Ever traveled someplace where you totally don’t speak the language? Ever suspected, as you wandered around, that the locals were talking about you? I can’t vouch for every local everywhere, and I suppose the odds are probably in favor of the locals actually having things to do. But I can tell you about the Old City of Jerusalem, and in the Old City? They’re talking about you.
I’ve been to Jerusalem before, and I’m surprised at how much of the layout of the Old City I remember. Better yet, when I get lost, I can just step to the side of the flowing river of tourists and close my eyes and envision the map of the Old City that hung on my wall for my whole childhood. I’ve always thought the Old City looks a little bit like a big, shaggy-haired lion, with the Temple Mount at its nose. I orient myself and move on. It’s not like I’m going anywhere in particular: the city itself is the attraction.
It doesn’t take me long to notice that things are a little different this time. I’m distracted by the difference between the people here and my community in Jordan. Physically they look alike and they are dressed alike, but this is a tourism-based economy and my interactions with the people I meet are vastly different. Nobody is surprised to see me here, nobody is that interested in me as a person, and it isn’t really fair to demand that they treat me like one of their sisters. But it still feels weird, all these men talking to me.