Aladdinsane
I get plagued by, ahem, unusual people since I was a kid. Today, Pyla and I were walking to the moviehouse when this American called to us. He approached us and introduced himself, then launched into a convoluted litany of how much he loves the Philippines, how he had this disability when he was a kid, how the people he trusted stole his business away from him, how impressed he was when his father-in-law was buried with full military honours, how he's working on bringing millions of jobs to Filipinos, AND -- the clincher -- how he can help me get better if, and only if, I don't tell anyone that the help came from him. That I should tell everyone, when I get better, that I was helped by the community. He even borrowed a pen so he could give me his contact information. Pyla lent his pen and gave some notepaper so he could write down his e-mail address and I could write down mine. I'm not sure if he was going to do some street evangelization, coz when he asked if I were religious, I flat out told him no and then the topic drifted from there. I've dealt with people like him before, but by gad, this guy takes the cake. I didn't know what he was getting at, he'd skip from one topic to the next but always stressing how beat down he was in the States and that it's so much better here in the Philippines -- medyo iffy, kumbaga. I wanted to tell him that I'd rather stay here than go to the States, but I couldn't get a word in edgewise. He said that he had an epiphany when he saw me walk by and he suddenly remembered everything he had to go through when he was a young disabled boy and told me that he wanted to give back the good that happened to him. The movie Pay It Forward suddenly came to mind. I appreciate the guy's gesture, which, admittedly was a really sweet thing for a stranger to do. I had the funniest feeling that he was psychoanalyzing me, reading my reactions to what he was saying, then suddenly, he concluded his speech. Having something like that spring at you from nowhere is, to say the least, very astonishing. If he read my reactions, he would've seen amusement, skepticism, wonder and he also probably saw the twitches at the corner of my mouth from the moments when I had to keep myself from laughing. Whatever he meant to do, it kept me thinking about a lot of things. And even if he's one of those providential people or the REAL thing, he still stole Pyla's pen. It was a good pen pa naman. Grrr.