Or the camel spiders that crawl through the nights in Hashman, preying on smaller insects that are drawn to the bright lights on its handful of streets. Walk through its deserted roads, all packed within its four walls, and you will see that the brightest spots on the ground are infested with them. To the Western eye a camel spider is everything you have been conditioned to hate and fear, an other-worldly concoction seen only in science fiction movies and horror stories. But the most you will get out of the Bedu is a laugh, a wave of the hand and the generic Arabic word for spider, ankbut.

I was the only one awake in Hashman, eyeballing a camel spider. And I just blinked. I had left my Bedouin friends finishing their dinner of lentils and bread, and strolled out for some fresh air. Something had moved in the glare of the streetlight, something small enough to be creepy and big enough to make you nervous. We must have seen each other at the same time, for both of us froze. I’m not sure who screamed first.

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