Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
Hey there,
You, I mean you.
What’s your story?
Not the potted version you tell Aunt Freda and the well-meaning relatives. The one where it all hangs out.
The real one.
My gift to myself pure freedom, unadulterated freedom to share your story.
Here is mine.
Once upon a time…. There lived a princess and a prince. Screw that. This is no fairy tale. Simply a human tale full of mistakes, retakes and outtakes. Like bloopers. Those unbelievably funny moments that you can’t believe actually happened. In a nutshell Mummy met Daddy at the airport. Being from two different countries and meeting in a third followed plenty of international travel. It was pretty full on and now I’m totally sick of airports.
So bounce, bounce, bounce went the ball. Back and forth. Get your tennis rackets at the ready set one to Turkey. Oh, but then match point Australia. It’s going to be a close call. Oh, Turkey is making a comeback. Goes to a tie-breaker, advantage Australia. Now it looks like it is too close to call. Back and forth. Bouncy, bouncy tennis ball. Well, then it hit me like cricket ball to the stomach.
Let me see if I can set the scene. Small town in Turkey so far off the tourist track it’s not funny. There is one main street. I’m blond so no chance of blending in. I have one word of Turkish to my name “yes”. And this town is my new home indefinitely. So, I feel great!
The first time I walked down the street alone I was in motorbike get up. Oh my god did I feel self-conscious. I’ve never seen a man walk past dressed like this. I was really keen to find a toilet. Any toilet. Last time I went looking for one I found the male toilet. I’m not fussy but it gave the two girls sitting at the café a fit of giggles. Fine by me. I wasn’t making a statement. I didn’t see the “bay” sign by the door and if I had it was all goobbledygook to me. Five minutes later I had two words to my name “evet” yes and “bay” man.
Here I am. Everything is new and assaulting to the senses. I’m in constantly overloaded and ignorant. Being ignorant is exhausting. After a whole day of being out and not understanding a word I’m spent. I’m also pretty alone and using lots of energy trying to understand what might be going on. Not to mention feeling like the odd one out.
Where are the others foreigners? I saw one African women. Oh, and I met a Romania. So, let’s say there were three of us out of a close knit town of 150,000. I could feel people staring at me. In fact I noticed when people didn’t stare. That’s because it rarely happened!
The question I got asked most asked most was “where are you from?” This is after it was already assumed that I must be Russian or German. Probably on account of the blond hair. Australia? Where’s that?
Then there was the time I tried to ask a friend how his sister was. What came out is “do you have a girlfriend?” Like I was interested. But I was utterly surprised when he told me he was single. Whoops!
And this is just the beginning. There are plenty more stories where this came from. Watch this space….
If you would like to share your story I’d love to hear it. Drop me a line at