Alien meet up

Whenever I go to town I can count on numerous stares and comments. Though globalisation with tourism, tv, and internet should have made the encounter with (white skinned) foreigners less exotic and strange, there are still enough people who have to show that I am not like any one else they are meeting on the streets. I got used to it and by and large can deal with it quite well, but still, it alienates.

Whenever I go to town it is also most likely to meet another alien. He is a man, maybe in his forties, a victim of polio I assume. His body is crippled and he cannot walk upright. Instead he keeps knee-caps and rather crawls on all fours through the streets. He has his usual location where he will be on all fours, lifting his head and hand up and begging for money. Some people give him money, but surely all people give him a stare.

There is actually an instance where I met this person, in which we both had left our alien position. We were both invited for a baptism, I as a relative, he as I assume a sort of fellow businessman since his begging location is right in front of the shop of the child’s father. I and he were dressed in presentable garments according to the occasion and took part in the function.

Ever since, when I see him in town I greet him or give him a smile and he will return it. I never ever give him any money. For one, because I feel I made his acquaintance now like I make the acquaintance of many other people during such functions and he is no longer any beggar on the road. Secondly, because of this invisible bond that brings him and me in a similar category against the rest of people walking around in town staring at people who don’t fit into their perception of how the world is supposed to look like. A bond of aliens meeting up at the road side.