Small World

The world truly is small—and one of the good things (and bad) about working in a library is that I come face-to-face with the world every day (ok, three days a week).

I’ve helped a covered woman several times recently. I’ve been dying to ask where she’s from, but I’m sure she gets that question all the time—and probably not always with a good intent—so I’ve restrained myself.

Anyway, I was helping her this week when a woman came up to her and asked her if she was Muslim. I groaned inside, but then the woman said that she was Muslim also. I’m not sure how an American woman living in Provo converted 30 years ago, but it gave me the chance to ask the woman where she was from.

“Turkey,” she said. Imagine her surprise when I told her my husband is a Turk. Imagine both our surprise when we discovered her husband is a professor at Ataturk University in Erzurum where I worked the last two years! She offered to make us Turkish food sometime, and I said my husband would love that. I really can’t believe how small the world is.