The following are little pieces of reflections from students and leaders regarding their first impressions of various bits of life in Istanbul.
Program Assistant Dana Zacharia updates friends at home about seeing the students for the first time in-country:
Last week, the students joined us and I remembered why I was so keen to take this job (one of many reasons). They nearly exploded when they saw this place in which they will be living and studying and adventuring for the next three months. To know that I get to take part in this challenging, formative, and eye-opening time in 22 students' lives is truly a profound honor.
We started Turkish lessons last week and had our first guest speaker - a renowned Turkish journalist, Mustafa Akyol - who whet the students' appetite (that they didn't know they had) for Turkish politics. It was exciting to see them genuinely interested in a topic many of them said they could care less about.
I am also starting to hear talk among the students about God, Islam, Jesus, Christianity and what it all means. The first encounter with the much feared and much misunderstood Islam can and will be a rude awakening for some and will start them on a journey that will shape them and their faith forever. I have already heard students talking about how they have turned back to the Bible for answers to questions they didn't realize they couldn't answer. That excites me.
We started Turkish lessons last week and had our first guest speaker - a renowned Turkish journalist, Mustafa Akyol - who whet the students' appetite (that they didn't know they had) for Turkish politics. It was exciting to see them genuinely interested in a topic many of them said they could care less about.
I am also starting to hear talk among the students about God, Islam, Jesus, Christianity and what it all means. The first encounter with the much feared and much misunderstood Islam can and will be a rude awakening for some and will start them on a journey that will shape them and their faith forever. I have already heard students talking about how they have turned back to the Bible for answers to questions they didn't realize they couldn't answer. That excites me.
Kristabel Stark reminds us that even the smallest little interactions can have huge impacts:
//Stranger
I walk into the music shop and I feel safe. It’s not that I fear bodily harm on the street, but as I step along the cobblestone street full of people and a few intermittent cars and the smell of cigarette smoke and kebab shops and muted European clothing and averted eyes, I am afraid. I am afraid that I do not know who I am. I am afraid that nobody knows who I am. The biggest fear is this: I am afraid that they know me as something different than I know myself as. Who is right? My mind fills with unanswerable questions, like memory-laden dreams so easily forgotten.What does it mean to know? Are we ever anything more than perceptions to each other?
But I push the glass door of the music shop open, and there is a violin on the wall and I ask the lady behind the desk if I can play it and she hands me a bow and I play Meditation from Thais. And even though my fingernails are way too long and the violin is made in China and it’s flat, I am safe. Because this is empirical. This is the sound of bent airwaves, the sound of years of solitude, the sound of the history of me. And even though I am far from home and something of an abstract concept, there is peace in this place, in my heart, for this moment. I am safe.
I walk into the music shop and I feel safe. It’s not that I fear bodily harm on the street, but as I step along the cobblestone street full of people and a few intermittent cars and the smell of cigarette smoke and kebab shops and muted European clothing and averted eyes, I am afraid. I am afraid that I do not know who I am. I am afraid that nobody knows who I am. The biggest fear is this: I am afraid that they know me as something different than I know myself as. Who is right? My mind fills with unanswerable questions, like memory-laden dreams so easily forgotten.What does it mean to know? Are we ever anything more than perceptions to each other?
But I push the glass door of the music shop open, and there is a violin on the wall and I ask the lady behind the desk if I can play it and she hands me a bow and I play Meditation from Thais. And even though my fingernails are way too long and the violin is made in China and it’s flat, I am safe. Because this is empirical. This is the sound of bent airwaves, the sound of years of solitude, the sound of the history of me. And even though I am far from home and something of an abstract concept, there is peace in this place, in my heart, for this moment. I am safe.
Keaton Hudson comically, and accurately, describes a visit to a Hamam (turkish bath):
SLAP!
You are quickly brought out of your dreamlike state to the sting of a sharp slap against your back. Followed by another one. (At least in Peter Harmon’s case). Fortunately the beatings are followed by a scrubbing. The same man who motioned for you to lie before him on this piece of marble, is now scrubbing you with an instrument that can only be described as a large mitten with something like pumice stone on the exterior. The scrubbing is more thorough than any bath you ever received as a kid. Dirt and dead skin flake off of all parts of your person, looking like black eraser shavings. It crosses your mind that you can’t remember the last time you have ever been this clean.
Once the scrubbing had been done on both front and back, this same fat hairy Turk barks at you to sit up - and pours warm water all over you. The feeling is cleansing. Now it is time to lay down, this time on your back first. You watch the hairy fellow leave, then return armed with something akin to a wet pillow case. Confused and bewildered at what comes next, you have no choice but to lay in wait for what’s in store. With a quick, brief gust, the fat man exhales air into the pillow case - and suddenly it looks like a massive soapy cloud, descending upon you like the thunderheads behind me as I type. Did I mention I can see both Asia and Europe from my window?
Wringing out the pillow, the fat, wet man completely blankets you in soap and suds - and suddenly this bulbous bloke is more like a gorgeous goddess. The thick, hairy, leathery hands this man owns have turned to heavenly angel-princess hands. The feeling is indescribable as his hands move everywhere (and I mean everywhere), scrubbing, massaging, tugging, pulling, cracking, rubbing every part of your body. You want this moment to last forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment