Kindness

I spent most of the day (once again) happily unaware of the time. In the morning I wandered around Ho Chi Minh City centre with Vy's younger sister. Then in the afternoon I went shopping and wandering (there was probably too much wandering!)

As I was walking down the side walk, I accidently stubbed my toe on a part of the sidewalk where the brick of the side walk had been broken up a little. This all happened near a group of people sitting around a little table on the side walk. "You have to be careful of the side walks," one of the men yelled at me. Then as I walked a little closer to him he looked at my toe and announced, "It's bleeding!" His friends then all started to swarm me. One grabbed the stool she was sitting on and insisted I sit down. Another jumped up and ran into a store to grab some bandaids (he rushed like I was bleeding to death). They all asked if I was okay and looked at my toe. I'd never received so much attention for a bleeding toe.The man with band aids returned from the store and the one who had originally warned me of the dangers of sidewalks gently put the band aid on my toe. He then said, "I'm a cyclo driver. I'll take you back to your motel for free." I declined. I sat there with them for just a couple of minutes. There was a cyclo driver, a young policeman (he was the one who rushed for the bandaids), a seller of photocopied books, and a man without an arm. They are generally the kind of people I try not to make eye contact with. Generally, because I don't want to be asked a number of times if I want to buy photocopied book or if I would like to take a cyclo ride. But after I left them I felt like smiling especially at all the cyclo drivers. Kindness!