Village Voice
Amy Salmon's E-Mail from Vietman (Part 2)
I have gotten a Vietnamese sim card for my phone (kept the same battered exterior, but they glued it up a little for me so it’s in slightly better shape) but I just realized that I didn't write down the phone number. Oops. The woman I'm staying with (who owns the guest house) has it in her phone, though, so I'll get it from her and send it along.
I've decided to stay at this place; it's really nice and the owners make everything about HCMC very easy. It's owned by a couple, and they are both fluent in French; educated here during the colonial period. The wife took me out on her motorbike to handle the phone thing last night and gave me a little tour of some of the highlights of old Saigon, including the Cathedrale Notre Dame de Saigon (with similar elements to its larger cousin, Notre Dame de Paris) and the Catholic school where she learned both French and English.
Turns out she started speaking French at about the
same time
as I did, and she learned some of the same French songs. So we
were
driving along the busy streets of
I suspected that Tu (the wife) spoke
French the first
night I was here from the accent I heard in her English, and just took
a shot
and asked her, in French, if she spoke French. Her face just lit
up and
she started chattering away, in French of course. Fortunately my
French
has stayed in remarkably good shape, so I can keep up. And it's
getting
better again by the day; since she's more comfortable in French than
English,
she uses it most of the time with me. I love
that. It's like
a little reward for choosing to come to
I'm even getting to eat baguettes in the
morning again,
and other times as well, which is just heaven for me.
They're good,
too; much closer to the ones served in
I'll try and write some more this weekend, and get out and
take some pictures. I've got to stop now and do some things for
class
tomorrow...this is much more fun, but that's got a due date!
Love you, Amy
or, if you prefer, Mademoiselle Saigon, Your Foreign Correspondent :)
Editor’s note: Amy
Salmon returned to
This just in: Amy is
on the move again! She has accepted a
teaching position in a school just outside