Anuş Kısadur in 2 photographs and 339 words
With a swing of her thick black hair, Anuş, 15, leans forward to chat about her life, her loves and her village. “I love Vakıflı,” she says, “But Hatay [province] feels too tight, too narrow.” As she sits on the park bench across from the coffee house, she gestures at the people around her. There are quartets of men playing backgammon at rickety wooden tables, others chatting over cups of steaming Turkish coffee and tea. In front of her, the town’s irrigation canal bubbles along, catching bits of leaves and pine needles and grass. Anuş tempers her desire to leave with a big smile, a consolation to Vakıflı that it will always be a part of her life. She spends her summers in the village, hanging out with friends until 2 a.m. She rarely leaves, she says, though she does travel to nearby Çevlik to go to the beach. “I’m in love with the water,” she says, her dark brown eyes sparkling. She’s vivacious and young, bursting with energy and spirit. Her off-the-shoulder top, which exposes lightly tanned skin, is emblazoned in neon pink, green and blue with “Jasper says relax.” It suits her. Anuş will start 10th grade next year at an Anatolian high school in Samandaǧ, the closest small town, but she is certain about her future. She plans to study law at a college in Istanbul. “I have a big love for the law,” she says. She initially fell for it, she explains, through her love of literature. She is an avid reader, especially of Elif Şafak, a well-known Turkish novelist. “Literature has a role in determining my occupation,” she says, “since it’s related to talking and speech.” And a lawyer, she’s sure, will need those abilities. With her even, measured speech and her cheerful, outgoing personality, she seems like the ideal attorney: one who can relate to her clients as she vociferously defends them. When asked why she wants to be a lawyer, Anuş sums it up simply: “You must stand by the victims.”
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