Ultimately, I love my American room, my Russian accent, and my American friends so much. Pretty dramatic to imagine the winds of change. (c) Twitter post. I worked in a small town called Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. In the morning I was a housekeeper, in the evening – a waitron. It was a resort with expensive yachts, endless miles of golf courses, and a lake that would rage from time to time. Every week, dozens of American families would arrive, and we became a part of them. My supervisor, Petty, once said: “Our job is to make these families feel cared for.” Everything I did was care. I cared for money, for huge tips that often reached one or two hundred dollars. Isn't that enough to sound like a summer that can make a person insanely happy? International students were given houses right on the resort grounds – spacious (two-story) wooden dwellings, affectionately called cabins. Semih, Luliu, Deniz, Berkay, Yazan, Winni, Fariza, Ola, Alexandru, Luby, Anel, Madina – this list could go on forever, as our Fair Hills family consisted of fifty people. We lived together, worked together. Together we made plans for the future. One day in the kitchen, making me jump slightly, Deniz flew up to me – a bold Turkish girl with jet-black hair and purple lipstick. With her black jeans, black t-shirt, and dark skin, she didn't fit into the colorful madness of the kitchen shelves at all. She didn't speak English well, but we often sat lazily (in some blissful half-slumber) on the balcony of her cabin, like masters of our American lives, crossing off another Minnesota day from our American calendar. We looked at the resort streets, which, according to Deniz, looked so much like the winding streets of Istanbul, while I compared the rows of houses to the star-like rays of the straight streets of Paris. The thought of Parisian boulevards with bridges also often came to mind. Well, flying up to me in the kitchen, Deniz suggested we ride our bikes to a Mexican diner that was forty minutes away down the highway. I knew how it would be: in the evening I would wait for her, she would come, she would talk, I would listen, her arrival would smell of tobacco, and she, coughing, would tell, tell, tell me about how she is not like a decent Muslim girl and how Susan's pies remind her of her grandmother's buns (I even remember that her grandmother had a huge warm knitted cardigan, which, as Deniz claimed, would suit me very well). Everything happened not according to the planned scenario at all: Otgoo tagged along with me, and Deniz brought her friend – the same dark Turkish Berkay. We entered the Mexican diner as a group of four. We sat at the bar, watched TV, and ate pizza in the dim light of the walls covered in photos, while everyone was interested in who we were, what our names meant in our native language, and how we liked America. Oh, we liked it very much! What else did I like that evening? Well, for example, Berkay (I suppose it's all because he accepted all the crazy ideas that permeated the subconscious of my brain; during the conversation, he liked to repeat “look me in the eyes” or conversely “come on, don't just stand there and look at me so confusedly”; he was insanely fearless, and so fearless that, surely, only fools can be; he wore glasses; one night we were lying on the golf course and didn't even move when a thunderstorm gathered and the grass, on which dying shadows fell, became wet). No stars, no laughter, no peace. From here, my advice flows smoothly again: 1. This world is quite spoiled; it is full of enmity, cruelty, and meaningless tragedy. In America, you will meet people who are completely opposite to you. Enjoy it. Do not resist and do not be afraid to change. 2. This is not just a summer spent abroad. Thanks to my Arab friends, I have changed my life at the root: I started learning Turkish, dived headfirst into Arabic literature, and even read the Quran out of interest – calmly, yes, I am that strange! And I will be celebrating this
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