I’ve been back for about 3 weeks
now, and it really feels like the start of the new year. After coming home from Bursa, I had a week at
home and then moved into UIC. We just
finished our first week of classes, and it’s with this perspective that I’m
really able to reflect on what’s happened this summer.
I spent the summer studying the
language and culture of a country very different from anything I’ve
experienced. But it really wasn’t all
that different. Once you get past the
colored lens of cultural details, there are certain aspects of the human
condition that are universal.
I lived with a family that was
gracious and hospitable; and that was patient and more than willing to invite
me into their home and into their family.
I spoke with my host father about grandiose topics such as the role that
religious tolerance plays in society, and we talked about John Deere tractors
and Michelin tires.
Like most Americans, I hadn’t ever
given much thought to Turkey as a country or a culture. But it was an incredible experience. If one is curious, interested in religion,
society, politics, history, art, architecture, food, or all of the above, and
if one is open to new experiences, I cannot recommend traveling to Turkey
enough. In eight weeks, even if I might
not have an understanding of thousands of years of context, I certainly gained
an insight and an appreciation for the country, culture, and people.
Turkey is in such a unique position
geographically, culturally, socially, and economically. It is a middle ground between what are seen
as incompatible opposites. It is 98% Muslim,
yet denies Islam a place in public life.
It is socially tied to Europe, but it looks to the East for its cultural
identity. It borders the European Union;
and it borders Syria, Iran, and Iraq.
And it interacts with the European Union, the Arab League, and Israel,
but it isn’t a member of any of these. It
looks to the past to create a sense of nation, but was founded on notions of
rejecting backwardness for modernity.
Really, there is more to Turkey
than I could ever put into a blog post, and every day, it seems I can pick out
some new nuance that I hadn’t noticed or paid close enough attention to
before. It was an incredible opportunity
that pushed me to find new limits of what I have experienced in my life; a new
continent, new country, new culture with its own history, new language, new
religion, new normal.
While I might return to the blog
and post something in it, I think that this was a pretty fair wrap up of what I’m
feeling. There’s just so much more that
I could say, but I will leave it at this.
Turkey has taken me to places – physical and not – and left me
breathless, but thankfully not speechless.
