Zainab pointed out the house, across the street from where we were standing, where she used to live. During the last war the refinery was hit. She made a gesture, trying to find the words – stinging eyes, choking air. “Smoke?” I suggested. “Yes, yes. Smoky.” She shook her head at the memory: “We live closer to the road now.”

A stranger is a novelty and hordes of kids wanted to know my name and have me write them messages in little notebooks or on scraps of paper. One boy asked if I liked football, a ball was fetched and a few of us spent a happy while heading the ball at one another. We invented a game which involved us all crouching on the ground in a neo-circular arrangement with our hands together, then all shouting and jumping up.

There was one child with eyes even more stunning than the rest: almost black, yet almost see-through, piercing, sparkling, haunting, magical eyes, and I wanted to take a picture of her, but it was impossible to take a picture of just one child, because they all cluster together, jostling and pushing each other, shuffling closer and closer to the camera even as you’re moving back from them so as to get them into the shot.