Village in the Meadows

I finished reading a book this evening about a man's experiences as a Peace Corp volunteer in a Black Sea village during the 1960s. Admittedly, much in Turkey has changed since the 1960s. And there are many differences between village and city life. But in some ways Turkey is Turkey regardless of where you find yourself.
I stumbled upon the below quote and it reminded me some of my own experiences over the past year and few months. While I have not ridden in the back of a flatbed truck or lived in a mountain village, I have had to explain myself repeatedly and am still in the process of taking on a new culture and a new way of viewing the world. By God's grace alone, the process of change will continue over a life-time of work and life lived out as a stranger and alien.

"A critical defining element of the two years was the fact that nearly everything about it was an exotic adventure. Nothing was familiar about living in a rural mountain village in a Muslim country where you had to communicate in a foreign language (I never learned another language well enough to use it), traveling on foot or in the back of a flatbed truck, eating local foods or explaining ten times a day who you are. Almost everything that you thought of as a constant in your life becomes variable; something surprising was happening all the time. Our senses were flooded with sights and tastes and sounds and odors that were not unpleasant but were often unfamiliar. Yet the challenge of figuring out how to survive and to travel and communicate was great fun and constantly rewarding, and it left us with hundreds of stories to tell in later years. Ultimately, it all became quite comfortable. Part of the reason is that if you are interested, Turkey is a comfortable place and the Turks are comfortable people. They show their pleasure when people find pleasure in them. Part of it is that you learn to do things you don't know how to do, and you learn to figure out things you don't understand. That makes the adventure less intimidating and more memorable." - Village in the Meadows, Malcolm Pfunder, co 2007