I am still eating Gilbert Grape and loving it

Just last night we watched “What’s eating Gilbert Grape” again. What a great movie.

Who knew where Johnny Depp, Leonardio DiCaprio and John C. Riley would end up … as really fine actors with amazing resumes.

Natacha, the yound lady from Western Africa who lives with us, watched it too, and as we cleaned up the kitchen later I asked how people with severe disabilities ( DiCaprio’s tour de force characterization of the mentally challenged Arnie) were treated back home in the Congo or Benin.

She told me that they are anything but marginalized, as was happening to both Arnie and his family in the movie. Since family and it’s ties that bind are so strong over there, the disabled are simply considered another part of the family. They are neither shunned nor shut away. Rather they are treated with dignity and respect. Hmmmm. Back there in a third world ‘backward’ country they treat the differently no different. Now, there’s a concept.