Week One: June 18-25

 

Hello All!

For those who haven't heard,  I will be in Ankara, Turkiye (formerly Turkey) for the next 8 weeks. I will be studying with a US Department of State program, the Critical Languages Scholarship. The program entails both intense language study at Ankara University as well as other cultural programming. I hope to write up a weekly set of highlights and journal entries and post them here for those who are interested!

My blog posts may have a lack of pictures, but I will try my best to include them. The program has given us "burner" phones to use rather than use our own. The new phone takes pretty awful pictures. Hopefully more to come later! I will try to update as best I can, but since I had a bit more time today, I will frontload with a longer and larger post. 

Highlight 1: The hotel! 

The accommodations for us on this trip are disconcertingly nice. The program has decided to put us up in a ritzy five-star hotel about a 5 minute walk from the university. In addition to organizing our upscale accommodations, they have two Turkish professors at our beck and call for everything else we may need. While it is certainly convenient to have someone organize your laundry pick up from the hotel and pay for all of your meals, it does seem a bit over the top. After all, if my experience in Russia taught me anything, pain and inconvenience should be the most important thing in a study abroad. Whether from their Turkish hospitality, doubt in our hardiness, or more likely the strength of the dollar compared to the Turkish Lira we have been pampered.

Breakfasts in the hotel are always a highlight. Everyday we wake up to a wide array of olives, cheeses, meats, fruits, breads, and my particular favorite, Menemen. Menemen is halfway between scrambled eggs and a tomato sauce. It is great on the house spinach and filo dough pastries. 

Highlight 2: Embassy Visit

Soon after arriving, they bussed us to the US Embassy for our RSO briefing. We arrived at the heavily fortified complex, complete with concertina wire and blast proof guard towers. From the outside, it was truly a foreboding sight. We entered through a TSA like security with an additional "wire check" where we were searched for wires and listening devices. It felt pretty over the top for a group of American college students going to their own embassy. However, we later learned the improved security was due to a suicide bomber attack on the very same embassy in 2013. 

In a large conference room we spoke to our first presenter, the head of security at the embassy. As an old, hardened, and Navy Seal archetype, he interrupted his presentation with phrases like "constant vigilance" and "you wouldn't believe the things I've seen". He felt like halfway between "Mad-Eye" Moody from Harry Potter and General Buck Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove. His presentation felt slightly absurd seeing that our goal is cross-cultural connection and cultural immersion.

After leaving the room after his presentation, his foreign service colleagues told us that "we should certainly take to heart what Mr. Thomas had said", but that really the Turkish people are quite friendly and the country is quite safe. While lighthearted, there was certainly a divide between those with the foreign service background and those from the military. 

The most interesting presentation came from the in-house political scientist. A slightly awkward but clearly brilliant guy, he gave us a 10 minute brief on the Turkish political landscape. Expecting, a formulated and polished script explaining the US gov's position on various topics, I was shocked by the freedom of thought he seemed to have. He told us blatantly that things are complicated here, and that as the lead political scientist at Mission Turkiye, it is difficult to articulate the realities to Washington and vice versa. He seemed to have complete freedom to learn, rethink, and challenge. The experience with him has put a foreign service career near the top of the list for me. 

Highlight 3: Dinner and tea as the sun set over the city

On Wednesday evening, I joined a few of my classmates for a dinner at the old castle. We ate a wonderful dinner at a backyard restaurant. Only a few tables were set out in the courtyard of this house. We were met by a wonderful host and even better food. I had patlıcanlı gözleme, an amazing friend eggplant and lavash dish, and manti, Turkish dumplings in homemade yoghurt. After this wonderful dinner, we strolled up the cobblestone street to the castle ramparts. As we climbed up, the city unfolded beneath us. The sunset burst into reds, oranges, and yellows. The swallows nesting in the castle walls dove and played across the horizon. With the sunset and city as a background it looked like a painting. 

We walked down from the castle to a small, rooftop cafe, finishing a surreal evening drinking tea and listening to the evening prayer echo across the city. 

Highlight 4: First Ever Yoga Class!

