[The Monkey Finger Mountains in the Sahara. Photo is mine.]

Nearly every bone and muscle in my body was saying to me: Did you just ride into the desert on a large animal with a large hump? I ignored the voices coming from the dark regions of my body and sat back in the seat of our van.

Would you like to stop here to see The Monkey Finger Mountains? Kamal asked.

Sure, I said.

So we pulled over onto an overlook. A dozen cars and mini-busses were scattered about. I was reaching for my iPhone when I felt twelve eyes looking at me through the window. There were six boys outside, standing in the crumbled gravel and holding green objects in their hands. I knew they were going to try and sell me their goods. I was prepared to say no. We got out and I said no. The three of us snapped a few pictures and I shot a video or two of the spectacular landscape. They did indeed resemble the fingers of a monkey. We were just about to return to the car when I heard:

Excuse me.

It was a young girl, about ten years old. She was Muslim but she was not wearing a Hajib. Instead, she was wearing dark blue pants and a grey hoodie. She was holding out her hand. In her palm were three coins. I recognized them as Euros. Instinctively, I said:

I’m sorry.

I tried looking at her face, but she never raised her head. She just simply stared at the coins in her hand, clearly disappointed. I immediately felt sorry for her. She continued to stare at her hand. Within seconds, the boys crowded around, most holding Euros. One boy had two US dollar bills. I looked at Mariam and then to Kamal.

Don’t we have some way to change these for them? I asked.

We changed the small coins and the dollar bills for the boys.

Now for her, I said.

We completed the exchange for her and walked off to our car. I looked back at the boys. They were approaching a car that had just pulled in. I saw the girl, her head down, standing by herself…away from the boys. I felt another pang of sorrow for this sad girl. She was alone. I’ve often been alone and it’s not a feeling I would wish on anyone. No one should feel alone…unless it’s by choice. Their choice. Not a comfortable way to feel throughout the day. And, I got the feeling that she was often alone. Alone in her solitude…in a strongly patriarchal society.

But, it was not over. As we made our way to the paved road, I looked back. There was a group of about ten tourists, posing in front of the Monkey Finger Mountains. The sad girl had made her way to the viewpoint. She stood in front the group as if this were her extended family.

Sadness came over me one more time. She wanted to be noticed, to belong to something larger. Her group of male friends had ignored her. We nearly ignored her. The group was ignoring her.

Is this the way she lived?

What were her innermost thoughts on that day. On that day in front of the Monkey Finger Mountains.

[This is a downloaded image from Google. It is not the Sad Girl in my post. Kamal suggested that it might not be appropriate to photograph her. So I didn’t. The girl in the image here is in an urban environment, not the Sahara. And I doubt she is Muslim. I may be wrong about the last statement. It’s intended to depict a lonely girl in a hoodie. This way, it works. I wanted to give my readers a visual. Source: Google search.]