The Girl in the Purple Dress
March 23-MEKONG DELTA
She came out of nowhere. She came with dark black hair, tan skinned, and no shoes. She came wearing a purple dress with small black spots.
On our tour of the Mekong Delta with the SINH tour group, we stopped our boat ride on one of the many tributaries of the Mekong River to travel on foot to a small store for sodas and fruit. I was walking behind a mother and her eight year old daughter. As soon as we left the boats, the Vietnamese girl in the purple dress came. She ran straight to the little girl and put her arm around her. The two girls formed an immediate friendship. They walked arm in arm for twenty paces when the girl in the purple dress darted away to the side of the path, plucked a beautiful pink flower, and gave it to the other girl. The tourist girl smiled in thanks and then turned to show her mother the flower her new friend had given her.
Though the girls did not speak the same language, they found other ways to communicate. They both held up fingers to show each other their age. The girl in the purple dress raised ten fingers, two more than the other despite being much smaller than the tourist girl. Her size was typical of the people of the Delta; they are small even compared to Vietnamese people living in Saigon.
The girls were inseparable all the way to the store. At the store the girl in the pruple dress sat nearby the group just outside the store. She was soon joined by many of the local children. The smiled and giggled as they watched us eat. When Mr. Dang approached, they flocked to him. He handed out pens and small notebooks to them and they scurried about happily. Once we had finised eating, we made our way back to the boats. The two girls held hands on the walk back and embraced before we left. As the boat started down the river, the girl in the purple dress ran alongside us waving. They will never meet again but they, and I, will always have Vietnam.
Jimmy O'Connell
Class of 2001
Today's photos: view from the hotel on Can Tho; on the Mekong boat trip; one of our boat guides; house on the Mekong River; one of the many children who followed us around; open air market between Saigon and Can Tho; rice paper being made at the rice factory; rice paper (for noodles) being made at the rice factory; rice being husked; our guide showing us the process to make noodles; "I call the big one Bitey"
