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"They gave a smile and a wave to my uncles "salam alaikum son" as they responded with "alaikum salam uncle"."

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"They gave a smile and a wave to my uncles "salam alaikum son" as they responded with "alaikum salam uncle"."

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Another example of this is seen the in the dialogue between third-party characters where words such as "son" and "uncle" connote feelings of warmth and home and happiness. Giving the reader a different view and tone than the one they have been getting my 8-year-old me constantly complaining. This gives a taste of the reality of how negativity is always present however seeing outside the picture and realizing the little things that help people feel warmth and happiness is the most important.

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 I saw boys my brother's age, covered in dirt and sweat dripping down their faces, breathing heavily at 40 degrees Celsius. Dragging on their backs a huge white plastic bag full of plastics and cardboard. 

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 I saw boys my brother's age, covered in dirt and sweat dripping down their faces, breathing heavily at 40 degrees Celsius. Dragging on their backs a huge white plastic bag full of plastics and cardboard. 

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their manner of dealing with them was something all of us should learn.

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their manner of dealing with them was something all of us should learn.

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Epiphanies serve to show the growth of the character. After years of going there, and remembering my first visit to my village, I was able to see flaws in my negativity, ignorance, and negativity. Whereas they were content with the little they had.

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The use of subjective description here not only helps the reader visualise my experience through a broken road or through the village, but also allows readers to perceive my emotions and feeling while making the description. The use of unfinished, brings out a negative connotation in my tone. Describing a road as rocky and potholed gives the natural feeling of discomfort and frustration as everyone experienced a bumpy road before. Or describing the dreadfulness of houses. This reveals even further the attitude of my younger self in this trip which further helps in the lesson learnt later on as I reflect on my attitude and my ignorance from before.

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It's important to include an objective description as it leaves out emotional factors from the writing and instead describes facts. I used to paint an accurate picture of the extent of the poverty going on in the village. I found this an important aspect to include as it lays a foreground where the level of poverty is understood while the people living this firsthand can be happy and grateful for what they have. This is seen by women walking with milk can still be able to "giggle and chat with their neighbors". Though the houses are described as "unfinished" the people in the village are described as "eating all together", revealing the content and living as if there weren't any issues. Another example is when I was the trash picker who was my brother's age, around 13 back then. This was put to show the struggles of not only adults but kids living in this poverty. Later on, I describe them waving and smiling. The objectivity being primarily factual, kids working in these conditions give readers an emotional reality check without using subjective description, as the facts are already harsh and real enough.

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"Smiling" "giggling" "laughing" "waving" "happy"

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"Smiling" "giggling" "laughing" "waving" "happy"

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Though the parts where 8 year old me was describing the story were negative, I decided to implement joyful diction all throughout the story to highlight and move the story towards the final learned lesson and realisation. I realised in the end the happiness and joy in life people had though the poverty they were living in. How we should learn to be happy with what we have in life. These little moments throughout the story that all include words connoting to the same feeling of joy and content. Helping move towards the epiphany in the end of looking past the negativity, in this case the arrogant voice of young Deniz.

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"I saw women and men walking down these non-road roads, with handful of cattle full of milk. Over their heads or in their arms, on their way home having a chat and giggle with other neighbors. "

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"I saw women and men walking down these non-road roads, with handful of cattle full of milk. Over their heads or in their arms, on their way home having a chat and giggle with other neighbors. "

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"Tiny windows and bathrooms and, in many cases even the kitchens, were outside.... Seeing families cook outside and eat outside all together. "

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"Tiny windows and bathrooms and, in many cases even the kitchens, were outside.... Seeing families cook outside and eat outside all together. "

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 "I could've quite easily assumed this village to be of the living dead.  no character and no life from the broken and draining looking houses"

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 "I could've quite easily assumed this village to be of the living dead.  no character and no life from the broken and draining looking houses"

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"They looked like they carry a million stories, experiences, memories thats different than my  own."

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"They looked like they carry a million stories, experiences, memories thats different than my  own."

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I decided to use a simile within a section of the story where my present self is reflecting on my past thoughts. Its clear i switch from a more arrogant tone in the paragraph above, calling the houses " broken and crumbling", to a more formal tone, describing the experience and stories these houses, the people living in these houses must have, not being to quick to judge. A comparison normally made to makes the reader understand a visual better. However in this case i wanted to depict emotion, enabling the viewer to perceive the essence of the houses and setting as they want. Thus creates movement in the story instead of trusting an unreliable voice of 8 year old me.

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 "the rocky, unfinished, potholed road" 

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 "the rocky, unfinished, potholed road" 

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"The roads sounded like white noise, calming and natural. ..........The edge of the road dropped to a rocky cliff, I heard clacking and clunks as the wheels were shaking from the rocks. "

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"The roads sounded like white noise, calming and natural. ..........The edge of the road dropped to a rocky cliff, I heard clacking and clunks as the wheels were shaking from the rocks. "

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I decided to use auditory imagery to invoke up sound images in the minds of the readers. The use of subjective description of  sounds of the different roads from "White noise" and a "calming noise" in contrast to "clacking" and "clunks" aids the reader’s imagination about different sound. This change of sound directs from the actual setting change of the story. This provides the audience with an opportunity to perceive things with their sense of hearing allowing text more lifelike and descriptive for every reader.

