Nov 14, Ba Vi: The playground [at the orphanage] is finished! It took three days of Road Rules–style teamwork, with minimal tools, and a lot of language barriers, but it was very rewarding. Everyone—even the inmates at the Ba Vi facility [the nearby prison]—pitched in, and at one point all of us, prisoners included, were lifting the giant play set to place it just right. Even the guards got in on the action.

The whole thing was followed up by a formal ribbon cutting ceremony that involved the chicken dance, a rap sung by two of the Roadmonkey members, and ladies dressed in traditional garb—all to a surreal soundtrack of artillery fire from the nearby Army base, and an even stranger rain of ash from something that some was burning, somewhere nearby. When the ribbon was cut, the kids went bonkers. Very likely that many had never seen a playground, at least not one this snazzy.

Today we head back to the playground to hang with the kids for a bit. Then we ride in the van to Hanoi, where we'll kill the afternoon and evening shopping for kitsch (my goal: a commie track suit) and dodging scooters before boarding our various flights on Saturday and beyond. —Mike Kessler

Click here to read Mike's previous Vietnam Diary entries.



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