First thank you for your thoughtful response and then a little background information.
Pierre had travelled widely both with the Bank and before, for example his son was born in Phnom Penh and his daughter in Saigon. he spoke several languages, had a Phd in education and had served with the French military in Algeria.
Claude was born and raised in Vietnam, joined the French merchant marine and jumped ship in Tahiti and found and married Violette. Returned to Vietnam and became the director of a French rubber plantation. He told me it was the Viet Cong at night and the Americans during the day. Like myself he had little or no formal education but he was one of the world’s experts in trees as crops and that was why the Bank hired him.
Ken was drafted into the US Army and shipped off to Vietnam and returned as a civilian working for one of the many American companies always present for the wars. Maybe RMK-BRJ. When he returned home he worked in a photo copy shop.
Tutu who worked at the Bank was born in a small town south of Saigon where the communists executed his father and threw his body in the river. Through sheer brilliance, application and scholarships he earned a PhD from Grenoble university. He speaks Vietnamese, English, French, Spanish, some Chinese and I have heard him speak some Amharic and Walof.
Mel was a gunnery sergeant in the US Marine Corps Force Recon and lead teams behind enemy lines in North and South Vietnam.
I sent my missive to three friends, yourself, AG and JDF also ex Bank. Born in a town up a river in Madagascar. You answered as did JDF now living in Dumaguete in the Philippines. So far nothing from AG, I think I may have frightened him.
They all like you and AG have greatly enriched my life.
More soon,
Be yourself, everyone else is taken. Oscar Wilde