Places to go, people to meet

Selam arkadaslar!
     My current host family has taken it upon themselves to show me the historical places around Aydin, something I am incredibly thankful for. Yesterday we joined together with a group of kids that my sister had gone to school with and their moms to visit some of those sights. We started off by eating breakfast in the tiny village of Sirince. It is a curvy, fifteen minute drive from the town of Selçuk into a beautiful, green mountain valley. The village itself is built on the slopes of one of the hills, and all the streets are sloped downwards. Before World War I Sirince was inhabited by Christian Greeks, however, after the war ended, Greece and Turkey made a deal where the Christians of Turkey were sent to Greece and the Muslims of Greece were sent to Turkey. After that the village became Turkish, although it kept the Greek style of housing. The village possesses an old Greek church that is currently being restored due to the years of neglect. We ate breakfast at a classic Turkish breakfast place, where I was able to enjoy delicious homemade peach jam with local peaches (along with the rest of the delicious, simple Turkish breakfast. Yummmm!), and form a friendship with the old lady working there. After breakfast we toured around the town, and I made a glass bead in the small bazaar. I had spoken with the man at the stand earlier about how I'm an American exchange student, and he gave me the bead I made for free. I have come to realize in the past few months that being an exchange student connects you with people to a certain level, but being able to communicate with them in their own language connects you on a completely different level. I have encountered incredible kindness and generosity from people after they learn that I can speak Turkish. Truly so much of a culture lives in the language, and I am finding that learning languages and being able to make those connections is a great love of mine.
       Our next stop was Meryem Ana, what is to be believed the last home of the Virgin Mary. It is a simple stone house consisting of two rooms, but it is what it represents that makes it special. Now I'm not a religious person, but I have always had a connection to Mary for reasons that I can't fully explain myself. Touching the walls that she may have touched, being in the space she may have lived in was a moving moment for me. Meryem Ana has for a long time been a pilgrimage sight for Christians, and although I am not Christian, can I too count myself in with those people who feel a great connection to that place? Also at Meryem Ana was what I named the Wishing Wall, a wall of wishes written on paper (or anything else people could write on). I think it may have started as a barbed wire fence, and after hundreds of wishes tied to it, it has become a wall of straight paper. I added my own wish to the wall and sent a thought of love to Mary as I did.
      After Meryem Ana we headed to Ephesus, an ancient Greek city that had been on the coast of Ionia. Later taken by the Romans, it became a city of great importance, reaching a population between 36,000 and 56,000. It was also home of the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and the Library of Celsus, which is the famous picture of the towering marble, columned wall. Ephesus truly blew my mind. Ancient sites always blow my mind, usually due to my mind trying to imagine actual human beings leading normal lives in them, but Ephesus was more than usual. The amount of marble used, the amount of incredibly intricate sculptures and carvings, the colorful and detailed tiled floors, the towering columns, the massive amphitheater, everything. How is it possible that these people didn't have the technology that we have today, all they had were their hands and simple tools, but their creations were just as grand and spectacular as ours are. More grand in my opinion, for the reason that they ONLY had their simple tools. They used the materials available, and built these grand cities that have survived thousands of years. I could have stayed there all day. Sitting, feeling, looking, imagining the every day activities of the people who lived there. Unfortunately we could not stay at Ephesus all day, and I had to be dragged out of it in order to get back home on time. But luckily I live an hour's drive away from it, and when I feel the want I can go back to spend a day fully exploring that majestic city.
     While standing in the bottom of the amphitheater, I bent down to pet a cat that was standing at my feet, and I heard someone say something behind me. I turned around to see a a girl about my age from Japan smiling at me, and as she passed me she said "you're so pretty!" I then asked her to take a picture of me in the theater, after which her parents asked to take a picture of us together. We parted after that, but the short moment of connection, of the simple want of humans to be together and to meet each other was beautiful, and it was a highlight of this day full of highlights.
     Leading a normal life in this country, it is easy for me to forget how old it is, how many different civilizations have lived and died on this land, how many individual lives have been lived out here. Those civilizations are like stories to us. We accept that they existed, but to actually try and fully grasp that those people were made of the same matter, felt the same feelings as us, is something we don't do very often. Our modern world is everything to us now. The past led up to what is no, and the future will be what we make it, but the people living in those ancient times that we cherish and preserve were the same. They couldn't imagine a world like it is now, just like we can't fully imagine a world like it was then. Those people are our ancestors, and yet we are as separate from them as we are from characters in books. Their stories will live on in our books and our thoughts, but their lives are forever lost in the winds of time, their losses and victories nothing but events that have somehow impacted what our world is today. It is a sad thought, but comforting to know that whatever happens in our world today will be nothing but a story in ten thousand years.
Xoxo, Izzy

