Strangers Still?

Mike & I went to the Esso Lot this evening and just spent the time walking around the Kaos station and mostly sitting on the tree stump there. We prayed together, and greeted those who passed by. We were really just trying to get our faces noticed and to recognize some of the inhabitants. No one really offered us conversation until almost an hour into our ‘visit’ – and this was by a lady in her 30’s who approached us and asked us what we were doing there. She asked if we wanted dope. No. She asked if we wanted girls. No. So then she asked us to leave. I was flabbergasted at the request, not really thinking that we would need to leave an area I had been to several times, which was right next door to the Kaos station. When we didn’t respond, she asked us if we were calling her bluff. Recalling our conversation with the Centre of Hope earlier in the week – that most users pack a weapon and that women are far more violent than men are – Mike and I stood up and this lady ‘accompanied’ us to the sidewalk. We introduced ourselves by name and explained we were from the Radio station, just trying to befriend our neighbours. She told us her name was Tracy, and I doubt she bought our claim about the radio station and wanting to befriend them. However, as we parted, she warned us to never come back.I can understand her suspicions and perhaps paranoia – she was probably sent by the other street people in the area – this is ‘their’ place or home – and not used to middle class people visiting them and ‘camping’ out on ‘their’ turf. I think we did, indeed, get our faces noticed!