Here  goes.

I live in Ankara, Turkey.  The people I meet, unless they’re Turks, are travelers or expats, like me.  So…you would think they would understand.  They don’t.  The first question people ask is, “Where are you from?” 

I’m not “from” anywhere.  This answer is met with condescending or quizzical looks.  Everyone is from somewhere.  Well, I’m not.  I was born in Ankara, Turkey to my American parents who met and married here long, long ago.  I only lived here for about a year, before we all moved on to Maine.  So, trying to answer with where I was born is just met with more frustration. 

My next answer is Alaska.  Why Alaska?  Simply because that is the only place in the USA where I have lived the longest and lived there with my husband and daughters.  I lived there only 1/6 of my life, and now none of my family lives there, and I can hardly remember place names.  This answer works better than the nowhere one, but the satisfaction never lasts long if I’m talking to someone who has been there recently and expects me to actually know things about the state.

Score = Them: 1, Me: 0. 

As the first question has now completely bombed, a persevering conversationalist will then ask one of two follow-on questions.  Spoiler alert.  I suck at both these questions, too.

What do I do?  This one is relatively easy.  I’m a teacher.  Oh, an English teacher?  No, an elementary teacher.  Again, strange looks.  I must be an English teacher.  What would an elementary teacher be doing in Turkey?  Well, teaching kids of course.   Yes, in English…but they are American kids.   This, too is a talk blocker.  Who cares; to world-wide travelers, teaching regular American kids, is just plain boring.  Them: 2, Me: 0.

Or, where have I been?  Ok, so I’ve done a fair amount of traveling.  Now I have to try to size the person up.  Is she an avid traveler who likes to lock horns comparing cities, cuisines, weird experiences, or lost luggage tales?  Or is she just asking because it’s polite.  To answer this question, I start out slow.  Well, I’ve lived here almost one year, and before that I was in South Korea.  Either she bites and asks the inevitable, or she leaves.  Let’s play.  She bites.

Oh, how many places/countries have you been to?  Argh!  There is absolutely no way to answer this question either.  Do you mean legal countries?  What about territories or disputed areas, like Taiwan?  How do you count states?  How about places like the Aleutians?  Numbers don’t cut it.  I try to avoid this question.  The only way for the conversation to continue at this point is if my counterpart really has been some great far-flung places.  Otherwise, I get bored and need to move on.  Still, I look like the bad guy.  Them: 3, Me: 0.

If I get lucky, this new acquaintance will not ask the number question, but will ask one just as difficult.  What is your favorite place?  This is like asking which daughter is my favorite.  Uh, they’re all different.  Completely different.  How can you make a comparison?  I stumble, I stutter.  I’m done.  That’s it.  A win.  Them: 4, Me: 0.  It’s all over.  I watch numbly as my would-be friend darts away, muttering to all “Stay away from her.  She’s an idiot!”

Our apartment complex was pretty new when we moved in, and at this point it probably has about a 45-50% occupancy rate. We have guards or maintenance men, or whatever it is called that goes around and takes care of, well, everything. It is gated, so there is a guard shack. We have the cleaning personnel, and we have overall maintenance. These people who hold these menial jobs are here to provide a service for us. They get a kick out of us, because the typical Americans that we are, who laugh in the face of class distinctions, like to wave and greet them and treat them like real people. Thankfully, I think our friendliness has served us well, because as bumbling as we are as tenants, they take really good care of us.

There have been a number of incidents to highlight our stupidity, but there is one that really illustrates the point.

Not long after we moved in some technicians from the water utility came to put a “box” on our line. We were aware of this, but really didn’t have a clue what it really meant. A few days or so later, we lost water. We informed the maintenance guy and he reassured us and said it was because the water people were still working on the lines. No problem…except our water didn’t come on for two days. Ok, I don’t know about you, but two days without water really starts to stress me out. I don’t want to have to go to the gym to take all of my showers.

We tell the maintenance man again, and he comes up to our apartment and this flashy credit card looking object, swipes it in our new water box and voila, water! He doesn’t talk, mainly because he knows we wouldn’t have understood a word he said anyway.

Three weeks later, we get a call from our landlord. He asks, “Do you have water?” Well, of course we did, why wouldn’t we? The guy fixed it.

The landlord goes on and tells us that if we still have water, it is a miracle. The maintenance man had put three units on our meter, which should have only lasted up to about two weeks. We would be running out of water very, very soon. We needed to take our flashy card, which no one had given us, and put more units on it at the bank.

So, we search down maintenance, find our card, load up on Turkish lira and head off to the bank. This accomplished, we are confident, that we could swipe our card, and we would be in water utopia.

Not so. We couldn’t, no matter what either of us did, get that damn card to go in the meter. With our spirits crushed and our heads hung low, we reluctantly trudge to the maintenance office to confess our sins. The receptionist was the only one there, and is not as accustomed to our “quirks” as the guys are, so she snaps, “You have to try harder!” I felt like I was one of my students being admonished for not giving it my best. She charges up the elevator, slams the card in the slot, and yes, we have water. A happy ending….for now.