My Afterschool Party

It's on days like yesterday that make me wonder why I'm leaving this place.

Yesterday, afterschool, I kidnapped my friend Pinar and Elif, albeit a planned one. But a kidnapping all the same, and what do kidnappers do? They can make their victims do whatever they want. In this case, the kidnapper wanted to see a cute dog. So off the kidnappers and victims went to Elif's house. On the way, we saw Yigit and some other kid on the school servis bus, and flipped them off. Laughs insued. We continued on our way halfhazardly, stepping in mud, hiding behind bushes, almost getting hit by cars, etc, etc. We finally arrived at our destination.

Elif has a dog named Ozzy. Ozzy is a charming, little beagle with a pink collar. So while Ozzy and I rolled on the ground (Pinar doesn't like Ozzy,) Elif got ready to go out. The time came to say goodbye to Ozzy and Elif's mother. We next went to Marin, a cafe in Ataköy, close to Elif's house. At Marin, there is nargile (hookah, water pipe, what have you) and thus, it is a prime hangout spot of the high schoolers. When we arrived, I saw another group of kids I also hang out with sometimes. I waved awkwardly and said the standard hello, how are you.

Elif, Pinar and I sat down in the red, vinyl chairs and ordered food, because we were all quite hungry. After satisfying our hunger, Elif and I shared a nargile, while Pinar watched music videos that were playing, via projector, on one of the walls.

Now Pinar is the one who speaks the most english, but Elif also understands a lot of english. She insists on me teaching her more, so we have a deal now that revolves around us teaching each other's languages. At one point, Pinar had to leave because she thought her mother would be mad she wasn't home yet (she ended up not being mad at all) thus leaving me and Elif alone. This was not the least bit awkward. It is then that I realized something: language is not that big of a barrier that people make it out to be. Here I was, having the time of my life with someone that didn't even speak my language fluently!

But as all evenings must, it had to come to an end, so we paid our bill and walked to the dolmus station. After the goodbye kisses on the cheeks, I boarded my dolmus, a little bit happier and a little bit lighter.