I haven’t found a better way to describe being in Istanbul than to compare it to my experience with meeting an intelligent cousin of mine, twice removed. Mature, wise beyond her years, personified by a familiar yet seemingly distant culture and confident about who she was, seeing this cousin of mine always aroused in me feelings of both happiness and envy. Living in Turkey for the past two months has given me similar feelings -only this time I’m having a lot more inferiority issues.
Many people have asked me what I’m doing here. I’ve spent the past couple months in Turkey as part of a cultural exchange program. I lived with a Turkish family, helped their children improve their English speaking skills as well as assisted them with their summer English homework. In return, I got paid, got to live with the family and benefited from picking up the language and understanding their culture from their daily interactions. All of this is done with the intention of giving one the opportunity to gain an in-depth perspective of life in Turkey.
So far, I’ve been exposed to such a wide variety of cultural experiences that I’m having trouble figuring out where to begin. Every time I tried to start a blog post, I would end up opting out of revealing my thoughts on such a public platform, and instead write in my private journal. I only have about eleven days left in this beautiful and not-so-distant land from where I’m currently based in Cairo, so I have decided to try and sum up my thoughts on my experiences in the coming weeks.
Stay tuned. 🙂
Rediscovering Truth 