                                         

                                               The front wall of the Library of Celsus in Ephesus

The ancient Greek writing above the door at the church in Sirince

The church in Sirince

The village of Sirince

The woman who worked at the breakfast place. We connected <3

The wishing wall

The girl from Japan I met

From halfway up the huge amphitheater at Ephesus

The front of what is believed to be Mary's last house

Me making a glass bead!

Me receiving a crown of leaves from a teyze (aunt)

Basketball

Merhaba!
   So, my school in Kayseri wasn't really into sports. I'm sure they had them, but it wasn't a school activity. But here in Aydin, the boy's basketball games are absolutely a school activity. Most students either get permission to leave school or just ditch on the game days. The sport salon where the basketball games are held is always full, one side for our school, one side for the other school. There aren't cheerleaders in Turkey, well, at least not in the sense of American cheerleaders. Here in Turkey the twelfth grade boys (and if there are no twelfth grade boys to do the job, the younger boys take over) stand up on the wall separating the seats from the court and lead the crowd in cheering on their team. It looks something like this; each side of the gym is full, each side has a pack of boys, and some girls, yelling, singing, waving their arms, holding lighters, holding signs, yelling at the other group of cheerers, and at least once in a game getting into a fight. The energy is awesome, and it gets everyone into the game. Soccer games are this way as well, but worse. There are full on riots in the stands, sometimes people die, and always the police are called. But our games are just high school games, so luckily it doesn't go that far. I have been to three basketball games in the past month, and I'm sorry to say, but the schools here have got team spirit down better than my school does back home. I think this energy comes from the fact that Turks are very emotional. They hug, they kiss, they laugh, they sing, they dance, on the street there are people honking, yelling, etc. In the States people are usually more subdued, quieter with their feelings, but it's all out in the open here (for the most part. There are of course people who aren't as emotionally loud). Seeing an American sport taken and added to with the great energy of Turks was a great experience!

On the far side of the court is the other team's cheer squad

Our squad!

The boys leading our fans!!! ADMAL!!!!

