On being an alien

I jokingly spoke of being an alien in my first post, little did I realise how alien I do appear to many people.

Not many people stare at me as I make my to and from school, or when Jess and I shop in the area around our home – but once we venture slightly further a field the staring starts. When I say ‘staring’, I do not mean a quick glance or staring that ends when the person is caught out – I’m talking about open-jawed-unblinking-staring. Although we usually shop at the Homeever, large supermarket near our home, we occasionally venture further a field to Emart. Emart is much the same as Homever, but their wine is cheaper and it usually has a couple of bottles of decent South African wine – even Nederburg.

Normally we walk to Emart in the early evening along a busy road that becomes congested during this period of the day as everyone makes their way home. Construction is taking place on a bride that we have to cross and here the congested traffic comes to a stand still. Perhaps it’s that people have nothing better to do, or that they feel safe to stare from within their cars, but it is on this bridge that we encounter the worst staring. Eyes stare out of every car. Initially we found this irritating, but now it has turned into a game and point of amusement: we wave, smile and shout hello to the ‘starers’. Sometimes they wave back, at other times the staring stops and occassionally the unblinking gaze continues.

In one amusing incident two women cycling in the opposite direction to us were staring, Jess waved and said hello as they were about to pass. One of the 'starers' lifted her arm to wave and almost fell off her bike. She weaved madly across the road but managed to regain her balance. We had a good laugh, as did the second woman.