The Travel Diva

Weird people and zombie spit

Recently, whilst on one of my dawn forest wanderings I happened upon what was evidently an extended family of... well, lets just say this family tree had no branches. They are an indeterminate number of individuals, who live in a seasonal collection of shanty homes in an area of perpetual wooded gloom. They gathered near a water-well and watched my approach. I asked for directions and was met by flummoxed, dead-end expression that you have to be fourteen years old to produce with conviction. For a fleeting moment I felt concerned for my personal safety then realised it was only their zombie no-one-home looks that unsettled me. They were ugly too and really dumb and looked like the ate squirrels.

I stood around awkwardly for a while then decided to re-explain were I needed to be, speaking a little slower than I did before. An old man with a toothpick resting on his tongue sauntered bowlegged out of a shed and directed the crowd who were looking at me open-mouthed to hop onto the back of the pick-up .

He walked right by me, his sharp beady eyes never dropping his gaze for a moment. He removed the toothpick from his mouth and spat at my feet; but it wasn’t even like spit. It was more like the sort of thing a praying mantis would regurgitate on to its forelimbs and rub on to its antennae. It was lime green with little streaks of red blood in it and, unless my eyes were playing tricks, two very small grey feathers protruding from either sides. He grinned at me and strode off, climbing up into his pick-up and sped off in a cloud of dust.

I wandered around for a little longer then spotted a church steeple which looked familiar; I was home an hour later.

A lot of things about Belgium have started to unsettle me which is perhaps a good thing because I’m spending this weekend in Kent, the garden of England, house-shopping!

posted by Cindy-Lou Dale @ Friday, August 03, 2007