First week in Turkey

Hello all! I am spending the next two months living in Ankara, Turkey to take some classes and complete an internship. I am here along with six other students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 5 of them are American and have never been to Turkey before and the other is originally from Turkey. I thought I would start this blog as a way to share some stories and photos with friends and family back home. 

I landed in Turkey about a week ago and had little expectations about what it would be like beyond  what I had read in the travel guide and on the internet. Upon arriving at the airport, we were supposed to be met by someone to drive us to Hacettepe University where we will be spending the next few months. However, nothing is ever that simple, and after waiting for 20 minutes we decided to call our one contact at the university. He seemed to think that we had already been picked up but after a phone call in Turkish that I did not understand, our ride magically appeared. It was about a 40 minute ride to the university from the airport and we were all pretty severely jet-lagged after three planes and fairly significant layover times. Despite the exhaustion, it was a surreal and wonderful feeling looking out the window into a country I have never seen before. It brought me back to my first trip outside the US to Senegal back in 2010. I still remember the strange but excited feeling of riding through a town on the opposite side of the ocean at 6 am and seeing the city starting to come alive.

We arrived at the University and after a few more dizzying conversations in Turkish we all managed to find our dorm rooms and start to settle in. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my dorm room is larger and nicer than any I have ever lived in in the US and they had left hotel sized soaps and lotions in the bathroom for us. There are several restaurants and shops near my dorm, including strangely enough, a Burger King. 

Throughout this week we have mainly been meeting various staff members around this campus and the other campus in town that houses the medical school and the public health department. We have been warmly welcomed every we have went. I was really interested to meet the public health department, since that is what I am currently pursuing a degree in. I was surprised to learn that in Turkey, only medical doctors are allowed to become public health specialists. Anyone can get an academic masters or doctorate in public health, but they cannot engage in public health practice unless they first became a doctor. Also, once a doctor becomes a public health specialist they are no longer allowed to see patients. I was told this is because there are not enough public health specialists in Turkey.

The other really interesting meeting I had this week was with the Health Administration Department. At that meeting we met with one of the professors and also several of the research assistants who are working toward doctorate degrees. They had a lot of questions for us about how insurance works in the US and how that will be changing with 'Obamacare'. This lead to a very engaging discussion about the differences between the healthcare system and taxes in Turkey and in the US. 

Unfortunately, this weekend we have been pretty much confined to campus due to the protesting that continues to occur in the modern part of Ankara city. If you haven't been watching the news lately, protests started in Turkey right before we left the US. The protests were sparked by the government's decision to start development in a park in Istanbul and have sort of snowballed because of the police response to peaceful demonstrations and the perception by the people that the current party in power is seeking to impose a more authoritarian and Islamic rule. For those who don't know, modern Turkey has a history of strict separation of religion and the government. There have been a few demonstrations on campus since I have been here but they seem to be dwindling. The first night I was here there was a large group of students who were banging pots and pans and chanting. I've heard some of the students have been participating in the demonstrations downtown as well. For those concerned, I have felt completely safe here so far. The main source of violence occurring is police response to protests in the city.

Video of a small demonstration on Hacettepe campus

Below are some photos from campus, the lake, and a brief excursion to the old part of Ankara.

                                                   Pictures on Hacettepe University Campus:

Pictures from Old Town:

                                                    Pictures from trip to the lake: