Being known

Most of the students are here in Istanbul for the first time, but our family has been here several times, and Hew was here with us last year. One of the things that has struck me over the last few days is that despite the many tourists who pass through every year, a number of people here remember us. We knew and expected our close friends to remember us, but we are finding that as we go about our daily business of grocery shopping, eating out, and taking the tram, there are people who are essentially strangers who stop to talk with us, remember that we were here last year, and seem genuinely happy to see us again. Tonight we saw Barbaros, a waiter at one of our favorite restaurants, and he immediately recognized us and asked us if this was the "next generation" of students with us. He also remembered and greeted Hew warmly. We had spent some time last year getting to know him, and this year that made a difference. When Paul went to the corner grocery store to pick up some food for breakfast on our first morning here, the shop owner immediately knew who he was and seemed genuinely pleased that he was back in Istanbul. On reflection, I realized that I am accustomed to being anonymous in most contexts in the US except those where I go often. Some days there is comfort in the anonymity, when I don't want to talk or greet people, or when I am looking to rush through an errand. I am learning here to slow down and talk with people and enjoy the people I come across. Being known is both an honor and a responsibility. In the US we often seem to hold relationships lightly. Here if you tell someone you will see them again they expect you to come back and talk with them. Some of my earliest tasks when I got here were to check in with Murat and see how his wife and children were doing (they were in Van during the big earthquake last year, and I was worried about whether they were OK), visit with various people, and generally let people know we were back in town. In the US few of these people would remember or care who we were, but here we are quickly drawn back into the network of community. The students and I have been having discussions about this notion of community here because we all feel it. The people here feel much more like a community than we have generally experienced at home. We have asked ourselves to what extent this depends on only limited pluralism. Is it a community because almost everyone is Muslim, so everyone shares enough commonalities that they celebrate together and pray together and eat together and thus are drawn together into a community, or does community extend beyond similarities to embrace everyone who makes themselves a part of the community? The sign on the door of the mosque near us is telling. When you enter the mosque you become part of the community. My experience here suggests that those who are open to becoming part of the community and take their time to get to know the community and be sensitive to the norms of the community are welcomed. Part of my job as a teacher here is not to "teach" the students ABOUT the community but to facilitate their entry INTO the community. This task requires them to be open to seeing things in different ways and reacting to situations in new ways and it requires me to be sensitive enough to judge when to be involved and when to step out of the way so they can learn. Sometimes they need me to model integrating into the community or provide them with feedback about how their behaviors, dress, and mannerisms may be perceived by Turks. Other times it's most important for me to structure tasks and send them into experiences and then step out of the way so they can do this for themselves.