Every town has a "fou" or two or, for the more politically correct among us, the "uninstitutionalized mentally disturbed". There's the Finger Fou of Labe, who will helpfully show you his extremely enlarged index finger and ask you for money. There's the rarely-sighted Naked Lady Fou of Kankan, who will smile and greet you pleasantly. I had the fortune to be the very first to sight and classify the Rolling Fou of Siguiri, who gleefully rolled on the ground in front of each market stall, and laughing, ran on to the next. She caused an equal amount of mirth in passers-by. That's the kind of fou I like. Not like the Goggle Glasses fou of Fria who, wearing dark shop glasses, will follow you silently for a good long time, until you realize with a start that he's standing right behind you, staring. Or the fou that recently came to our health center.

Our fou is big, tall, strong. Apparently he was fine until his grandmother died and, in his grief, he drank some potion he found in her room. Since then, he's stabbed his father and brother, caused all sorts of trouble, and escaped from the jail by lifting up the roof. So, when he came to the health center and ran from door to door, "Who locked this door without informing me? Where's the key? Who locked this door?", our female pharmacist, Bama, alone except for some women and babies, sat silent and didn't move.

A man had just come in, "I'm sick, I need medicine", but as soon as the fou started rattling doors, the "sick" man fled like the wind, leaving all the women alone. When Bama told us this story, she tapped her head to indicate to the patient that the man was a fou, and the sick man's eyes widened, and she pantomimed the sick man (suddenly cured) dashing for the door, eyes a-goggle, checking over his shoulder as he ran. My host mother, Adama, collapsed into fits of giggles, doubling over and dabbing at her eyes. Bama repeated her performance, provoking a completely helpless fit from Adama.

I was amazed. I'd never seen someone laugh, really laugh, here! We joke and giggle, but rarely does something really strike everyone funny. I started to laugh at Adama laughing, and life was fine.

The same day, however, that fou came to visit me, kindly enough. I was in my house with my friend Mamadou and there was a knock. I went to look, and didn't know who it was, but I knew there was something not right.
"Mamadou, c'est qui?" I asked my friend, "Who is it?".
"Mamadou, c'est qui?" repeated the fou.
"Mamadou, c'est qui?" I asked again, sharp and worried.
"Mamadou, c'est qui?" added the fou.
"So, it's a fou?", I asked Mamadou.
"Yes, sit down, he'll go away." Mamadou wasn't even looking up.

I sat down, uncomfortable. The fou had his head sticking in the door, and was looking all over my rich American house, repeating once in a while, "Mamadou, c'est qui?". Eventually he left. He came back later that night, coming all the way into my house and sitting down. I pretended I didn't understand Pulaar, and called Bama over to the house. She sat and talked to him, thank God for Bama, while I pretended to work. He kept intently tapping a spot on his left wrist with his finger. He gave me a piece of wood and patted his chest. He wanted me to keep it by my heart, because he liked me. I pretended I didn't understand. He took it with him when he left.

Though I was scared at the time, and kept my door closed for several days, I also felt sorry for him. He was trying to communicate, to connect, but his illness makes him dangerous, and everybody steers clear. "Never talk to a fou", they all say. You never know when he'll be angry. And I'm no different. I'm not going to make a difference in the life of this man who gave me the gift of a piece of wood, and then tapped at his wrist. Since, I've hidden in a tailor shop to avoid him, and heard him tell my health center chef that I'm his wife. I hide in my whiteness, playing the stereotype of the dumb Porto who doesn't understand Pulaar and doesn't remember anyone's faces. I pretend not to know him, and that's sad.

They've brought more police complaints against him, and told his father he was bothering the white woman. Mamadou said they were going to "attach" him chain him to a stake in the ground with manacles around his ankles. I was horrified. "But that's terrible! That's treating him like an animal!" I said. "He's no longer a man", said Mamadou.

I bristled. All over the world, people have no respect for difference. It has to be more or less, it can't just be different. Knowing how Europeans treated their lunatics in the earlier centuries, I'm not unfamiliar with this distasteful idea.

"He's still a man", I said. "He's always a man. Be careful of what you say. We Americans kept black slaves because we thought black people were not men, but animals. We were wrong. Be careful when you say that somebody is not a man."

"Oui", said Mamadou, and fell silent. He never says anything when I bring up slavery. Perhaps because he thinks of our difference, impossible to forget. Perhaps it becomes all too salient, through the examples of our ancestors, that there are qualities and levels of difference. Perhaps he thinks of who has less, and who has more.