Legendary Donkeys

My students make me laugh every day.... They are funny, motivated, challenging, intellectual, and some of them are quite charming. Last week I was teaching my Level 2 (Elementary) students about comparative and superlative adjectives, (big, bigger, biggest). Their assignment was to write five sentences about their family using this sort of descriptive language. "My father is the funniest." "My mother is the smartest." "I am shorter than my brother." Things like this.... I am walking around to their desks checking on their progress and learning about their families, when I come to one of my male students' desk. He is young, probably in his very early 20s, if not late teens, attractive, and I can see the laughter in his eyes as I walk over. He has written only one sentence:

I am the Legendest.

We both burst out laughing. 

I move on to another male students' desk. He is laughing too as I approach. He looks at me earnestly and says, "Teacher? Is this true?" and shows me his sentence:

The Word's most beautiful eyes have donkey.

I stare at it for a few seconds. I look at him. I look back at the sentence. I look back at him. I say, "Are you saying that donkeys have the world's most beautiful eyes?" His face lights up and he says, "Yes! Yes! Its true! We say this in Turkey! There are many songs about it!" I look to the other students to get confirmation. Apparently, this is a Thing here. It is a well-known and accepted fact here in Turkey that the donkey has the most beautiful eyes in the entire world. Within minutes someone had pulled up a google image search of donkey eyes. And you know what? They are surprisingly beautiful and delicate. Who knew? I confirmed this long-held belief again with one of the Turkish teachers at my school. My next mission is to find these songs about donkey eyes. Trust that I will report back on that.