Mateusz Sikora looked at me with kind, albeit worried, eyes. Not because I had flown to Warsaw at the spur of the moment without booking a hotel room. Not because we were virtual strangers--having been introduced by telephone just one day earlier, when a mutual friend called from Paris to announce my impending arrival in Warsaw. Looking at me, for the first time, outside the customs area at Fredric Chopin Airport, Mateusz Sikora worried because I am black.

"Polish people don't see too many blacks," said Mateusz, a Polish-born sculptor who spent more than a decade living in a racially mixed neighborhood in Melbourne, Australia. "You might run into a little bit of . . . well, racism."

According to the CIA World Fact Book, 96.7 percent of Poland's population is composed of ethnic Poles. Germans, the second-largest ethnic group, make up a mere 0.4 percent of the population. Belarusians and Ukrainians--the next most populous groups--each account for only 0.1 percent.

Poles aren't accustomed to outsiders, especially people of color. Which is why Mateusz issued the warning--one that turned out to be well founded.

When Mateusz took me on a tour of the city the following day, I ran "into a little bit of racism." More specifically, it was a form of racial prejudice served up not by skinheads or fundamentalists or garden-variety bigots, but by adolescent Polish girls who had never seen a black man in person.

One incident occurred as we walked past the Ministry of Culture, housed in a bleak Orwellian tower that survived World War II, although more than 90 percent of Warsaw's structures did not. Another incident took place as I strolled alone past the opulent Royal Meridien Hotel on Krakowskie Przedmiescie. But the most brazen act occurred when Mateusz led me to Old Town, which had been obliterated during the war, and rebuilt--brick by brick--to its pre-war splendor.

Mateusz and I were sitting on a bench, marveling at the faux 14th Century buildings, when suddenly, a teenage blonde broke away from a group of schoolgirls and confronted me. "Please," she said, her voice flat, her eyes hopeful. "Can I take picture?"

Mateusz chuckled when she whipped out a camera.

A pessimist would raise a wary eyebrow. My ethnicity, he might say, was being singled out, mocked, carnivalized by people who live in a country devoid of color. Back home in the United States, I have been eyeballed by department store security guards, glared at by suspicious cops and regarded on numerous occasions as though I were an alien in my own country. Had I never left my hometown of Chicago, had I not been afforded an opportunity to travel the world, to see myself apart from negative images often projected upon me at home, perhaps I might not have taken so kindly to a white Polish girl who stuck a camera in my face.

Having been through the drill a few times already, I nodded. As if by magic, a second girl appeared. A brunette. The blond girl handed off the camera to the brunette and ran over to give me an unsolicited bear hug.

The camera flashed. Black-and-white images were etched onto color film. Satisfied, the blond girl kissed me on the cheek and then grabbed the camera from her friend. The brunette switched places, hugging me and grinning all the while.

"You are very popular with the Polish girls," Mateusz said facetiously. Even before he finished the sentence, two more teenage girls appeared. Eyes wide and hopeful, they proffered a camera. More poses were concocted. The camera flashed again and again.

As they thanked me and turned to skip away, I noticed that the group of schoolgirls had moved closer. Much closer. In fact, they were lining up, waiting to be photographed with the shaved-headed African-American.

I've come to realize that being different--whether you're a black among whites, a Christian among Muslims or a bleeding-heart liberal in a land of staunch conservatives--is almost always cause for a double take. More often than not, being different has been the catalyst for acts of kindness and inclusion whenever I'm traveling abroad.

I have been coddled by paternal Italians, sheltered by benevolent Swedes and protected from encroaching assailants by big bad Aussies who chose to kick arse before taking names. I've learned to surreptitiously roll my eyes while I roll with the punches.

It's the kisses, not the blunders, that frame my traveler's constitution.

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Contact Elliott Hester at megoglobal@hotmail.com, or follow his travels at www.elliotthester.com.