One Year

I am coming out of hibernation to let you know that last Tuesday marked our one-year anniversary of living here. Living in Turkey has been an extremely enriching experience unlike any other I’ve had. I spent one summer in England for an internship and a 5-week chemical engineering lab course but it only scratched the surface of a true cross-cultural living experience (even though I did live in a YMCA).

Here are some of my reflections from the past year.

• I didn’t realize how closely my first three months here might resemble becoming a new mom. I was tired all of the time. I hardly ever got a full night’s sleep. I was extremely forgetful. Most of my energy went to “being” instead of “doing”. It was an adventure just to venture out of the house. And I was a bit more emotional.

• I now have a deep respect for foreigners who live and/or work in the US. It takes a lot of energy to operate daily in a different language. There are two choices: 1) Never leave your home or 2) Learn the language and get involved in the community.

• I can’t even count how many times I’ve had to say “It’s really not like that in America.” When well over 50% of the movies shown in this country come from America, Turks really think they know what Americans are like. As a brief exercise, think about the last movie you watched. Does it represent America well? Does it represent you well? (A friend’s 3-year-old loves Wall-E. Hmmm, I wonder what she is learning about Americans from that movie?)

• It is amazing how much culture plays a part in our thoughts, words, and actions without us ever realizing it.

• I am really thankful for Vonage! It couldn’t be any easier to keep in touch. My friends and family didn’t even have to program a new phone number into their phones.

• I realize there is a reason I chose to buy a detached townhome. I really dislike being able to hear my neighbors, or more specifically, their alarm clock that used to go off between 4:30 and 5:30 am and continued for an hour. A normal alarm clock wouldn’t be so bad, but this one had a finger-nails-on-the-chalk-board quality about it.

• However, living in an apartment affords some great advantages, like having your best Turkish friend and her family right downstairs, ready to help at a moment's notice.

• My body is building up immunity to all sorts of microbes and viruses. You know when a child is first dropped off at day-care, and slowly their immunity builds. That is what is happening for us here. Pretty soon, we’re going to have immunity to pretty much everything, including the food microbe that I am currently hosting! (I’ve gotten food poisoning twice in the last four weeks.)

In the next week, I will try to post some pictures of my favorite days spent with Scott’s family!! We had an absolutely wonderful time, and I was sad to see them leave. Stay tuned…