To trust or not to trust

Selam arkadaslar (friends),

     My class enjoys talking about big topics; politics, religion, drugs, sex, you name it. Yah, not really what you were thinking about Turkey is it? Well me neither, but it's a nice surprise! So today they were talking about Turkish politics, and one of my friends turned to me and asked, "sen bir sey bilmek ister misin?". Or in english "do you want to know anything?". I sat for a few minutes sorting through my brain and all the questions that are lingering there about Turkey, until I found one that was not about them, but instead about me and my culture. "What do ya'll think about the American government?" "Amerikan hükümeti hakkinda, ne düsünüyorsunuz?" Everyone wanted to tell me the answer, and from the mirage of voices I picked out a few different answers. The first was that they used to love Obama, but now see him as nothing but a puppet. I explained to them that while yes, it wouldn't hurt if Obama stood up to the Republicans a little more, the main reason he hasn't gotten anything done is that anything he wants to achieve is shot down by the Republicans in the Senate. I explained to them that Obama is less of a puppet, and more of a nearly completely powerless leader of a country with a population of people with very different opinions. The second answer they told me struck my heart like an iron fist. My classmates told me that they believe Bush planned 9/11 as a reason to attack Iraq. That terrorists didn't actually hijack the planes, and that there was possibly a reason that all of the Jewish people who worked in the Twin Towers were not at work that day (a claim I believe to be a conspiracy theory). Now don't get me wrong,  I have no lost love for Bush, and if any president were a puppet, he would be the one, but growing up in America, honoring 9/11 ever year, feeling what I did when I opened Facebook and saw that Osama Bin Laden had been killed has absolutely had it's impact on me. If the attacks were indeed a plot by the government I wouldn't feel any different, the anniversary would still be honored every year by me, I would still have a great sadness in me for all lives lost on that day, but to hear it from foreigners' mouths that our own government would kill thousands of our citizens made me sad, and just a little bit defensive. I haven't even heard that from Americans, and we are the queens of conspiracy theories. I didn't let my defensiveness get away from me though, and I sat and listened to what they told me. I had asked them what THEY thought after all, and me trying to explain why I didn't think it was true would be too complicated, especially because I truly don't know if it's true or not. So I put this answer behind me, and waited for the third and last answer. And if hearing the second answer hit me like an iron fist, the third answer hit my heart like a flaming arrow with an iron fist attached to the end of it; "biz Amerika'ya güvenmiyoruz," "we don't trust America." This one was harder to hear, not just because it's hard hearing that my country, the country I love, is mistrusted and probably a little bit disliked, but also because I know it's for good reason. What happened America? We are the land of the free, the home of the brave, we have an unimaginable amount of tolerance, opportunity, and freedom. We can be exactly who we want to be, and while there are still bullies, there is considerably less than in some other countries. But the people in those other counties don't experience that unless they live there, and without that what they see is what our government shows them. A greedy, isolated, powerful, intrusive group of men who think of nothing but their own goals. Now isn't every government like that? Maybe, I don't know, but one thing is for sure; America is big and famous, and because of that, every mistake, every war, every bad decision is shared with the entire world. And the big question I have is when did this happen? Our founding fathers, the other men and women who fought the war of independence, they were looking to do better than the countries from which they came from. But are we better than those countries now? Have we become the modern British empire? I don't think so. Our mistakes are broadcasted across the world, but our achievements don't necessarily always make it that far. The supreme court supporting gay marriage last June, Obama's health care plan (which is a start, for all of you reading this and cursing Obama and his plan. It's more than any other politicians have done), our universities, our innovation, the equality that we have. Is the mistrust of America in part because of the way we started? We rebelled against our mother country, propelled ourselves into power in two hundred and fifty years. All eyes are on us. To be quite honest, I don't know. I don't think the U.S.A. is a country to be trusted. We want too much for ourselves, we are too willing to do too much to get those things. I think our origins, the differences between our history and that of most of the rest of the world's has set us apart, and whether that puts people in awe or in a state of mistrust, it depends on that person and their culture. But a seventeen year old girl can't analyze every country and figure out why they don't trust America. This conversation made me realize one thing for certain, however. I want to be a politician. Politicians are mistrusted, even hated sometimes, by every person on earth, but I want to be one. I know I can't change the country as one person, I know it may take a while, but I feel a duty to serve my home. I feel a duty to put my opinions, my beliefs into turning America from a selfish and mistrusted country, to one that people around the world know is a safe place. Into a country people know they CAN trust. So think about something for me. If you're an American citizen, what do YOU think about America? Do you trust our government? Do you like our country? And if you're not an American citizen, think about the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear America. What is it? Thank you for reading this, I felt it was something that needed to be shared. Iyi geceler, goodnight.

Xoxo, Izzy

The Little Things

Merhaba! 

