Dating someone from another country and culture allows us to see our own country/culture through a different lens. I began to learn this while I lived in Mongolia and was married to Zorig. That was the first time I resided outside of the U.S. (except for military assignments). Everything was new, foreign, and unusual to me. I decided I would accept the life I encountered there as “normal” and do my best to assimilate. That…
In the spring of 2018, before leaving Mongolia for Türkiye, I had lasik surgery. It cost me just $1,200 for BOTH eyes which were nearsighted (my prescription was -4.25 for one eye, -3.75 for the other at the time of surgery) and astigmatism had begun in one eye. For the first time since I was in middle school I was able to wake in the morning and see clearly across the room without putting lenses…
I have lived in three apartments across my time in Türkiye. For the first four years I lived in a one-bedroom apartment located in the school’s Lojman (“worker’s residence”) which is located close to our campus and houses some of the foreign educators. That apartment was good–it had a large great room with a balcony facing into the afternoon/evening sun. Ziggy and I were happy there for those four years. The bedroom was tiny and…