I’ve never been a fan of windy season here.
This town is a small blip in a vast desert, with the collective forces of about five abused trees to block wind storms that race across the desert every year. Last year, for about a month, I would walk around town with some random piece of fabric over my face, sunglasses over top like a weird faceless mannequin. Often I would laugh and cry out of ridiculousness and pain because I would find myself pumping my arms and legs, chin to my chest, talking myself up like the little engine that could, and taking what I thought were huge steps only to realise I was going anywhere at all.
This year it has been refreshingly mild, and it caught me forgetful and unprepared.
I had been back across town 3 times to the bank, but because of the wind, the computer was down. This meant – no money. On my last return trip, I found myself in my usual windy-season gait – chin down, seemingly huge steps. I was trying to keep my headscarf from blowing away while balancing an armload of books, when a car sped past, right by my side. The gust of the speeding car, with the wind, managed to create a little wind tunnel that blew my skirt wide open and right up to my waist. With my arms all tied up in headscarves and books, all I could do was watch it happen. Just like everyone else in the street.
My friend had a good laugh. She told me, if it’s windy she always wears long dresses over her skirts as double protection. She would never think of wearing a shorter top.
Better yet: if it’s windy season, wear underwear.
March 12, 2009
Law and Order
When I was a teenager, I had bizarre luck with lady justice. My family would tease me because I had managed to be sued three times before I reached the age of 18. At one point, watching TV during the afternoon, I got a call from a woman asking for my Drivers License number and other personal information. When I asked her why she would need that, she informed me that she was my lawyer and would be representing me in court.
I’ve got a list of items I like to file under ‘They didn’t tell me about this in Life 101.’ Not surprisingly, this country has single-handedly flooded that file beyond capacity. So why am I surprised at my stunned speechlessness when I’m informed that I’ve been summoned to court?
First of all, the family of this stalker guy came to Akjoujt to meet with me. They wanted to know exactly what happened, as well as offer their apologies for everything that happened. While we were discussing what would come of it, they told me it would all be discussed in court the next day. Court?! I’m translating this word correctly, right? A judge? Yes. Trial? Yes. Was I supposed to know about this? I guess so, because I was stopped in the road that evening by a truck of policemen with my court summons, in Arabic.
I didn’t even expect this town to have a court house, or a judge, seeing as it a hole in the middle of the desert of a third world country. We just moved up from donkey carts to decrepit taxis 6 months ago. So, when I was asked if I had a lawyer, I coughed out another speechless stare. Despite the judge robes this guy had, fur-collar and everything, this was more interrogation than trial. It was myself, a translator (who, thankfully, I knew), a scribe who wrote everything out by hand with carbon paper, and a judge that (I was informed later) had only started his job 10 days earlier.
It turned out to be 5 hours of interrogation in a country that doesn’t recognize mental illnesses. If a person is considered to be slightly nuts, even if they are a fully capable and/or dangerous person, they are thrown in the all-encompassing category of ‘mejnuun’ – crazy. They cannot be tried in court, nor are they even held accountable to the religious tenants of faith. They are simply tolerated as the harmless kooky relative at the dinner table – talked over, laughed at, and excused of all behaviour.
Filed away under this chapter of ‘Now you know…:’
You can go to court anywhere - even in the middle of the desert where camels are sauntering down the road outside the window.
I’ve got a list of items I like to file under ‘They didn’t tell me about this in Life 101.’ Not surprisingly, this country has single-handedly flooded that file beyond capacity. So why am I surprised at my stunned speechlessness when I’m informed that I’ve been summoned to court?
First of all, the family of this stalker guy came to Akjoujt to meet with me. They wanted to know exactly what happened, as well as offer their apologies for everything that happened. While we were discussing what would come of it, they told me it would all be discussed in court the next day. Court?! I’m translating this word correctly, right? A judge? Yes. Trial? Yes. Was I supposed to know about this? I guess so, because I was stopped in the road that evening by a truck of policemen with my court summons, in Arabic.
