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Wandering Reflections I : Scenes from an itinerant life (Paris).
This article is featured in a modified version on Burnt Roti.
The homeless man I offered a shrimp salad to berated me for “giving stale food that might make people sick”. He wouldn’t let me speak. “Do you know what is Salmonella? It is dangerous! You got to be careful. You will make people ill !” In his frenzied attack, my interjections were drowned out on the busy sidewalk.
His words stung. But the sun was finally out on that cool spring morning and I told myself to keep on moving. A few steps later, I turned around to tell him “I am a scientist and I do know what is Salmonella. This is not food that has gone bad – if you had only let me finish you’d know that too.”
I was walking around Châtelet, on my beat for “Serve the City Paris”, a NGO that helps distribute leftover food from a café in Paris to those in need. The sun probably made my brown skin look less like a shrimp, more the colour of a caramel macchiato.
This once, my pride was hurt. Was it the feeling of well-meaning intention not being received with overflowing gratitude? If he was one of those drunk, dishevelled, haggard homeless people would I have forgiven him quicker? I cannot say. Would he have asked those questions if I didn’t…
