Disapproving
Eastern Turkey, 2009
Our tour stopped in this village to photograph an old fort. It seemed like a good subject, but although I took about 20 shots, none of them were worth a dang. There were too many distracting rocks, hovels, fences, for me to find a focal point. I don’t know if the others were more successful.
Some of us walked back to the bus to wait. It was parked on a hilltop, near some homes and we could see the women and children coming and going. After a bit this girl sauntered up to look at us. She had put on her best clothes: her shoes had hardly been worn and her dress was spotless. She didn’t speak to us, but sat on the stone wall and stared at us with a rather superior expression. Some of the men, who were grandfathers, tried to amuse her in a grandfatherly way. She couldn’t understand English and their joking antics just intensified her frown.
She was a child on the verge of becoming an adult. It seemed to me that she felt it would be beneath her dignity to join in with the good-natured but silly attempts to make her smile. She was behaving as her mother might behave, holding on to her reserve, not showing her pleasure at being “courted”. She tries to hold back her smile, but there it is, trying to spread across her face.
She is a Turkish country girl, but she could be Greek or Italian or Syrian…una faccia una razza. One face, one race.