Phillip and Rebecca Mefford

Altmışaltı 66 Yozgat Eyüp I feel trapped. Trapped in a world of women, a world of tea parties, and cooing old grandma’s who pinch my cheeks and then whisper “what a pity” to my mother who smiles as if everything is alright, though she can’t hide the pain in her eyes. I feel trapped in a body which is growing awkwardly and a brain that makes me feel confused. I cry when I want cake and grit my teeth when it’s bath time and yet feel strangely intrigued by the beautiful women who walk in and out of the hair dresser’s adjacent to our apartment building. I feel immobilized by the thought that it’s my fault that my father left us, that it’s my fault my mother cries so often when she thinks my grandma can’t hear her. It is as if something in my brain is frozen. I look like I’m fifteen; I feel like I’m ten; I act like I’m five. I’m an angel to my grandmother; I’m a burden to my mother; I’m shameful to my father; I’m a source to give charity to, to my neighbors. My grandmother and mother and

Ellidokuz 59 Tekirdağ Candan When I was seven my family loaded into my father’s old truck and took a bumpy two hour ride to İstanbul for a distant relative’s wedding. I was awestruck with İstanbul-- the fancy cars zooming around at break neck speeds, the big malls with their shiny window displays, the chic İstanbul women walking around uncovered and confident, the crowds, the excitement. Aside from that one weekend, I’ve spent the rest of my life in our quiet fishing village. I studied hard in school, helped my father in his vineyards, played in the abandoned Greek Orthodox convent at the top of the hill, and routinely begged the lighthouse keeper to let me go to the top. My life was…quaint. Boring. Now, at seventeen, my only goal is to get back to İstanbul, to wear stiletto heels and go to Starbucks, and maybe someday have my own İstanbul wedding. Unless I want to work in a factory, I know my best chance at getting back is to do really well on my ÖSYS, the standardized test tha

Elliüç 53 Rize Ahmet Hacioğlu We are Rizeli , from Rize, a growing city in North Eastern Turkey rooted in the foothills of the Kachkar Range, a steep mountain chain that plunges into the Black Sea. We serve our entire country boat loads of hamsi , an anchovy-like fish very popular in our area, pide , what the tourists call “Turkish pizza,” and our world famous black tea. We host festivals every summer, celebrating the incomparable beauty of our high-mountain meadows, beckoning people to come with our local bag-pipe instruments and lively dancing. We are a welcoming and passionate people, uncompromising in our loyalty to Turkey and to our religion. Yes, that pretty well describes my father…Do you see him over there, walking toward the mosque? The one with the grey beard and small round knit cap? That is my father, Ahmet, but everyone including me calls him Haci Bey . As long as I can remember it was his greatest aspiration to take the sacred journey to Mecca, and once he achieved that