Well, I just had my bit of surrealism for the day.

I was limping my way over to the university to get a little bit of work done. As I’m walking past the Saudian mosque I see a fellow walking toward me. He has the sense of being at least a little “fou.”

“Fou” means “crazy,” but to understand the sense you need to use a more 19th century definition of the word; think Boo Radley crazy. It doesn’t necessarily mean “mentally ill” as much as “unwilling or unable to recognize and abide by social mores.” I mentioned a while back that there is much more uncorrected physical deformation here than you’d see in the States. The same is also true of mental handicaps.

The fellow coming up to me is both dirty and looks distracted rather than showing any real focus on me. As I am passing him though he looks toward me and holds up his left hand as though for me to shake.

This would make sense in the U.S. since in his right hand he is holding a stack of probably a dozen little notebooks. Here though you would hold your right arm out and permit the other person to grasp your wrist or your forearm. You’d never give them your left hand though. It is ritually unclean and even handing someone money with the left hand is something I’ve never seen.

I just sort of looked at him since I’m well enough trained now that I had no more impulse to stick out my left hand than I had to bow or salute. It simply isn’t the right response and my body knew that even before I thought it.

Seeing that I wasn’t going to take his hand he grabbed my left wrist with his hand. He grabbed it really firmly and I was surprised. As I was prying his hand off of my wrist he asked me where was from. When I said I was American he gave a little cry and sort of skipped back throwing his little notebooks all over the place.

He seemed angry, I’m assuming with my country. As he occupied himself with the collection of his notebooks I limped off since I saw nothing good coming of hanging around.

I noticed as I was walking that my wrist was bleeding from where he was holding it. The thought of what might have entered the wound from the fellow’s left hand is not comforting. I’ll take my festering sores one at a time if you please.

Well, our new volunteers arrive tomorrow. I’m off to work.

Love,
Will