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Purposefully, I sat next to Madeeha on the bus. She was the only other woman and, on my bus ride to Petra, I had been alone next to a throng of young men snickering in my direction as they listened to sexualized American rap music too loud on their phones. I had felt stranded and out of place and spent much of the journey daydreaming about the tourist bus I had decided not to take. Now, on my return trip to Jordan’s capital city of Amman, I looked for solidarity. She was studying from a large, spiral-bound medical textbook. I gave her a shy smile and asked, in English, if she was a student. “I will be a nurse,” she told me. “I have only one more year.” She returned a polite smile and resumed her reading. I settled my bag at my feet, watching out the window as we pulled away from this dusty red outpost known for its dazzling red rock city. I had spent the weekend exploring the ancient metropolis of Petra, carved into sandstone and into history. I had attended the candlelit storytelling performance in front of the carved Treasury facade, hiked to the hilltop stone Monastery and enjoyed a pineapple juice at a café nestled in a cave looking out across the red valley. It really was a mind-blowing place. Now, as the bus hurdled through a landscape of desolate dirt, I began to leave Petra behind in my mind and realize I had no plan for Amman. I rummaged through my bag and pulled out the address of the hostel I’d booked the night before. “Excuse me,” I said, turning to the nursing student. “Do you know which stop I should take to get off the bus for this location?” She looked at my face as she took the slip of paper from my hand. “I can take you,” she said. “You will get off the bus with me.” Four dusty hours and several chapters of a nursing textbook later, I asked if she was still ok with showing me the way to my hostel. Her large brown eyes, framed by a matching brown headscarf, met mine and she nodded, simply. We disembarked and I found myself standing at the door to the women’s dormitory of a Jordanian nursing school. After an eternity of polite silence sitting next to her on the bus, Madeeha suddenly morphed into the perfect host. She snuck me past the guard at the front door and introduced me to her dormitory friends. She showed me how to write my name and ‘happy life' in Arabic. She made me Turkish coffee. She riffled through her closet and found a scarf she wanted me to have, then showed me how to use it to cover my hair. Then she flopped down next to me on her bed and asked me to tell her about makeup and America and what I think of dating. I joined Madeeha and her friends for a trip to the market. We ate fruit and sampled Jordanian candies and they tried to stick to English so I could enjoy their friendly banter. Madeeha stopped in a store to look at eyeliner and I bought an engraved metal bracelet because they all thought I should have it to remember Amman. Then, as unceremoniously as we had met, Madeeha announced that we had arrived at my hostel. I turned to see the entryway just behind me, that she was right. I stammered a bit, wondering if we should try to keep in touch. But Madeeha seemed content to wish me a ‘happy life’ and continue on her way. I thanked her for her company and, turning my new bracelet around on my wrist, watched her brown headscarf disappear down the bustling street into the crowd.