Do you feel the oppression here in Turkey?I choose not to feel it. We have a word, created in the last few years “Mahalle Baskisi”. It means the pressure a place exerts on its inhabitants.

Where do you feel it? In my wallet. Turkish identification cards require a religion. In my opinion, you might as well put your star sign or your favorite color. Why should your religion define you?There was a survey and most people in this country defined themselves first as Muslim, then as Turkish, then as male.

How would you define yourself? Well, my father was from Albania. He died when I was seven. My mother is from the Caucuses. But I was born here in Turkey. I guess that makes me Turkish, but I prefer to define myself as a member of the universe. A creature of the natural world. A human. I don’t like to define myself with a group, because this creates exclusion. It builds walls and boundaries. It means I’m NOT something else.

Do you feel Turkey’s oppression in other ways? Well, if a woman who is wearing a full birka sees my bare arm, she instantly views me differently. As if I am a stranger. As if I am an alien. Not one of her kind. That sucks.

How old are you, Rana? 22. Just.

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This made me think: I do like defining myself in different ways. But if I had to choose, which comes first? My ethnicity? My religion? My gender? My family name?How do you define yourself? And in what order?

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In the back of my mind there is this stack of worries that I sit on. They’re like books. That’s how much I love them. They are always warm, because I am always sitting there. Always comfortable, because I spend a LOT of time there. It’s where I plan, where I sew together bits of resentment to form blame, guilt and carefully constructed frustration. It’s where I find reassurance, confidence and security. And if I am drawn away for awhile, into an experience, a conversation, up a new trail, I am quick to return upon finishing that little project. I have to admit, I really don’t consider sitting anywhere else, despite the array of rugs, pillows, cushions, desks and even beds in this little imaginary room of my mind.As my friend, the goddess of wisdom, Maury, once told me, we don’t get the challenges we want, we get the challenges we need (Which makes me think of a certain song and my forever friend Leslie, who, I just now realize turned out to be completely right about something she said in 1997). What I happened to need was the courage to turn away from my well-varnished worry stack and choose an ottoman instead. Named for Turkey’s former empire. You know, a piece powerful and confident enough to just float out there between the East and the West, between the sectional and the chair, all on its own. Can you imagine?Whereas some challenges give you every little gory and exhaustive detail of your journey over a mountain of issues, this one just happened yesterday. Without dramatic consequence. I went to find my bench, and it was missing. I didn’t panic. But I talked about it with Michael and I think he was as astonished as me. Because worrying is just something I do.But I never did find it. I just kept wandering around, worrying and wondering where the hell it could be. I guess the transformation isn’t exactly complete.

I look thrilled don’t I?Maybe I’m not into rocks. Maybe my history-obsessed friend Nicole drug me toward too many ruins when we backpacked in Greece. Maybe I’m just ignorant. But once you’ve seen a bunch of columns, you’ve already seen a few too many.This was a latrine. That was a slave quarters. Over here was where the Romans had sex.I actually DO like history. I adore antiques. I hear there are seven wonders worth seeing. The Acropolis was cool. So was St. Peters. I have romped through many a castle and monument with fascination. And I can honestly tell you that if I found a genie in a bottle I would go back in time.But a field of rubble and ruins, with sometimes English-translated facts that I will soon forget just doesn’t do it for me.When they unearth new treasures, new tombs, new teeth, I always think about what my husband once said after reading an article about recently discovered dinosaur bones:Put them with the rest.

According to Bill Bryson, whose book, A Short History Of Nearly Everything, I totally recommend, the English word “uncertainty” doesn’t translate perfectly into German. Did you know that? It’s just too vague for them. You could say weltschmerz, but this translates as uncertainty about the world. Or maybe, zukunftsangst, but this means uncertainty about the future.Languages are often a reflection of the culture where they reside and are said to evolve to fit the needs of those using it. Germany is often fairly assessed as a land full of detail-oriented and organized folk, not big on religion, for example, or. . . .gambling. They’re not big on trusting in the universe and prefer a concise means of self-expression. Therefore, in German culture, it’s easy to see why a vague term such as “uncertainty” just might ilicit the response: Uncertainty of what? Be more specific!So even amidst uncertainty, they want to be certain.Sounds a little like me. I don’t have any German roots I know about, but I found this especially poignant. You see, I’ve realized that my worrying, my craving for certainty, my neurotic level of planning, is actually an addiction. And I don’t like it at all. You might call me hardwired this way. But I’ll go one step further by saying that my insatiable need to know things will “turn out” (a more and more dubious phrase) actually represents a staggering lack of faith in the universe.And, I can’t explain it right now, but this is not who I want to be.So, I have taken action. Or rather, I have chosen not to. And the universe has rewarded me. I had read, for example, a few days ago, that Bursa, Turkey, was famous for its shadow puppet theater—oil-soaked, camel-hide figurines which are painted, then lightcast against a white cloth. Apparently, a hunchback called Karagoz amused himself with such crafts while working on Bursa’s famed Ulu Cami, a twenty-domed, calligraphy-walled mosque from the 12th century. The Sultan, infuriated by the goofing off, had his shadow-puppeteering friends put to death. Perhaps not an uplifting story, but this revived art form seemed like a quirky and innovative look into a legendary Turkish subculture.In the past, I would have copied down the address and mapped a route, holding tight to expectations and remaining determined to accomplish my goal, missing the forest of mosque minarets and Turkish barber shops for the shadow puppet trees. But I chilled. Our first day we took a wander round the city in no particular direction. Eventually stopping to rest for a street-side glass of tea, I was taking in the terrace when I saw a banner. About the shadow puppet theater. Right there, that night, in the very café where we sat.But wait, then it happened again. We were In search of a ferry from Istanbul to Muldanya. After chasing our plans down a maze of rickety lanes, onto a tram, across the Galata Bridge, and past three ticket counters (all the wrong TYPE of ticket counter), up the hill, into the train station, down the hill, and back up the hill again, we finally made the ferry at Yenikapi Port, JUST in time. Yesterday, via email, our first Turkish couchsurfing host, Meric, said to call him when we arrived.But the phone didn’t work. Or maybe it was the number. Or the confusing rules about area codes and zeros and mobile phones using longer numbers. Or just that whole “we’re in a different country” thing. Sometimes I hate it when real life appears.I did not panic, which is really so huge for me and so pleasant for Michael. We knew that we needed to somehow check the validity of our phone SIM card or login to the website and double check our host’s number. So we lugged on our packs and began walking into this coastal town on the MarMara sea. A mere half a block later, plastered with glowing lights and several harmless loiterers, was a Turkcell store and an Internet café. Side by side. Nothing but kebab shops and convenient stores squished along the rest of the lane. Exactly what we needed.And I thought: OMG. This really works.