I didn’t even expect this town to have a court house, or a judge, seeing as it a hole in the middle of the desert of a third world country. We just moved up from donkey carts to decrepit taxis 6 months ago. So, when I was asked if I had a lawyer, I coughed out another speechless stare. Despite the judge robes this guy had, fur-collar and everything, this was more interrogation than trial. It was myself, a translator (who, thankfully, I knew), a scribe who wrote everything out by hand with carbon paper, and a judge that (I was informed later) had only started his job 10 days earlier.
It turned out to be 5 hours of interrogation in a country that doesn’t recognize mental illnesses. If a person is considered to be slightly nuts, even if they are a fully capable and/or dangerous person, they are thrown in the all-encompassing category of ‘mejnuun’ – crazy. They cannot be tried in court, nor are they even held accountable to the religious tenants of faith. They are simply tolerated as the harmless kooky relative at the dinner table – talked over, laughed at, and excused of all behaviour.
Filed away under this chapter of ‘Now you know…:’
You can go to court anywhere - even in the middle of the desert where camels are sauntering down the road outside the window.
Lesson in Translation #3: Deek
“Hayley, what is ‘deek’?”
“What is what?”
“Deek.”
“Is this an English word?”
My friend got a piece of chalk and wrote out for me in big letters: D. I. C. K. Deek.
“Where did you hear this word?”
My friend has taken to using chat rooms to help him practice his English. He will chat and when he doesn’t understand a word, he’ll look it up in his pocket dictionary.
“I was talking to this woman in Australia and she asked me if I had a big deek.”
I explained the word to him and he hurriedly erased the chalk letters off the board. We had a little chat about different kinds of English, as well as different kinds of chat rooms, and the reasons why he wasn’t finding these words in his pocket dictionary.
“What did you think ‘deek’ meant?”
“I thought it was a disk, like a part of a computer.”
“So what did you say to the woman after she asked you if you had a big deek?”
“I told her – Yes. Very. I have a 75 Gigabyte.”
“What is what?”
“Deek.”
“Is this an English word?”
My friend got a piece of chalk and wrote out for me in big letters: D. I. C. K. Deek.
“Where did you hear this word?”
My friend has taken to using chat rooms to help him practice his English. He will chat and when he doesn’t understand a word, he’ll look it up in his pocket dictionary.
“I was talking to this woman in Australia and she asked me if I had a big deek.”
I explained the word to him and he hurriedly erased the chalk letters off the board. We had a little chat about different kinds of English, as well as different kinds of chat rooms, and the reasons why he wasn’t finding these words in his pocket dictionary.
“What did you think ‘deek’ meant?”
“I thought it was a disk, like a part of a computer.”
“So what did you say to the woman after she asked you if you had a big deek?”
“I told her – Yes. Very. I have a 75 Gigabyte.”
Ode to a Muslim Tailor
My spirit collapsed this week in a way I haven’t known. Something broke, and I didn’t come back. Strangely, at the same time, my heart got loved today in a way I really needed to know – healed in an irreversible way.
Why did I snap? I couldn’t take people not caring. I couldn’t take the laziness, hatred, ill-gotten gain, futility, cruelty, and general apathy. I didn’t want to be that one who cared – always fighting over things that aren’t right; feeling like some nagging sore on their apathetic life.
So, I stopped. I tried to survive in the territory by their rules – all the rules I hate. I could watch myself becoming un-human. Even more, I could watch that inhumanity become instinctive.
And today, that man was so evil – something bent and twisted – and I didn’t have the strength to fight. I ran.
I was in a street full of people, yelling, trying to get away, doing my best somebody-help-me-out, and I could watch the people just standing and staring. Staring. Watching me like a goat.
The thing is, Boubecar knew the minute I ran in his store. And, he stepped in. He protected me and helped me liked someone worth being loved.