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"As a kid what felt like hours to young Deniz, was probably 40 minutes. ---- “The extra extra big roads” is what I called the highway back then. "

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"As a kid what felt like hours to young Deniz, was probably 40 minutes. ---- “The extra extra big roads” is what I called the highway back then. "

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I chose to structure my writing in parts where present (17 year old) me reflects on the actual story of visiting my home town village. Using this reflective narrative allows me in my writing to look at the mindset and emotions i was feeling as a child and push the story forward and analyse how I've changed thus learning a lessons from it. The switch from self-awareness to the immature tone is aimed is to evoke empathy and self-reflection, which would eventually lead to more pro-social behaviour of the reader, in this case the epiphany.

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 “how long is this going to take”, “I'm bored” I'm tired”

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 “how long is this going to take”, “I'm bored” I'm tired”

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I decided to use this dialogue to highlight the unreliable voice of my 8-year-old self and her opinions. The informal tone in writing is conversational and expressive, being more emotional. Revealing the character's unknowledgeable, biased, childish, and ignorant opinions that readers will see run throughout the story. This is purposefully done for the readers to see the difference between the mannerisms of 8-year-old me and 17-year-old me as a lesson and realisation is learned by the end of the story.

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I started my travel writing with dialogue from a different character than me. Not only can conversation develop the characters and show the story's setting and environment at the same time, but this use of a univocal voice also describes the variety of points of view. This appeals to ethos based techniques to make the story sounds natural, authentic, and lifelike for the reader while advancing the plot.

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Travel Narrative - My first trip to my home village 

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Travel Narrative - My first trip to my home village 

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“ Family, we're going to visit them” I remember my mom repeating when I kept bugging her “where are we going”, “how long is this going to take”, “I'm bored” I'm tired”. I was barely 8. I had a short attention span, and I got bored very quickly, so I hated car rides. I was trying to figure out why this car ride, was taking such a long time!

As a kid what felt like hours to young Deniz, was probably 40 minutes.

“The extra extra big roads” is what I called the highway back then. Going through the city felt normal, seeing big buildings on the highway. The roads sounded like white noise, calming and natural. Though after a while of fidgeting and fighting with my brother, I looked outside through the foggy window down to the unusual muddy ground. I got confused, I got up on my knees to see better. We were on a narrow non-road-looking road. The edge of the road dropped to a rocky cliff, I heard clacking and clunks as the wheels were shaking from the rocks. The cliff overlooked tiny houses in green mountains from afar. My mom was smiling.

8 year old me was having the confusion of her life. I distinctly remember this was the first time I'd changed to an environment like that. From being born in a city and only knowing what highways and skyscrapers were, I was all of a sudden driving up a mountain in the south of Turkey on a road that looked like they were meant for tractors and farmers, I didn't like change back then.

We went in spirals jumping up and down from the rocky, unfinished, potholed road. As we went further and further rocking side to side, we started to drive past houses. Hand-made houses made of stone, some older and possibly smaller than I've ever seen before. Not old like vintage but old like broken and crumbling.

They looked like they carry a million stories, experiences, and memories that were different than my own. While being from their but having a barrier that keeps me from understanding its depth.

“Mom this place looks so weird”. I was clearly disturbed because I could've quite easily assumed this village to be of the living dead. This came from the feeling of disturbance and discomfort with the appearance, there was no character and no life in the broken and draining-looking houses without doors or locks. Tiny windows and bathrooms and, in many cases even the kitchens, were outside, I thought the house wasn't done being built. Seeing families cook outside and eat outside altogether. “Why were we going to a place that's not finished building?” another thought I had.

The next minute, full-on farms! “Are these people living on the farm with animals?” I thought. I saw women and men walking down these non-road roads, with handfuls of cattle full of milk. Over their heads or in their arms, on their way home having a chat and giggling with other neighbors.

While a thousand questions were through my mind, I didn't feel the car moving, stuck staring and watching the same people for a while. I looked over the front of the car, my eyes widened out of fear and worry. Sheep and goats, danger and chaos surrounding our car. My uncles and mom were laughing with the people on the street while I was finding possible ways to escape. The blasting noise of the bell calling the animals to the side, the cars honking to say hi to each other, smiling and waving. “Why did you bring us to a farm,” I asked. I was bothered, my eyebrows scrunched up with my nose, crumpling up my face to show my mom i was annoyed. "Why would we come here for vacation".

I remember she didn't even bother responding, she was happy talking with the people outside the car, everyone they knew, they grew up there with.

While waiting for the goats and sheep, I saw boys my brother's age, covered in dirt and sweat dripping down their faces, breathing heavily at 40 degrees Celsius. Dragging on their backs a huge white plastic bag full of plastics and cardboard. They gave a smile and a wave to my uncles "salam alaikum" as they responded with "alaikum salam". Another laughing chat began. At this point I was done with this place, my little childish tantrum burst into tears and whines. "How could people live here? Why would people live here?"

Then, these were rhetorical questions that I never wanted to know the answer to. Now after years I realize that this district has villages that are really poor and face a lot of issues. This was my first trip to a village and I had never imagined it would turn out to be this memorable. It makes me think now, 9 years later, how even though there were many real and unnerving issues being faced by the people that I witnessed, their manner of dealing with them was something all of us should learn. It never felt like they were facing any issues. They were content with the little they had. Nothing could match the smiles and excitement of the children when they ran along the car side playing football on the streets. That is when I realized that a trip to a village, especially a place where my roots are from, is more fulfilling than any fancy or luxurious trip I could go on in the world. Allowing cultural and social awareness and acceptance while experiencing a culture completely different from what you're used to.