     This week has been normal. I've gone to school, woken up early, not wanted to wake up every time, spoken Turkish,  etc. But this week I started noticing the little things about Turkey that I have become accustomed to, the things I didn't notice myself becoming accustomed to. A teacher asked me a few weeks ago what the weirdest thing for me in Turkey is, and I couldn't give an answer. The thing is, is I've been here for three and a half months. If he had asked me two months ago I would have an answer ready immediately, but even the Turkish toilets (squat toilets for those who are not familiar with the term) aren't weird for me now. The food that was new and interesting at the beginning is an every day occurrence for me. My host family sometimes asks me while cooking if we have a certain food in America, and as I say no, I realize that I can't imagine life without this food. Dürüm, lahmacun, çig köfte, ayran and others that I eat without thinking about it. Food is only a part of my life though. Living without the crazy traffic, the old men wearing their little hats, the horse drawn carriages being driven down the streets, taking off your shoes in every house, the shop keepers yelling at you to go in, right now, with five and a half months left, it seems unimaginable. Without even realizing it I have taken in parts of this culture and welcomed them into my everyday life. Today I was watching a TED talk, where a woman was speaking in Arabic about preserving your mother tongue (with english subtitles of course), and I recognized two words that are similar in Turkish. The word for letter and the word for idea. It's not a huge accomplishment, but the fact that I picked out those words specifically, and matched them with a language I started learning three and a half months ago warmed my heart. This culture, this country is my life right now. I have complaints about some things, I have moments where I miss the U.S., where I miss being in my comfort zone, but then I stop and look around. I look around at the people who have welcomed me into their hearts here, I look around at the culture I am slowly learning, the people I impact by being here, the new things I am learning, and I realize I don't have time to miss the U.S. It will be there in five and a half months, more or less the same. School will start, and it will be the same. There will be no new culture to learn, no new people to meet and impress with the amount of Turkish I know, no yummy Turkish food to eat during lunch, no friends in class to hug and kiss every day, no Call to Prayer giving me an idea of the time of day, none of it. These little things about Turkey are what I love the most. They bring happiness to my days when I'm feeling down, they make the hard parts worthwhile, they make going home that much harder. Türkiye, seni seviyorum. I love you Turkey. And now, I bid you all farewell until next time! Iyi geceler!

Xoxo, Izzy

Finding home in a new world

Merhaba!
     So it's my birthday! I will officially turn seventeen years old at 7:34 P.M., 10:34 A.M.Texas time, where I was born. It is my first birthday away from home, and I surprised myself by feeling something I wasn't expecting on this day of all days. One of being home here, in Aydin. My host sister and I go to Izmir every weekend to stay with her grandmother, and this arrangement is, of course, absolutely spectacular. Izmir is big, old, famous, on the sea, and has an unending amount of activities for us to do. It also has eight or nine other AFS exchange students that I am able to hang out with. Nevertheless, as my sister and I were taking a walk around Aydin this afternoon after returning from Izmir, I was struck with a sense of calm, a sense that can only be described by two words: being home. I have been in this new city for two weeks today, and so this feeling of home came with another feeling of great relief at finally finding my home here in Turkey. I still have more adjustments to go through. I still have a few months to go until I am part of this family and city in more than just words and hugs, but this feeling, Inshallah, marks the beginning of a fantastic six months here in my new home. I hope ya'll are having a great weekend too!
Xoxo, Izzy