The moment? It wasn’t while I watched Boubecar stand between me and that man – taking up the full frame of that doorway, not about to let anything get by. It was after he had waited for the man to be long gone and told me to sit and stay with him for a while. At that point I broke. They weren’t scared tears. They were tears because I was safe. Finally. Finally – there was someone else there who realised we were the same, and stepped in.
I’m convinced the greatest evil in the world is to stand with what my friend calls bras croisées – crossed arms. To do nothing. Just a stare. My children will never do this.
---
Koura lives through beyond what I consider to understand. She lives in a world where she is doublely classified – she can only ever be what her skin color will allow her, and what her gender will allow her. She was put in jail after having the government take away her job and her citizenship card, and escaped to live for over a year in hiding while all of her family and friends were displaced or disappeared during a nation-wide genocide. For 20 years she has given her time in service to a community of people that judge her every habit based on her color, and continue to have all the rights, opportunities and power despite doing nothing to earn it, or to work for it. While I accept that I am always a stranger in this place, she lives as a stranger in her own country.
I asked Koura the other day to remind me of an important question I had for her.
“What do you do when you are tired – tired in your heart? You are so tired with people who are horrible, and lazy, and who don’t care. What do you do with a tired heart?”
“Do you mean when you’ve had enough? When you don’t want to care anymore? You cry out to God and ask for his forgiveness because that’s the opposite of what you should think.”
…the very reason why a Muslim tailor was there at all.
Why did I snap? I couldn’t take people not caring. I couldn’t take the laziness, hatred, ill-gotten gain, futility, cruelty, and general apathy. I didn’t want to be that one who cared – always fighting over things that aren’t right; feeling like some nagging sore on their apathetic life.
So, I stopped. I tried to survive in the territory by their rules – all the rules I hate. I could watch myself becoming un-human. Even more, I could watch that inhumanity become instinctive.
And today, that man was so evil – something bent and twisted – and I didn’t have the strength to fight. I ran.
I was in a street full of people, yelling, trying to get away, doing my best somebody-help-me-out, and I could watch the people just standing and staring. Staring. Watching me like a goat.
The thing is, Boubecar knew the minute I ran in his store. And, he stepped in. He protected me and helped me liked someone worth being loved.
The moment? It wasn’t while I watched Boubecar stand between me and that man – taking up the full frame of that doorway, not about to let anything get by. It was after he had waited for the man to be long gone and told me to sit and stay with him for a while. At that point I broke. They weren’t scared tears. They were tears because I was safe. Finally. Finally – there was someone else there who realised we were the same, and stepped in.
I’m convinced the greatest evil in the world is to stand with what my friend calls bras croisées – crossed arms. To do nothing. Just a stare. My children will never do this.
---
Koura lives through beyond what I consider to understand. She lives in a world where she is doublely classified – she can only ever be what her skin color will allow her, and what her gender will allow her. She was put in jail after having the government take away her job and her citizenship card, and escaped to live for over a year in hiding while all of her family and friends were displaced or disappeared during a nation-wide genocide. For 20 years she has given her time in service to a community of people that judge her every habit based on her color, and continue to have all the rights, opportunities and power despite doing nothing to earn it, or to work for it. While I accept that I am always a stranger in this place, she lives as a stranger in her own country.
I asked Koura the other day to remind me of an important question I had for her.
“What do you do when you are tired – tired in your heart? You are so tired with people who are horrible, and lazy, and who don’t care. What do you do with a tired heart?”
“Do you mean when you’ve had enough? When you don’t want to care anymore? You cry out to God and ask for his forgiveness because that’s the opposite of what you should think.”
…the very reason why a Muslim tailor was there at all.
Jotted Down – Feb 3
Made it. Day coming to an end. I needed to be strong today, but I just couldn’t. It was an icing on the cake day – a day when it all heaps up into one giant pile. I crumbled. You just long for someone else to stand up for you, to come to your rescue. I know life isn’t like that, but I just couldn’t muster it today. I’m starting ‘don’t eat other people’s crap’ week. But I pray God allows me the grace not to become just another angry person, and for once, we don’t just keep recycling it all.
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