited plant nurseries, flower markets, stone furniture factories, sod farms, sculpture warehouses, and farmlands filled with Topiary and living architecture. My favorite! I'd been fascinated with the idea of growing living tunnels and gazebos and playhouses - I even found a book called, "How to Grow a Chair" - and here we were walking through fields of the stuff. And to think that the Chinese have been sculpting with trees for thousands of years. Of course...

Once everything was ordered it was time for the American volunteers to show up for the actual build. It was crazy. It was chaotic. The job site was the weirdest you could ever imagine (the entire first day was spend breaking clay clods). But little by little (and with the help of hired chinese laborers) we got it all done. The final days the children would come out to inspect and play and even draw their favorite parts of the playscape. We created new hills with slides, a giant sand area with a water trickle on boulders, a living playhouse, a soft baby crawl pad with new shade trees, windchimes, flowers, a living tunnel and dome with sculpted stone elephant benches inside, tiny bells tied and hidden in shrubs along paths, a stone bridge, a vegetable garden, a secret bamboo hideout and more. We even found "sensitive plants" - small ferns that fold up when a child touches them. In a few minutes the ferns unfold themselves and you can touch them again!

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