The soldiers at the checkpoint are my age. I feel like they should be asking whether I want to hang out tonight, rather than trying to determine whether to enter to search the vehicle. They clutch machine guns that look too big and out of place in the gentle sun. No one can hide the mixture of surprise and relief when they wave us through without looking twice. The spring sun makes the guns glisten. “No worry, no worry”, the driver assures us and turns up the volume of something that seems like an Arabic love song. The road leading to Tulkarm is winding and rough, unlike the roads running parallel towards the bright white settlements that stare at us from a distance. Empty gas stations, abandoned checkpoints with security cameras still functioning and flocks of sheep greet us along the way. There are no people, just the sheep.
I lean my forehead against the cool window as we approach the centre of Tulkarm; my eyes are not wide enough to take in all the change. Suddenly the streets are overcrowded with life. I can feel the open stares and the eyes following us before we even get out of the van. I see people peeking their heads out of the windows and craning their necks to see better. The eager discussions, the women hanging out laundry, the bakers, the loud bargaining, it all seems to halt. It feels like we’re interrupting a smoothly functioning ecosystem. The moment we step out of the van, the dust settles and children encircle us from every direction filled with excitement mixed with caution. There is a flood of questions and greetings in Arabic so rapid not one of us is able to respond, followed by the one phrase in English everyone seems to know: What’s your name? They keep repeating it, and we keep responding, just to realise how the amount of introductions does not bring us much closer. They stare at me and my backpack, and I stare back at the sea of dark brown eyes dwelling around me.
This is the ultimate feeling of being foreign: new, different, exciting. I remember my first thought: it seems as though these children have never seen a tourist before. And my second thought: Maybe they actually haven’t. What mattered was that people greeted us with excited smiles where ever we went. After all, the gaps in vocabulary can be filled with hearty laughter and mint tea.
