It’s a chilly evening and like any other day I leave the office of ‘Radio al Balad’ around 6pm. I already got used to the fact of buses randomly passing by without a set schedule. Sometimes you’re lucky to catch one quickly, sometimes not. This time it seems that I am not…

When a taxi honks at me all I want is to get home so I get into the vehicle and wait patiently until the driver refuels it at the next gas station while the taxi meter continues running.

Why do I let him drop me off at the bus station of Mahatta instead of near my house? Maybe it is because I expected to walk home from there anyhow if I had taken the bus.

I cross the main road via a bridge to get to the side of the families house I stay at. The smell of exhaust gas penetrates into my nostrils and urges me to find another way further from the street. A narrow dirt road, restricted by a wall towards the street and houses opposite of it leads to the Suq of Mahatta. A boy passes by running and lets me cringe for a second when he yells at me unexpectedly. Without being noticed I keep track on the people around me. Unlike the usual unhurried walk of the Arabs my faster footsteps reveal me, besides my obvious different looks, as a foreigner. I am used to walking ahead of people and leaving them far behind. Strangely, this time two guys manage to stay behind me as I get closer to the Suq. I don’t really care, listen to my music and cross the busy area of the Suq in order to continue up the hill. The guys behind me take the same direction and although I quicken my speed, one of them overruns me and continues walking uphill in front of me.

The area becomes quieter the more we veer away from the Suq and less lights edge the side of the street. I have thirty more meters to reach the house when the guy in front of me stops all of a sudden. His friend reaches us as well and the guy who walked before me starts talking Arabic. Luckily I understand when he tells me how urgently he needs to make a phone call. “Bas dagiga, bas dagiga” – just for a minute, only a minute. I am trying to not show them how strange it is to me that they would ask this after following me for 300m already. I assess them just to find out that they are both taller than me, around 25 years old and black-haired. Something in me screams to leave but I still pretend to feel alright and reply lying that I don’t have a phone.

My answer surprises them, why would I not have a phone? One of them reaches out for his own cellular, takes out the battery and points towards the sim. Apparently they find me stupid enough to believe that they just want to borrow my sim for a minute. For the seventh time I pretend to not have a phone and explain to them that it is because I am not from here and I don’t need it. Either I am not good in lying or the fact that an earphone cable is hanging from my ear causes them to not let me go. My suggestion of going back to the market and ask somebody there to make a phone call is simply being ignored and slowly I start realizing what I tried pushing away as a silly thought. The desire arises to leave the situation as I hear a friendly voice coming out of my throat saying: ‘Mitassef, bas ana ma 3indi telephone, lazem aru5 al bayt halla. Masa-l-kheir.’ – ‘Sorry, but I don’t have a phone, I need to go home now. Good evening.’

The speaker of the two stands in my way and doesn’t let me continue walking. After one last try of convincing me that they need to make a call for a minute the other guy reaches closer, points towards my jacket and asks what I have there. It is an MP3-player, I tell him. This time I don’t even have to lie since as a matter of fact my phone is playing MP3’s as well.

Do they not believe me? Meanwhile it is obvious that a sim is not what they desire. When one of them looks at me in a harsh way, telling me that they want to see it and reaches out his hand towards my jacket I finally release the pressure to act like nothing is wrong and start running as if it was to save my life. The mountain is steep and in estimated 10 seconds I reach the Suq again and surround myself with people.

I look back and nobody follows me. Slowly I realize that I managed to escape in the probably last possible moment. Adrenaline pushes strongly through my veins and my hand reaches out to the phone in my jacket to call the family I stay with. They are out of home, the ringing is not being answered and there is no way for me to walk up the mountain again after what just happened. How am I supposed to react in an unprecedented situation and a foreign country where I don’t even know the number of the police? In the rush of things I forget that there are more Jordanian numbers of friends already saved in my cell that I could have called.

A familiar ringtone wakes me up from my dreams and relieved I press the green button. It’s the father of the family whom I tried to call before. He calms me down and instructs me immediately to meet the Mukhtar, a mayor-like responsible for the area. He is just around the corner and soon I find him ready to take me to the police. My Arabic seems to be better than his English so I explain the whole story to him as detailed as my broken language allows me to.

The family father gives detailed orders when I drive to the police: ‘Do you remember what they looked like? Try to give as much information as possible.’

After an armed robbery that happened three weeks ago in their home, they were known at the police station and the fact that I am their guest evidently put this new case on high priority.

The Muhktar leads me to the office and starts reporting what I already told him. To my disappointment nobody at the police is able to speak English and I am not even asked straight about the incident. The officer asks the Mukhtar, the Mukhtar translates some words that I don’t understand and my head works crazy to remember how they look like.

‘It was dark’, I try to apologize for the confusion in my mind. Eventually I recollect characteristics and describe as much as I can. Another police man comes in with a big folder of estimated 500 pictures and desperately I look through all of them without recognizing one of the faces that threatened me. Then a guy suddenly looks familiar to me. “Are you sure?” – “No!”, I reply. “How many percent?” – “60!?” Seeing so many pictures didn’t really help me to bear the faces in mind that we were looking for. The one I suspected is in jail, they inform me later on. No success.

After all, the report is being written down in Arabic, I sign it and around two hours later that flew by without noticing it, they drive us back home.

The next morning I decide to get a pepper spray and on my way the Muhktar finds me, saying that the police caught somebody and wants me to see him. We take a taxi and enter the already familiar police station. Although the police called the Muhktar before to bring me, nobody seems to know why we are here. My heartbeat hastens when they still decide to bring in a guy but I don’t identify him as the one. Some minutes later, as we leave the station, the same guy sits beside the entrance talking to some friends. Obviously the one I was supposed to see wasn’t there anymore and in order to save their faces they brought in a random person.

Nobody is perfect. I think I learned my lesson and from now on a pepper spray will be ready in my pocket when somebody wants to see my phone…