000-Index: List of indexes - 001-Index: Morocco
Bébé Hollandais by Robert Abitbol (Monday 15 March 2004, 10 h 22 pm); (c) RobertAbitbol 2004.
Bébé Hollandais means "Dutch Baby" in French. I was told this was a picture seen on soaps, or cereals imported from Holland in Morocco. It showed a blonde baby with blue eyes.
The man I will talk about was nick-named "Bébé Hollandais". He was blonde all right, which is very rare in Morocco, so it's easy to see why he got that nickname. At the time (1960) he must have been 30-35. He was deaf, and perhaps mute too, and I still can picture him hobbling along on my grandmother's street in Casablanca (the Jean-Jacques Rousseau street). He was walking so slowly. And he looked so sad, so depressed.
I was around 9 at the time... Everytime he'd show up on the street, my cousins, my sister and I would go to Bébé Hollandais and ... we'd kiss him on the cheek. :-) A big smile would light up his face and he'd kiss us each on the forehead. It was like a ritual between us...
He would then make some sounds meaning Goodbye ("au revoir" or "salamaelikum" in Arabic) and he would continue hobbling along towards his destination, but he looked so much happier. He even had a little grin on his face...
And us, little kids, were we ever happy to have made someone happy! We felt we were responsible for transforming someone's face.
In retrospect I believe he made our day as much as we made his day! It was as if we had found a new power: making someone happy. Is there any better thrill in life?