Outside Amman. One taxi ride to Salt, an old town with little for tourists. Small shops and imported snacks and ten-cent packs of “Arabic gum.” There was a man hanging from the open door of a village bus who had us all get in. And in we went: packed with strangers who found us stranger, a man who gave his seat up for me, thinking I was a woman. I sat down all the same, my hair long past my shoulders, my narrow legs crossed tightly at the knee: soon everyone was staring. We were all so beautiful, I told myself, they had to stare.
They let us off at the top of the small mountain. The street was ending. More shops. Everyone was drinking Pepsi. What should we do now, we all wondered, though no one asked. It was beginning to rain. I pulled up the hood on my teal sweater and started walking. Everyone followed. Read more…
