Are You Calling Me Crazy?!?!?

One day last week while we were out at the camp we ran out of water. Instead of drinking the local tap we thought it might be better to track down some bottled water. The camp we were in is huge, over 600,000 people and I can pretty much guarantee you that my friend and I were the only white girls there at the moment, making us the focus of attention.

We stopped at a little shop and got some water. As we were trying to count out the change to pay for it this hand all the sudden appears and tries to take the money right out of my hand. I knew we had drawn quite a crowd but didn't think someone would actually try to take the equivalent of pennies out of my hand. I looked up to see this really tall guy in a felt cowboy hat reaching. I of course said (all this in Arabic) 'No' and he replies 'but you're white. You owe me money'. 'Why do I owe you money?' 'Because you're white and you have it. I'm poor and you should give me some.' So I just said 'I'm poor too'. 'My name is John Michael. What is yours?' 'I just said 'thank you'. At this point my friend chimes in with 'we're working and so we can't give out any money. Those are the rules.' Then he comes back yelling 'you think I'm crazy?!?!?'.

Talk about causing a scene. Obviously he was a little crazy and, judging from the crowd's response of absolute laughter, they already knew it and were just hanging around to see what the white girls would do. At this point he turns around and actually goes crazy, yelling into the crowd something about westerners and how we are all that is evil in the world. Meanwhile my friend and I hightail it out the 'back door' thinking it might be best to leave before we caused even more of a scene. He tried to follow us but some men stepped in and wouldn't let him.

What's really funny is that, in Arabic, the word for rules and the word for crazy aren't really that close. My friend is fluent in Arabic and she said the right word for rules so we're not really sure where he got crazy from except that he already was crazy and was just hearing things.

So that's our encounter with John Michael. Too bad his name wasn't Michael Bolton....or Michael Jackson!!! If I was going to make up a fake name I would have at least picked a good one!