At first it was just two men and a woman that greeted me, but within minutes I was surrounded by a small group, including kids and two mangy dogs.  Their fears and suspicions disappeared almost instantly as one of the dogs allowed me to pat its head.  Being a frequent traveler, has brought me to believe that make friends with a man's dog, and get treated like a lost son.  But not makes friends, and only lucky will get you past the front door.

Awkward? Yes, but within minutes everyone was laughing, so laughing back, we became friends.  I showed them how the bike worked and they appeared truly amazed. They seemed to enjoy my hair as well as it was nothing like theirs.  Talking was useless.  Trying English, Spanish and Chinese, I got no reaction.  Their language seemed just as foreign and funny to me, sounding like nothing I had ever heard before.  But then with a few hand gestures of shoveling food into my mouth, and a couple "mmm-mmm's", they got the picture that I was hungry.  'Heaven Hallelujah,' I thought, until what happened next!