Out with the old, in with the new

Merry Christmas! Happy New Years! Mutlu Noeller! Iyi seneler! Three months into this thing!
     All ways of wishing someone a happy holiday season, and all things I have said in the past two weeks. Ok, so the "three months into this thing" isn't exactly happy holidays, but I have said it this past week. Monday marked my one hundredth day in Turkey, and last week was my three month anniversary. Crazy how much has changed, and how much I have learned. Three months is a good amount of time in a new place. When my teachers at school ask me what the weirdest thing for me is in Turkey, I have to think about the answer because nothing seems weird to me anymore. It's all just part of everyday life. Even using Turkish toilets has become a daily routine. Thinking about life without the Ezan five times a day, without kissing everyone's cheeks, without hearing Turkish is no longer comforting. It's saddening.
     My first Christmas and New Years away from home have both come and gone, and it wasn't what I expected. To start off, I moved cities one and a half weeks ago. My second host family in Kayseri didn't work out, so AFS and my natural family made the decision to give me a new start. So far, this new start has been fantastic. My host family is absolutely fantastic, my school couldn't be better, and the city I'm in, Aydin, is on the west coast, which means warm weather, the sea eighty kilometers away, and a less conservative way of life, although still influenced by Islam. The differences were clear from the start. On the plane from Kayseri to Istanbul, the majority of the passengers were elderly women in head scarves, while on the plane from Istanbul to Izmir not one person was wearing a head scarf, and there were maybe five elderly people. And in a mall in Izmir that night, I saw the first bare legs I had seen in three months. The kids in my class and I have had conversations about everything from sex and drugs to the Holocaust, something that I definitely didn't do in Kayseri. But Kayseri was a great place as well. It's an old city, with fascinating history, and famous foods. It's a city right in the middle of the country, influenced a little by all the parts of Turkey. I feel so lucky that I get to experience two very different parts of Turkey, however, I am glad I have landed in Aydin for the remainder of my time here. For Christmas my family had two friends over, and one of them (a man) cooked dinner for us. It was a delicious meal with salmon, pasta, potatoes, and more. We ate, talked, drank coffee, ate baklava, and once the topic of politics came up it felt just like home. My sister and I also set up a Christmas tree, which added a homey, holiday feel to the house. Most people here mix up Christmas and New Years when speaking english or speaking to an english speaker, and in truth, they are pretty much the same thing here anyways. People set up Christmas trees, decorate their houses, decorate the streets with lights, and give presents for New Years. It looks, sounds, feels like Christmas, but it's celebrated just a few days after. On New Years eve my family and I went over to my grandmother's house and ate food until midnight, when we celebrated the new year by dancing and kissing everyone's cheeks. (My new host family, by the way, is the classic "I will feed you until you burst, and then I will feed you more," family. My host aunt put almost the whole bowl of salad on my plate last weekend, and granted, it's salad and it could be worse, but it was A LOT of salad. So my chubbiness has become part of me, and I will embrace it until it leaves. Then I will look back on it as a wonderful experience, and hope that I can avoid gaining this much again). My host parents got me presents for New Years, which topped off the whole wonderful night. I got a clock with Izmir on the face, some beautiful earrings, and a pair of gloves. My class also gave me a present. They had pulled names for Secret Santa (called a different name, but it's another Christmas activity in the States used as a New Years activity in Turkey), but I wasn't in Aydin when they did, so they all pitched in and bought me a sweater. I was so surprised, and had no words to express how touched I was. They had known me for one week when they did this. AFS, YES, previous exchange students, current exchange students, all of them had told me over and over again how hard the holiday season would be. But for me (Inshallah the homesickness isn't right around the corner) it was great because of the people I spent it with. There was no Christmas Carols this holiday season, no snow, no men dressed up as Santa Claus, but it's just as important to the Turkish people as it to us, minus the birth of Jesus.                                                                                                                                         I have a great new host family in a great new city in Turkey, my birthday is four days away (seventeen!!! An adult in Harry Potter!), a few extra pounds on my body (maybe more than a few…), a great love for Baklava, and a ticket to take ACT this April. Bring it on 2014!!!!!!
Xoxo, Izzy

Me with an Atatürk statue in Kayseri

The view from the ferry boat in Izmir

My host family (minus my mom) and their two friends on Christmas Day. Left to right: My sister, my dad, me, the tree, my brother, the friend who cooked, the other friend

My host sister (on the left) and I with her friends in Izmir

The view from my school in Aydin

Another ferry boat picture