Tania Says

I’m writing this from Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey. I have an hour to kill before my flight to Athens. Greece, so I’m reflecting on the past 6 weeks I spent studying abroad at Bilgi University in Istanbul.

One of my greatest challenges in Turkey was the communication barrier. My dorm was not located in a very touristy area, so none of the street signs were in English and the locals were not accustomed to Americanns. In restaurants, all the menus were written in Turkish, and the lower-end eateries didn’t have photos on their menus….and some didn’t have menus at all. The only Turkish word I knew upon my arrival was the word for ‘thank you’, which I pronounced as ‘testicular’ until someone set me straight (it’s ‘te-she-cu-lar’…though I found my version much more amusing to say).

But I soon found that my greatest challenge would turn out to be my greatest advantage in Turkey. Because of those die-hard habits engrained in me due to my deafness, I was able to get around Istanbul just as well, if not better, than a hearing person. The numero uno reason for this was my tendency to ask 5 million questions wherever I went. Especially if I was going somewhere alone, I followed a basic rule of three: ask 3 random locals for directions. This way, If I misunderstood one of them, I had 2 more chances at understanding. I found that many of my hearing friends were reluctant to ask questions to complete strangers - they’d rather figure everything out themselves, and then they’d waste a lot of time figuring out how to get un-lost. But because my deafness has trained me to always ask questions to fill in the blanks, I had no problem just going uip to people to get information. Which brings me to my next point…

Like I said in an earlier point and in my ‘About Tania’ section, I don’t know any sign language (yet!). Instead, I’m a great lipreader and have mad skillz at Kineticese - the word I just made up to mean ‘the language of body movement.’ My fluency in this language was a huge asset to me in IStanbul. Anytime I got into a taxi or tried to bargain with a stubborn shopkeeper, I was able to communicate perfectly. Taxi rides became immensely fun - Istanbul has very overcrowded roads, so I often spent a lot of time in taxis having wild hand-miming conversations with taxi drivers while stuck in traffic. In one particularly ocmplex conversation. a taxi driver told me he was an immigrant from Colombia saving up to get a plane ticket and visa to the United States, so he could get another job to provide for his wife and kids back home. Whew! We were both tired after that conversation.

Another thing I loved about being in a country where I did not speak the native language was that people were a lot more patient with me than people back home. People almost never got frustrated or gave up on me when I asked for repetitions or clarification - after all, it’s not my fault I don’t speak their language. Back home, there are so many assholes who are incredulous that I don’t understand something the first time they explain it. “Weren’t you listening?” they ask, disgusted with me. But abroad, people were much more open to finding alternative forms of communication, whether this meant scribbling a little map on the back of my notebook or practically smacking passers-by in the gace in wild hand gesticulations.

Of course, this is not to say I did not enounter any problems while in Istanbul. My classes at Bilgi University, while in English, were taught by professors with very thick accents that I could barely understand. I asked around and was unable to find anything resembling an ‘Office for Students with Disabilities,’ so I had to arrange my own accomodations. I found some students who took good notes on their laptops and asked them if they could please email me their notes after class. I also kept an email correspondence with my professors to keep up with things like directions and due dates. The only time all summer I felt completely helpless was when I went to see “The Dark Knight” with some of my friends - we went to see a subtitled show, but the subtitles were in Turkish, not English! Oh well, live an learn I guess. I’ll have to see it again when I get home.

I am now about to begin thenext leg of my journey…to Greece! I will be there for thenext 2 weeks visiting my family. Then back home to the good old U.S. of A.