One Week In

I have officially been in Turkey for a little over one week now, but it feels as if I have been here so much longer! This past week has been extremely busy, but I have already learned so much about this country and culture. I cannot wait to learn and experience even more. This past week was new teacher orientation which included sessions on the history of our school, our ministry while we are here, and school policies. We were even able to meet with some of the workers who serve here, and these meetings definitely brought great perspective to how we are "working” as teachers. The faculty members, the workers here, and even some of my kiddos that I have been able to meet have ALL been so encouraging and helpful. I do not think there is anything more that someone could do to help us during this huge transition. I cannot wait to meet my entire class next Monday!

The biggest struggle so far has definitely been the language barrier. People here speak Turkish. I do not speak Turkish. At all. See the problem? Everyone in our neighborhood knows that the Americans in this part of town teach at the "American College" or American school. They have shown SO much patience at the grocery stores, restaurants, and even on the public transportation throughout the city and for that I am extremely thankful. I long for the day when I will be able to go to the grocery store, find exactly what I need in a decent amount of time, and ask for help if I need it. I pray it will come soon! I know it will come with time but hopefully sooner rather than later. For now, I will just continue to depend on my handy English to Turkish dictionary (props to Krystal) in the grocery store, on the dolmus (kind of like a bus), in taxis, and at restaurants.

To mark and celebrate all we have learned during our first week here, my roommate Brittany and I went out on an "adventure" last Saturday. Someone told us the easiest way to learn your way around a new town is to get as lost as you possibly can and then try to find your way home. Well, we didn't go to that extreme, but we did brave public transportation to go to the closest mall. Before this past weekend, we have always had someone who speaks decent Turkish with us when we use the dolmus to leave our neighborhood. This is how it went down. We managed to get on the dolmus, go to the mall, and from that mall take another dolmus to go to another mall. We shopped a bit at the second mall, and then we managed to get lost a bit which is VERY easy to do when no one can help you because they do not understand English. Then, we asked for help, hitched a ride on a dolmus that wasn't the one that went to our neighborhood, found the correct dolmus stop for our neighborhood, waited for the correct dolmus, which then turned into PRAYING for the correct dolmus. Eventually the correct dolmus came. The evening ended with us scrambling to look up how to tell the bus driver to stop when we got close to our neighborhood and then trekking up "the hill" safely to our apartment. It was an eventful venture to say the least. You can imagine how this would have gone much differently had I been able to speak Turkish. If I spoke Turkish, I would have been able to ask, "Where is the nearest bus stop to the Cigdem neighborhood?" to which the nice Turkish security guard at Cepa would have been able to respond with, "Take a left on the main road, walk until you get to an overpass, cross the road, and then take the dolmus to Cigdem" which in all honesty he probably did say to us initially. We just couldn't understand him. Instead, in extremely broken Turkish, I just said "Dolmus, Cigdem Mahallesi?" with a questionable look on my face to which he responded with, “?!?” Exactly. Eventually, after repeating "Dolmus to Cigdem Mahallesi?" in many different tones, he motioned straight forward with his arm, then lifted his arm in an upward direction, across, and then back down again. We said thank you in Turkish (we think), smiled, and walked off in the direction that his arms were pointing. And this is the reason Brittany and I had absolutely NO idea where to go to catch a bus back to our neighborhood. Eventually we hitched a ride on another dolmus, found our correct bus, and made it home safely, like I said earlier. No worries, Mom, I'm a survivor.

Below are some pictures of some of the delicious Turkish food, my neighborhood, and views of Ankara from my apartment building and "the forest." Ankara is a HUGE city, and the view is absolutely beautiful, especially at sunset and at night.

Part of my neighborhood

Ankara - population 4 million people

A closer view of some of the apartment buildings from "the forest" The forest is an area right down the street from my apartment with a lot of walking trails, courtesy of the university. The forest also includes many, many wild dogs.

This is a small portion of the open market in Cigdem which is open every Thursday and Sunday. The people here offer a wide variety of fresh fruit, vegetables, dried fruit, and spices.

 

What most Turkish meals begin with

Tavuk Beyti (Chicken... something)

This keeping a blog thing is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. My goal is to post about once a week. My classroom is almost ready, so expect pictures of it soon!! Thank you for your continued prayers and support as school begins next week!

Missing my family and friends at home terribly but feeling incredibly thankful to the Lord and blessed for the opportunity to teach and work in this amazing place…