Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman

word until he stops in front of a backpacker hotel and says good-bye. Now that we are in his country, he does not want to be seen with us. If we are on our way to Sandinista Nicaragua, we are the enemy of his government. And by association, he is subversive.
    Early the next morning Henry and I walk through the streets of San Salvador, past corners where soldiers are hiding behind walls of sandbags, their guns poking through holes between the bags, pointing at the pedestrians. There is no eye contact between the soldiers and the people, no waves or smiles; one is the enforcer and everyone else a potential victim. I find myself wondering if I would be shot if I were suddenly to start running.
    There were soldiers with guns in Antigua too, standing stiffly outside government buildings and banks. They were intimidating, but I was never afraid they were going to shoot me. I always felt that they were protecting something, like money or officials. Here in San Salvador, the guns are pointing at me, and I am frightened.
    Henry and I leave on the first bus we can find to Honduras, another U.S.-friendly country. When we arrive at the Honduras border, each passenger is taken individually into a room where there are two armed soldiers. I am asked to stand across a table while two men turn the pages of an album filled with pictures of unwelcome foreigners. They look at the pictures and then at me. Up and down, page after page. It takes fifteen minutes to go through dozens of pictures. I am not in the album.
    I have recently heard that there is a peace march, made up mostly of U.S. citizens, working its way through the countries of Central America and ending in Nicaragua. I have also heard that the Honduran government is planning to refuse entry to the marchers who are considered dangerous left-wingers, supporters of Nicaragua, supporters of peace. Presumably the marchers are also an embarrassment to the Reagan government, which is bombing Nicaragua. Who knows where the pictures in the album came from. Many of them look like passport photos. I wonder if they were supplied by the U.S. government.
    When I leave the room, my passport is stamped and I am told I can go. I meet Henry outside and we walk down the road together. Neither one of us wants to do this alone.
    “To Nicaragua?” we ask one of the uniformed, gun-toting Honduran soldiers.
    He directs us to a bus that is already filled with people. It turns out that they are Nicaraguans on a chartered bus, returning from a shopping trip to San Salvador. The Honduran government won’t permit Nicaraguans to step on their land. There is a soldier with a gun slung over his shoulder, sitting next to the bus driver, facing the passengers. In his hand are all of our passports wrapped up in a rubber band. We are told they will be returned when we arrive at the border.
    In addition to people, the bus is stuffed with shopping bags, boxes, duffel bags, and suitcases battered and new, all filled with things that are hard to get in Nicaragua—things like toilet paper and toothpaste and deodorant, underwear, jeans, T-shirts, light bulbs, makeup, and toys. Contraband that will be sold on the black market in Managua.
    During the trip, the soldier never smiles. He never interacts with anyone. He just sits there staring straight ahead, our passports in his hand. The gun is American made.
    We get off the bus at the border of Nicaragua. Two soldiers accompany us until we have all crossed over into Nicaragua.
    Borders are always a disappointment to me. Going from one country into another should be more than just walking down a road. The color should change. You should go from green to orange like you do on a map. At the very least you should be able to look off into the distance and see a line painted across the landscape. But the only line here is a ragged one of sweaty people carrying lots of bags.
    There are no other people once we are in Nicaragua, just us bus passengers and Sandinista soldiers standing