Every time I walk to my Dershane, private teaching institutions in Turkey which prepare students for the university exams, I take the same route. I go down my street, take a right, cross the street, go past the white and graceless cab stand, down all the way to the park, float down into the underpass and surface on the other side of the road, walk straight down, go past the lottery stand, the begging children on the left and Levis on right, turn right at the intersection, get through the huge line of people waiting for the bus to arrive and cross the street, turn left at the corner, being careful not to step on the peddler's goods, go past the little children playing harmonicas and begging, and, voila, I'm there.
My class in Dershane possesses a very wide range of teenagers. There is the girl who lives 20 kilometers away and takes a 1.5 hour long bus ride every day to get there, there is the girl with a constant smile on her face who studies way harder than the others yet still gets low grades, there are the guys in the back, pretending they know it all, but really they don't even know what they're working so hard for. And then there is that girl who can draw beautifully, but she has to learn all these to be able to live a "decent" life. Behind her sits that guy who talks a lot, jumps at every question and thinks he can do anything. I hope he stays that way. And next to them sits the diva of the class; her makeup pretty, her hair combed, her scarf and her shoes matching-she writes down everything on the board with the utmost care in her notebook, with color pens. She thinks she's learning, but she doesn't realize that those colorful notes are not going to get her into college alone. In the front sits the girl with the headscarf. She is nice, funny and hard-working-yet she's been chained down and subdued by the drug some call "religion" at only 17. She wants to be a doctor. And finally, there is the awkward guy, who wears the same thing every day, and is very smart- but his school doesn't care about him. For all of these people, except the exceptionally wealthy ones who can afford getting into a private university (which accept students with lower grades from the entrance test) the university exam is the way out, it's their salvation, it's the only chance they get to turn their lives around and be who they want to be.
Yet, their teachers at school don't know what they're supposed to teach. Their parents don't care about what they do: they only care if the Dershane sends home texts saying their child didn't do his/her homework. They don't have iPad's or iPhone's or computers to do research from or to let off some steam.
That begging child I see every single day on my way to Dershane, always has a book in his hands. He is always reading, even as night time begins to fall and the light starts to fade. What if he had a better family? What if his family had the resources to send him to the best schools in Ankara, get him tutored in playing the violin, and send him to Europe for creative writing workshops? Unfortunately, no matter what is stored behind those dark brown eyes shining with excitement and curiosity, may never be used.
That is what's wrong with the world. Your life is pretty much decided when you're born, according to the conditions you are born to/in. Not everyone gets an equal shot at making this journey of ours called life, the best one they've ever had. Some manage to change tracks; they take a right at the intersection instead of a left and they meet the most amazing person who knows this celebrity who can get them a job, and at that job discover that they're extraordinarily talented and rise to the top very quickly and build their own companies and BE HAPPY. Some can do this. And the ones who can't, well, they go down the same old gray road, get a decent job, work only to make money, and always dream about what their lives would've been like if they were born into different families. Or if they'd studied harder and had a better math teacher in 10th grade and had gotten into a better college.
So everytime I go to Dershane after coming home from my private school and choosing a bag among the ten to put my Dershane stuff in, charging my iPhone, hearing my parents say "We love you, and good luck, don't stress yourself out", and feeling them hug me just before I leave, and then see those little children on the street begging for money rather than being at school or at home playing with his toys, I lose faith in the human race and this messed up system they've (we've) invented. I wish everyone could have equal opportunities, I wish there was a world where the people with the most money or best connections didn't get what they wanted. But we all know that this is not possible, and ending this blog post saying "I wish everyone could be equal :(" is equivalent to writing a blog post about unicorns and then saying "I wish they really existed".
The least we could do to mend this broken system of ours is to listen and try to help. I'm not saying you shouldn't buy that 100 dollars worth sweater that you don't really need and instead donate that money to some charity. All I'm saying is, listen. Don't Pretend you can't hear them, start to whistle as you cross the street and seem embarrassed to be there. Because if you could just listen, if you could just understand, you could grant "another day in paradise" for many people.
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