Jabool Pink and red plastic flowers bob in the hob hob, its bright blue and tan bely crooked routes to villages neglected by tourists unmoved by salt, light skirts and ankles deep in white coral. Fog rises from the saline pool, hides the hills, where sheep graze winter wheat. We punctuate this landscape, stand out like flares in damp air, draw bored children from clay hives. Our footfalls call them like magic. “Shoo, go away,” we say in French, English, Arabic, exotic spells ignored like regular reminders to pray broadcast as we begin to walk away. Two boys on donkeys beat them into bucking where we want to go, the road back.
Swimming to Syria 21
