Back in June I went to a wedding with a friend of mine in her village. Or rather, I went on a marathon celebration with my friend, stayed in her village, and did a whole lot of travel on the road. It went something like this...
Go to a different part of town that happens to be more conservative than mine. Wear skirt without nylons. Feel rather uncomfortable. Oooppss.. (Hadn't done that before and won't do it again.) Hang out with friend's mom while friend and friend's sister-in-law get their hair done. Go as a family to a circumcision celebration for friend's 12 year-old cousin. Head to the village. Stop and eat dinner at 12 pm on the way to the village. Arrive at village home at a very late hour. Go to sleep. Wake up, eat breakfast, get ready for wedding. Go as a family to friend's mother's hometown near the village for part one of the wedding. Have fun at wedding, dance, eat food, meet a million relatives. Leave wedding, go to house. Bride and groom have religious ceremony. Leave house, head to Sivas (a town waaaaaay to the east of Ankara). In Sivas find location for part two of the wedding. Have fun at wedding, dance, eat cake. Watch bride and groom's civil ceremony. Dance more. Head out to car and drive back to village, stopping to have soup on the way at 1 am. Sleep in car. Arrive back at village at 3 am. Sleep more.
The next day, celebration marathon officially over, we had a late breakfast and wandered around. At one point we ran into one of my friend's many cousins wives who I had met the previous day at the wedding. She asked me where I was from. My response - America. Her follow-up question - am I from the city or an outlying town? My response after trying not to laugh - I'm from Alaska.
To explain such a quandry, I suppose I have to explain a bit of Turkey's design. We have provinces, each named after the main city in the province. So there's Ankara province and in Ankara province is the main city of Ankara as well as many outlying towns and villages. The common question here when you say where you are from is my friend's cousin's question - from the city or from the village. So in her question she revealed that she thought of America as similar to a Turkish province, having one main city and several smaller towns.
I wondered why she would ask such a question. Asking my friend was out of the question. Their family is full of gossip. The last thing I wanted was for my question to make it back to the cousin.
I learned the answer just last weekend at...another wedding. Talking to the same cousin I found out that she finished school through either fifth grade or eighth grade. She and I are the same age. Apparently when I was enjoying fifth grade and/or eighth grade, in her town there was no high school. She loved school and did well at school, but would have had to leave her small town for a much larger city in order to go to high school. (I have a feeling this might remind my mom of rural Alaska when she was in high school.) Her mom was fearful for her. Girls who stayed in dorms occasionally became pregnant. So significant was it that she stay pure and clean, she was not permitted to attend school in another town.
Today there is a high school in or very near her village. Her daughters will have the opportunity to go to high school.
Before I laugh again at such a question as her's I have to ask myself - this one who is my age, did she have the chance to learn? Whether or not she did, is it that important that she know that America is large, that Alaska is no longer a part of Russia, or that cars made in Europe and cars made in America are driven the same way? In view of eternity these facts seem terribly insignificant.
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