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Turkey to Texas

 

            Sitting in as mall coffees shop on the side of a southwestern Turkish mountain looking out over the Mediterranean sea I took a deep breath and began to relax after a very busy day of acting as a tour guide for my American friends. Answering their questions all day long about Turkey provided a contrast with how little knowledge I thought I knew, to how much I really did know about Turkish culture. Thousands of different shades of pink, orange, and yellow came blasting at me from the sun as it was setting. I started to think about the greatest challenge I ever faced in my life, the summer my family moved back to Austin Texas after living in Istanbul, Turkey for four years. I remember sitting in my bedroom that day trying to figure out if I would ever be able to adjust to the Texan culture after living in a Muslim country. The thoughts of what is "cool" to say began to flood my ten year old mind. The fear of knowing I would walk into a public school lunch room full of kids with totally different lives started to hit me. Fear spread through my mind like a raging forest fire as I became scared to go back to my homeland. .
             We were welcomed back to Texas where "the bigger the better" is most commonly believed. I clearly remember the day that we drove down the street and came up to our house. What had seemed so old and small compared to my few other American friends suddenly seemed so big and open. As I walked through the ack yard I figured that on the same size lot we have here in Texas I had once shared with 40 other Turkish families in a 14 story apartment skyscraper in Istanbul turkey. Next I went up to my old room I would have once again. It looked like a McDonald's Play land because it seemed so big compared to my old room in Turkey. I knew I would love it until I wondered, could this room even compare to my room in Turkey with a twelfth story private balcony view including thousands of skyscrapers and millions of people represented by the skyscrapers? then I figured yes, it will be better because of the luxurious air conditioning to lower the grade of the scorching heat.


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