Crazy

I learned the word for “crazy” in Arabic last week. Because I don’t want people to think I am stupid or to stop talking to me in Arabic (I need all the exposure I can get), I have implemented the same rule I used when I was learning Spanish. I only allow myself to ask that something be repeated three times. And only ever three times if I really want to know what is going on. Usually twice is the limit. So when a girl that lives in the neighborhood was over at the house getting tutored by my host sister Nadia (schoolteacher by day and resident neighborhood tutor by night) on her Koranic recitations, I introduced myself and tried to catch her name. Three times. No dice. I smiled, nodded, feigned comprehension, extended my open hand and said in my sorry Arabic, “Nice to meet you, I’m Rob.”

The fact that I didn’t catch her name could be due to any number of legitimate reasons. Perhaps because my ear for Arabic is not particularly good; perhaps because she is only about eleven years old and still talks with her mouth full (and she was chewing on something at just this moment); perhaps because her parents named her something incomprehensible to the majority of even Moroccans (a developing trend among U.S. parents these days); perhaps it’s because she is overtly autistic and breaks her words in odd places, or not at all.

Another of my hosts, Hicham, who is a full-grown man, seemed to think it was definitely the latter reason. He smiled at me and shook his head emphatically, as if to say ‘don’t worry, it’s not your Arabic for once, we don’t understand her either.’ He stuck out his tongue, crossed his eyes and made little circles with his index finger over his temple and bobbled his head back and forth. Then he said in English, “She crazy.” I guess I looked awkward. “Amaq’ha mean crazy in Arabic. She amaq’ha.” He pointed at her for clarity.

The other kids imitated Hicham’s gestures and facial expressions. She – I still don’t know her name so let’s call her “Jane” – imitated them, in turn, and a small pillow fight eventually ensued. All laughed, including Jane, and she went back to howling her Koranic recitations in a manner that was apparently, based on Nadia’s comparative pronunciation, completely wrong.

Anyway, in other places I have been, and especially in my native U.S., the whole bit about making absurd and lunatic facial expressions for “crazy” and pointing at a girl with some mental handicaps – even describing a mental condition as “crazy” – wouldn’t be socially acceptable. Certainly not “PC.” So I had had a little dose of culture shock and went in my room to process.

A few minutes later, another kid, who is about the same age (but unlike Jane in that he isn’t autistic), messed up his recitations and the contingent of kids over at the house doing homework made fun of him and threw pillows at him. Everyone laughed and then things went back to normal, everyone doing their homework while Jane continued to practice the recitations aloud (emphasis on the “loud”).

With that, I had a strange thought. Maybe they had just been treating Jane like every other kid. I seem to remember being made fun of in school, I thought. Might it be that everyone was actually transcending my own frame of “politically correct” by treating her as they would anyone else? She went to a public school; she had to learn her Koranic recitations just like all the other kids; she needed help from Nadia just like everyone else over at the house to do their homework.

Still, I can’t help but be a bit of a cultural chauvinist so I thought about all of the innovative and fantastic (if quite costly) services the U.S. might offer Jane and I was glad I could think of a few. Indeed, in Morocco, she does not get as much help as she would in the U.S. She wasn’t heavily medicated; separated; pitied or explicitly protected as she would have been in the U.S. No prescription drugs to help her focus; no special school; no hush-hush around those ‘poor parents’ who must be so crushed that their daughter has this problem. No pretense.

For a society that is so obsessed with the concept of individualism, it seems that my U.S. hardly takes all of its individuals as they are -- which seems to be at the core of appreciating and celebrating individuality. Sure, there are plenty of services that would make Jane’s life in the United States easier but I am not sure that they would add up to a life as fulfilling for her or for those that know her.

I got back to studying my own Arabic in my room but with the door open to the family room where the kids kept drilling their Koranic recitations; their incomprehensible words reduced to a messy murmur that allowed me to tune it out. Generally, I was focused on my homework and put the kids out of my mind. Occasionally, Nadia’s more even-keeled voice would break the murmur to correct an error and some fragmented thoughts would drift into my conscious mind. Funny how thoughts drift.... Some verse I heard stateside about “all God’s children;” and a memory from early elementary school when I went to the North Carolina State Fair and saw a fieldtrip of severely handicapped teenagers that led to a strange and unforgettable revelation that there must be tons of disabled people that I never saw; that probably rarely left their homes. I wondered what their lives were like; they seemed so foreign to me.

All of a sudden the kids were quiet. I poked my head out and Jane stood on the sofa. She cranked up the volume of her voice and managed to get through whatever verses they were that she was trying to get through with only a couple of words that Nadia filled in. Everyone clapped and she took a bow and hopped off the sofa. I gave her a thumbs-up. Then, beaming, she stuck out her tongue and bobbled her head back and forth and pointed at herself; gave me a thumbs-up and walked out the front door. I guess that’s Jane for ya.