Thursday evening, I joined one of my fellow classmates for a yoga class. Having never gone to a yoga class before, I thought that, sure, the logical first time should be in a foreign country in a language I have only about 50 words in. It the end, it was one of the highlights of the week. There is nothing like sweating yourselves into collective embarrassment to break down cultural boundaries 

Despite not understanding a single word, I managed to get a great workout and meet some locals. At the end of the class, someone approached me in perfect English. It turned out he works for a think tank in Ankara called the Center for Central Asian Policy. He invited me to visit later this week. Amazing what a yoga class will do. 

Highlight 5: Drag Show and Dance Party in Downtown Ankara. 

This past Friday evening, I managed to find myself at a drag show and dance party at a local LGBTQ club. Among those in the Ankara alternative scene, we actually fit in without much of a second glance. It was truly a blast. Everyone there was having a great time dancing and enjoying the evening! 

Highlight 6: The Hamam

Saturday night, Pike (one of my better friends on this trip) and I planned to go to a Hamam. We spent a few hours at the Hamam or Turkish bath where we were sufficiently scraped, bent, and beaten. We entered to find a collection of men with small towels around their waists, bellies bulging, hairy chests flaring, and hands ready to beat down a few unsuspecting Americans. 

The Hamam was an old, stone-brick and wooden building on a hill overlooking the central mosque. The building had clearly served the same purpose for hundreds of years. The walls felt as if they had been aged with incense, steam, and sweat. We entered the steam room and were met with a wall of hot air. We were thoroughly cooked in the room. Our lungs burned and our skin began to shed in seemingly impossible layers. The largest of the men beckoned us from the steam room to the central room. This central room was covered, head to toe, in white marble. In the middle lay a platform with a few towels strewn across it. It appeared uncannily like a sacrificial alter. Embracing the experience, I was ready to be sacrificed and reborn glowing and 10 pounds lighter.

It became clear I was to be the patient of the largest of the men. I laid down, he cracked his knuckles and got to work scrubbing me down. He aggressively carved away at me like a particularly sweaty sculptor. His hands reeked of cigarettes but it only added to the ambiance. He finished part one by bending, stretching, and "massaging" me. As he pulled and twisted me around, I cracked and popped amidst his cigarette coughs and grunts. 

He sent me to the showers to rinse off. I returned to a bed of bubbles where he thoroughly washed me down. This was by far the most pleasant part of the experience. After we were rinsed, we exited to the lobby where we were swaddled in towels by some of the other men. We had successfully been reborn. 

Highlight 7: Dinner and Movie with a former Russian Diplomat

In the lobby I happened to overhear a man saying that he was from Russia. I new I had to introduce myself. I did and immediately struck up a conversation. He appeared to be an incredibly kind, but certainly lonely man. His wife and kid were in Vienna and he was stuck working in Ankara. Immediately he invited us to a movie with him in his neighborhood. Not in the mood to turn down experiences, I said yes. Pike left to go back to the hotel as we took off in a taxi to his neighborhood. 

It turned out that he was born in Tbilisi, Georgia and moved to Russia to study at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, an incredibly conservative and powerful influence in Russian foreign policy. After, he left Russia to study in Vienna and eventually became a human rights lawyer for the United Nations. He had been stationed in Turkiye away from his family still in Vienna. I had stumbled upon an incredibly interesting person. We talked about a possible career with the UN and he clearly took a liking to me. Away from his family and isolated in a country where he does not speak the language or really attempt to, he was craving connection. 

We went to an enormous mall near his apartment in "Diplomatic Alley", a neighborhood diplomats often choose when living in Ankara. We ate dinner and went to watch Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in Turkish. At this point in the evening, after a draining Hamam experience I felt like I was in a fever dream. Was I really in a movie theatre with a former Russian diplomat, watching Jim Carrey and Sonic the Hedgehog duel it out in Turkish, or was this actually an intense hallucination? 

After the movie, I hailed a taxi and finally went home, only to be offered prostitutes by my taxi driver. At least my Turkish was improving enough to understand what he was asking me. 

Cheers from Turkey, 

Sam