- Even though Vahan isn't given any details of what's going on at the time, he now knows (in the time when he's writing the book) what was going on in those days.
- This was not a good time for Armenians in Turkey. Vahan knew at the time that Turks and Armenians were different because they had a different language and went to separate churches, but aside from that, he didn't know much about Turks.
- He remembers his Uncle Mumpreh saying they can't trust the Turks because there was an Armenian massacre a couple years before in Adana.
- It wasn't until later that Vahan figured out those Turks—from Adana—were the same ones he meets in Bitlis. Uh-oh. This can't be good…