A Message from Noëmie
I received a message from Noëmie, a French friend I met when I was living in Mexico City.
She was in Japan for work and asked if I would like to meet.
Noëmie and I attended the same salsa school in Mexico City.
We saw each other three or four times a week. We went out for drinks, had meals together, and often spent time with the same group of friends.
She was only twenty then.
She worked at the French Embassy and had a double major at university.
She was quite the high achiever.
She spoke fluent Spanish and, of course, English.
She was also beautiful and friendly, and so popular that she seemed to captivate men all over Mexico City.
I had always imagined French people as somewhat distant, but Noëmie was nothing like that. She was warm and approachable.
Although she was more than twelve years younger than me, for some reason we got along very well.
We often went out for meals or tea together.
She told me all sorts of stories about the Mexican men who bravely tried to win her over.
Well, she was only twenty.
I thought she should be free to enjoy herself, so I would nod along without taking things too seriously, and we enjoyed dancing salsa together.
She later went to work for McKinsey.
When a major earthquake struck Mexico City in 2017, a high school classmate working for Toyo Keizai asked me to introduce someone who could report on what was happening there.
Noëmie was the first person who came to mind.
The report she wrote exceeded my expectations.
She describedamál what happened when the earthquake struck, the confusion that followed, and the way people throughout the city helped one another. It was something only a person who had been there could have written.
Her original English report is available in “Mexico, the City That Trembles: Noëmie Rosala.”
After we went our separate ways in Mexico City, I saw her in person only once more, in Buenos Aires.
I had assumed that I would be meeting Noëmie alone.
But the man she was dating at the time came along as well, which I remember finding a little unexpected.
Apparently, she later married him.
I lived in Mexico City for about two years, from 2013 to 2014.
More than ten years have passed since then.
Back then, I lived right in the center of Mexico City. Now I live in the countryside of Chiba.
It feels like another lifetime.
Noëmie and I have not been in contact for a long time.
I have no idea what we will talk about today.
We will probably spend quite a while simply catching up.
I am looking forward to seeing her.
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