Boys’ night out

Summer vacations for me, as a twelve-year-old boy, and, later, as an adolescent, were lived as one moment of freedom followed by another, the likes of which didn’t happen at any other time of the year. As soon as I got the chance, I would meet up with a bunch of my many cousins and friends. Some twenty-five of them lived close by, so there were always a few who were keen to go out. We mostly took advantage of the times our parents had a wedding to go to or had some other festivities planned. (Invitations would come printed with the saying ‘a child’s home is heaven’, a diplomatic and typically indirect way for Syrians to say that children were not invited.) And that’s how boys’ night out was born.