Walking around Petra, me and Loretta wanted to get a little bit off track to reach the "High place of sacrifice" (what it is goes without saying). In wandering far from the center of the site, you can easily get lost, signs are less frequent and you find yourself in very large areas in which different paths spread out. We were in such a situation when we met a little bedouin girl. She didn't speak any english but it was enough to at least understand the name of the place where we wanted to go. After asking her for directions, she left her mother behind and started walking, making signs to follow her. We did and I couldn't help making a photo of this tiny little being standing in such an immense area. She was walking barefoot on the stones without being botherd by them. We walked for a while and me and Loretta were starting to worry about her. Did she want to personally take us up to the place? We knew it was still far but she kept walking quietly. Than we asked her to stop.
The little girl stopped and noticed I was pointing my camera at her. She was a little bit embarassed but yet curious, as she kept on peeking at my camera. I tryed to let her understand it was enough, that she didn't have to take us all the way up and that she could have just given us a direction to follow. She insisted on keep walking and my brain was really engaged in the thought of her mother, not seeing her child from quite an amount of time, gone away with two strangers, barefoot on such steep trails, made not only of stones but of difficult hikes as well.
She folded while I was thinking about the fact that I know nothing and that the situation was, very likely, her everyday life.
She pointed her little finger towards the direction we had to go to and, after a smile, she headed back to her mom.
It's not an action story but, for some reasons, it moved so many things inside of me that the action was actually taking place there. I'll never forget those moments and this little child and I know I'll find myself thinking of her again, in the future, when she'll be a woman, wondering if she'll be still living her days in the desert or if she looked for a different type of life, better or worse, it is not for me to say.
Our trip to Jordan gave us plenty of such stories. We didn't just visit places for the sake of saying we've been there and these have been our rewards, chances to get to know things and people, to think, to grow, to change our lives. But, of course, Jordan is a great deal of things to see and experiences to live! Check this article to discover more about this wonderful country!