I’d heard the stew-brewing controversy about the headscarf ban a few years ago, but I never really got it. I remember thinking: A majority of Turkey’s population are Muslim, so what’s the deal? The protests surrounding restrictions in French schools seemed to further submerge the issue in a murky bath of obvious modesty, yet nonconforming rebellion. Confused and not terribly concerned, I forgot all about it.But a few trips to Istanbul during our Peace Corp service planted a couple quickly flowering plants in my ever-expanding, but weedy, garden of ideas. So what was the headscarf ban all about? Should women be allowed to wear these seemingly harmless hijabs in government-funded environments?Our new Turkish friend, Sez, who hosted us through a smashing little thing called couchsurfing, thinks yes. But while he believes women should be able to express their own interpretations of the Koran in any way they choose, he also urged his own sisters, upon approaching adolescence, to abstain from the headscarf. Why? Because in Turkey, you must choose. Hijab-free, you can attend high school and university. With it, you’re forced by law to self-study. According to him, the Qur’an says merely to “cover yourself” but does not specify how. He feels they should not forsake their education for this amorphous rule–and that going without a headscarf does not make one less Muslim.Now in Turkey for more than two weeks, I am no longer just reading a story about a clandestine book club amidst a Muslim community. Nor are my impressions captured within the confines of a two hour film about an American trying to escape her Iranian husband.I understand now that this country is a lot more like Europe than the Middle East. A lot more like Greece than Iran. As I shop for groceries. . .as I walked home in the dark last night to the sound of the eternally haunting call to prayer. . .as I ride the subway with Ipod-clutching, paisley-pattern-covered, and generously eye-lined 17-year olds, I am here.From this vantage point, complications fall away with ease. Clarity emerges. Just like in the US, some people go to church and some people don’t. Some find strength in the holy spirit, others in running triathlons and still others in restoring vintage pinball machines. It’s your choice. And similar trends shine through as well. When heading from Chicago to, say, Kenosha, Wisconsin, bible ownership and potluck suppers probably increase. Similarly, Islam is more apparent in the village than in Istanbul. Women here just happen to wear their Allah-worshiping heart on their sleeve. I can see how it’s really none of anyone else’s business.So, again, why the headscarf ban?In short, so Turkey can maintain the glowing impression I’ve just received. Straddling the East West fault-line in many ways, they want to appear European, dedicated to secularism enough, to wash from their billowing, balcony-hung flags, any wrinkle of a potential return to an Islamic state–a place where religion and government are one, public hangings and stonings actually happen and women aren’t allowed an education. On the lengthy Turkish timeline, it was “just” a century ago that the Ottoman Empire fell and a guy named Ataturk led the Turkish National Movement, helping to establish a modern, secular Turkish democracy. And thank God (or maybe not, depending on your denomination) that he did.In America, for the most part, we’re comfortable with yamikas, headscarves, beards, aprons, crosses or robes–whatever you deem spiritually fashionable. Maybe because religious freedom was one of our nation’s founding principles. Or maybe because there is no fear, in America, of returning to some Quaker or Christian state. However, relative to developing countries, America IS fond of  “bright lines”; enforced laws drawn in the sand (or in our case, grass) which are relatively unsusceptable to corruption. And as much as I eventually warmed up to the benefits of a bendable rules in Bulgaria, defined lines, such as a ban on headscarves, are a characteristic of a developed country, where social order is held a little more sacred. Moreover, who knows how the United States would react (perhaps a la the French) if we had an overwhelmingly large Muslim population throwing a little too much religion into the classroom. It’s tough to say.Strange, isn’t it that the very law which drives Turkish women away from formal education is the same one meant to make Turkey a more modern, more Western place. But so it is. And with neighbor Iran demonstrating the very Islamic state at the end of a slippery slope Turkey is struggling so desperately to avoid, I’m starting to get it. Why the headscarf is a halo of heated controversy. Why the ban is actually protecting women from a potentially worse fate. Why different laws work for different countries. Why Turkey is holding its ground.