Tuesday, September 27, 2011

I Scare People

Quite a while back, an ex-colleague of mine told me i always scared her. I thought it was hilarious. But then another friend of mine told me that i was intimidating. And i started to think about it and i honestly dont see what's intimidating about me. But anyways,

I currently live in a very, very mexican area of Puerto Vallarta. What i mean by that is that i'm most likely the only white person living in that part of town. And even though my neighbors and people in the block know me now, at first, they stared at me from head to toes. And they do a second scan as soon as i start to speak spanish to them. Cuz i dont have much of an accent.

When we crashed the car, i used to take the bus to go to work. Thus i also used to take the bus to come back home too. Now i bike but i have so many bus stories i should really start to write more often!

I've just realized recently, that when i'm in "my" bus, people stare at me, which i dont really care about, and people are scared of me. Or intimidated. Or whatever you want to call it. 

Bottom line is: i scare people off. I mean tonight for example, i had to wait quite a while to get my bus back. So obviously when it finally comes, a lot of people get on. I get the first stares when i get on a bus that doesnt go anywhere close to a tourist place. The only "tourist" stop it makes is wal-mart. But generally, tourists just dont take that bus. So most of the locals stare.

One day, i was sitting at the back of the bus and this old woman was standing in the alley (i didnt leave her my seat cuz there were tons of free seats) and she looked me up and down in disdain or in disbelief or in wonder or maybe all of the above for about 25 minutes (pretty much the entire length of my trip back home). I mean i dont get uncomfortable easily but after a while, i really wanted to stand up and ask her what her damn problem was. But it was late, i was tired and i didnt want to make a fuss. After all, it's a free country and i paid my trip and i was going home, just like everybody else in that bus. But still.

That day, the seat next to me was empty. And stayed that way the entire journey. Same tonight. I mean the bus is jammed packed, there is a free seat next to me and nobody dares to seat there. 

Why?

Because i'm white.
I think.

I dont mind really. You guys keep on stucking each other against each other and i'll keep comfy on my 2 seats :)

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