You're not a foreigner!

At least that's the comment two different people made last night at the wedding reception. Let me explain.

First of all, we had church at the international fellowship since our pastor was getting married. I didn't want to go home between the church service and the wedding, so I wore my jacket and little bowtie to church. One of the local girls told me I was very "şirin." For those of you who don't understand the local slang, that means, according to my dictionary, "sweet, affable, cute, charming." I'll take it. There are some things that transcend cultures. Apparently myself in a bowtie is one of them.

Then there was the wedding which, forgive me for saying so, was just as boring as every other wedding I've ever been to. I think it's safe to say that for most guys, unless it's one of your very best friends, or your own, then weddings just don't do a lot for us. If anything, they're kind of downers. On the one hand you have to the desire to be with a beautiful bride of your own and on the other you have the sadness of knowing that you won't be seeing much of that guy anymore. But I will stop before I get myself in some really hot water.

So it was on to the reception. It was very different from what you'd expect out of a conservate Christian wedding in the South. First of all, they have a custom of having the bride and groom dancing the typical local dance to the typical local music, while men from the crowd come out to the dance floor and throw money at them. Then there's the time of wrapping the bride and groom in strips of cloth and allowing people to pin money to them. Very different for sure.

But by far the best part was the dancing. Turkish dancing is much easier for the guys and much harder for the girls. First of all, the guys just hold their hands out in front of them like they're ready to give someone a big hug, and they snap. While they are doing this, they just kind of move their hips from side to side. Really quite easy, thankfully. On the other hand, the women really have to work. I don't think you'd consider it "belly dancing" but it requires a lot of the same types of movements. This dancing went on for hours, and they probably only played 3 different songs. It was the same beat, the same rhythym for the most part, for hours straight. And we danced. We danced so well that one of my buddy's sister told me that I danced better than her brother. One of the other girls piped up and said, "You are not a foreigner, you're a Turk!" Well, I said in reply, "I'm very white for a Turk."

But I can't tell you that the dancing was fun without telling you about THE dance. Where I really shined last night. They took a break from the usual middle eastern sounding beat to play a rather slow song. Everybody was pairing up and heading to the floor. Usually at this point, I grab a drink of water and a seat and try to catch my breath. But this time, I looked over, and seated at a table across the room was one of the two Korean girls from church. Her friend Sunshine had been snatched up by my buddy the Shark and she was at the table with a couple other church girls, but sitting by herself just watching. Well, I thought about it for a second, then I reminded myself that, "they don't call me C-Love for nothing." So I stood up, straightened my shirt, and walked across the room to her table. I stood politely by her chair while she took a drink of water and when she turned to look at me, I bowed deeply at the waist, gave her a coy look and a sly grin, and politely offered my right hand. I didn't have to say a word and she couldn't. She just took my hand and we quietly found ourselves swaying to the music under the soft light of the disco ball. Somewhere I heard someone whisper, "Well, an enchanted moment."

And in completely unrelated news, the police are looking for me. Supposedly it's normal procedure anytime a foreigner requests a visa. They've asked our buildings doorman and, today, they asked my boss. Maybe I'll be blessed enough to meet with them soon.