by tacit agreement they ignored the remarks

Today I met a young man from Syria, (the shadowed, mysterious country of so many staid CNN broadcasts) whose name is Hazaa, like that weird old word for ‘hooray’, which is a name I’ve never heard of before, and which sounds like it’s spelled with a ‘hamza’ (glottal stop) at the end, but isn’t (he told me) so now I’m stumped.

I met him by chance (like I do almost all my assorted acquaintances) on the street as I was walking along, trying to figure out how to send phone credit to someone who had asked for it (this happens all the time - people whom you may not have heard from in months, will call you and say, “Hi. How’s your health? How’s the heat? Send me credit? Click) and as he passed me I looked up, and after he had passed he said, "Bonjour" and then I looked over my shoulder and said "ish-haal-ak?" (how are you?) and then he looked back and smiled at my Hassaniya, and I looked back at him smiling, and then I smiled and then we backtracked, walking towards one another and shook hands and did greetings.

This would be weird in America, but strangely enough I do this all the time, and with people I couldn't tell from Adam, so when I said that we met by chance, it was a lie, and what I meant was that we met because I gave chance a chance. Even though that sounds like a lyric from a Karen Carpenter song, the question remains: why did I look over my shoulder? Why did I go back? More on that later....

Anyway, on his head, Hazaa had a ball cap, well worn to frayed-ness and with a bent brim, from under which his great crop of dark curls was visible, curving delicately around his ears and shading his black eyes. He looked Greek, maybe, or maybe he just looked like I think Greeks look, but Syria (in my mind) is off over there, in that part of the world where the difference between "Arab" and "Mediterranean" becomes more a question of the proper lighting.

In fact, it's usually very easy to spot people who are actually Arab, (as opposed to Moor which isn't the same thing), from North Africa or otherwise, and not just because they are usually lighter-skinned, (which they are) but also because of more subtle and complicated factors, like 'base tones' and 'color warmth' and all those science-things which are hard to describe though easier to recognize.

He was good-looking, clearly, though I don't remember specifically why, other than his square, clean-shaven chin, and interesting lips, which were not unicolor, but which instead contained patches of varying shades of pink.

He had a good voice though, clear and mellow and pleasant, which is something I am always quick to jealously notice in others, given the diffuse, fickle, chameleon of an irritating purr that I've been cursed with. Now I'm just hoping someday he'll speak to me in Syrian Arabic, while I sit there attacking a plate of humus, or twiddling my thumbs.

His clothes were all dirty, like he'd just come from work, which I later verified, sleuth-like, when he said "I've just come from work". He said he's a "builder" - one of those vague job descriptions people are so fond of using here, that could mean anything. I'm sorry, a builder of......? Toy helicopters? Sports stadiums? Grammatically incorrect sentences?

After he asked if I was French (always everyone's first question) he said that I looked like the brother of some university professor he knew, and then we talked for all of 5 minutes about nothing in particular, which I am oddly good at only in foreign languages, all the while holding hands - a culturally appropriate habit I'm going to miss, but that I'd better learn to break before I return to America, lest I become some kind of touchy-feely freakazoid whom people avoid at social gatherings.

Part of what's involved in having conversations about nothing is posing questions you already know the answer to, and so I asked if Hassaniya was quite different from the language in "Sooriiya". He said yes, because it totally is, even though this is a fact many Mauritanians whom you meet will steadfastly deny, insisting that they can be understood all the way to the Saudi peninsula and back, but nevertheless, he seemed to speak it just fine, only more lightly and gracefully than natives, for obvious reasons.

One thing he did was pepper his phrases, Mauritanian-like, with "yaa, khu-ya" meaning "my brother", as in "where did you learn Hassaniya, yaa, khu-ya?" which is another thing I am going to miss dearly, as it has the instant effect of making one feel better, but sadly it's something that I don't think is very common in the US outside of maybe, parts of the black community, and like, monasteries, neither of whom, I think, would let me in the door.

I should listen to Mom, and not speak to strangers, especially the ones who are eager to speak to me, as he could have been a theif, a seller of something I didn't want to buy, or much more likely, and almost worse, annoying, but I'm a big boy now, and as it turns out he wasn't any of those things.

Still.... why the second look?

One reason, in particular, I acknowledge to be more or less ignoble, (which is to say, would I have turned and looked had the person in question been a Plain-Jane? I think we all know the answer to that question) but A) I ain't no saint, and B) that is not within the scope of this entry.

But aside from that, I have a possibly not un-dangerous tendency, it seems, to follow the course of events wherever they may lead, or more specifically, to selectively encourage those events which seem to have the best chance of coming to an intriguing end. Now that I've set that down, I realize I said it in what is possibly the most boring way possible, and also that there is nothing noteworthy about wanting interesting things to happen in one's life (not that I am at all averse to writing about 'nothing noteworthy.')

I guess the only reason I'm thinking about it is that if I'm honest with myself, I have to admit that I don't separate dangerous from interesting. Having said that, the sunbaked streets of Nouakchott at 3pm are surely less threatening that a rural road in New Jersey, but I've found (read: put) myself in plenty of situations here which either did, or could easily have gone sour, and I was led there not by my better judgement, or even necessity, but by the simple truth that I would rather be anything, anything, but bored.

Well, I'm nothing if not a fool, though we knew that already.