Working as an archeologist has been a hard and crazy experience complete with scorpions, snakes, lots of bushes and dirt. But the biggest eye opener has been spending time with the students from Turkey. Being thrown into a different culture is hard, but living with a large group of students who do not speak English is even harder. Two of my roommates are Turkish, Ece and Serap and it can be hard to communicate with them. But after a week we have fallen into a comfortable routine even though we can’t communicate very well. The other Turkish students have also been very friendly and are always open to have a conversation, even if a majority of it is over google translate. At lunch once a Turkish student who is learning English would repeat English questions back to us to help her learn English better. My supervisor, Bedri, who is a 4th year archeology student always asks us to correct his sentences in English. It is fun to help these students learn more about English while at the same time learning about the Turkish language. As a group we all go to a bar called Konrad’s to spend time together to share music and stories to each other singing and playing card together. It’s a wonderful time.
Even though it has been a week the culture has blown me away. They have been friendly and always sharing inside jokes between them. After a particularly hard day digging we were riding in the bus back to Gazipaşa the Turkish students began to play music and dance on the bus the entire way back. The food has been amazing because it is made by the locals Fresh giving us a peek into Turkish cuisine. It was a truly amazing experience even if I couldn’t understand anything they were saying. It was probably the high light of the week. After spending a week here I have also learned much about the culture. It has been one of the most meaningful weeks of my life.