She wanted a better life, but her home and her neighborhood provided few opportunities. She pondered long - should she place an ad in that magazine that Western and American men bought seeking women to share their lives?

Her father and her brothers were in favor of the plan. As a woman without a husband she was a drain on their resources. Her mother wept bitterly and would not discuss it. Except for her copious tears, she offered no opposition to her husband and sons when they spoke in favor.

After the ad was placed, they all waited. Some with feigned indifference, some with dread, and the young woman herself with a mixture of romantic yearning and practical common sense. A husband would, after all, mean a future, children, at least one trip across the sea to a new and exciting country.

When she read the young man's letter, she was touched by his gentle, almost diffident courtesy. His photo showed him to be small in stature, with a studious air and a tentative smile.

Now, five years later, she sits surrounded by a large boisterous group, all of them members of her husband's family gathered for a special reunion. Most of them know each other well. There are lots of jokes. There is lots of wine, which she repeatedly refuses.

They are so strange. But warm, real, sweet smelling and dear, her year old daughter sits on her lap, her sparkling dark eyes watching the gaiety in the room. Here is tangible connection to these strange others. Because of the mystical tangle of DNA coming from the shy young man in the photograph, her daughter is one of them.

So she must now belong as well.