10/17 Another First

Walking home way too late,a motorbike dashed by me attempting to grab my bag - with my laptop in it no less.  I fell to the ground with my bag - now mangled like my hand.  Five women ran to my aid making me sit in a little stool at the side of the road dusting me off and checking for injuries.  A women that must have been 90 came out and applied some pungent ointment to a wound on my hand.  I kept trying to get up but they insisted that I stay.  Made me check all my belongings.  At one point the police drove by and they all laughed. After about a half hour a younger women came over and gently said "five minutes". I figured she was going to put me on her motorbike and ride me home as I had given them my address in broken Vietnamese.  She came back, took my bag and then me by the waste and gently guided me home.  It was a long walk as I didn't know what to say and felt really awkward walking so closely knit with a woman I didn't know - I don't walk that close to women I do know.  But by the time I got home, we knew each other a little better and I was oh so gratefully to be home safe. I'm just a little in awe of the immediate and abundant generosity of Saigon women.