Early this week I gazed into the cataract clouded eyes of the sweetest bit of crazy I've ever seen. Buckets of rain were dumped on this city, and so I opted to take the bus home from work. While waiting for the #75 to fill up, a teeny, tiny, wee little Hajjah sat down next to me. She was approximately 215 years old and I pray that if I ever make it to her age, I hope that I am that cute.
Soon after we departed the bus station, she began to make chit chat. Unsure if she was chatting with me or with herself, I didn't bother to ask her to repeat what she said. I made noncommittal umms & uh-huhs and tried to cope with the discomfort of not knowing the language well enough to follow along with her dementia. I decided that she was indeed talking to me, but it didn't really matter if I understood or not. She just had something to say.
I overheard her conversation with the driver, so I knew that she wanted to go to Makassat Hospital. The other passengers repeatedly assured her that this bus would take her close to her destination. I, on the other hand, was going to Ilmuttallah Hospital--a quick detour from the normal bus route. The driver asked her several times whether she meant Makassat or Ilmuttallah, and he explained that we were going to stop at Ilmuttallah first.
As my travel companion chatted away, I found myself looking directly at her sweet little face. She had quite a bit to say about the Israeli soldiers who were now peppered all over the neighborhoods near Damascus Gate. She also had quite a bit to say about Makassat Hospital. Rather, the people either in or around Makassat were on her mind. In her opinion, there is a whole lot of crazy there. She just kept saying crazy, crazy, crazy. It was pretty clear that she wasn't looking for a response, but I felt compelled to let her know that I was paying attention to her. I said in my broken Arabic, "I'm sorry Hajjah. I don't understand everything. I only speak a little Arabic." She beamed.
Naturally, the first question she had for me was "Are you married?" In Arabic class, in order to assuage my annoyance with this daily question/judgement, my teacher taught me to say two things: 1) "Its none of your business" and 2) "I am single, and I have no worries about it." Neither one seemed appropriate in this context, so I said: "No, but God is generous" Clearly she was tickled with this topic, and the best I could make out from her response was either she had thought I had already been married many times, OR she has been married many times. I'm putting my money on the latter. She continued to cackle away to herself for quite some time.
The bus approached the intersection where the driver turns either left for Ilmuttallah Hospital or right for Makassat Hospital. He called back to the passengers to see if any of us needed Ilmuttallah and I called back "aiwa". The name Ilmuttallah put my companion into quite a spin. Despite several passengers trying to come her down, the Hajjah jumped up, yelled "Makassat!! Makassat!! Makassat!! and darted off the bus. She was surprisingly spry for her age.
Despite not knowing what she was saying to me, that was probably the best conversation I've had since I've been here.
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