Not even deportation can keep me away.

Tekrar merhaba!

I am returning to Turkey on September 5 (a date I marked on my calendar since a long time ago)! I will be studying at Koc University again, and this time, complete the semester.

You read that correctly. I left about a month after the last post I made (if you scroll down, you will see that the last blog was September 12). The one sentence explanation is as follows: I had visa troubles, and after unsuccessfully negotiating with American embassy and Turkey’s immigration bureau, I was forced to return.

This didn’t happen only in one day, it was a month-long ordeal - and that was the hardest part. Depending on the day and the circumstances it brought, I might feel confident that I would get to stay or that I was certain to leave. It was mentally exhausting. For a long time, I did not want to blog about all of this because (1) I didn’t want this to possibly be the last post about an otherwise great experience, (2) I still feel slightly embarrassed about being one of the few people who had visa troubles and (3) I didn’t want to dwell on it.

However, that is in the past and I’m looking forward to returning to Turkey soon. I’ve been preparing for it over these summer months by refreshing my Turkish, which I did not work on over my crazy spring semester. I was surprised by how much I forgot, but I’m quickly finding that everything I learned is not too far from memory. The work assigned by my tutor is much easier to complete than it would have been last year. My experiences in Turkey have never been far from my thoughts either. Both of my theses were on political topics in Turkey and the protests began about the time when school ended.

The Gezi protests were particularly difficult to watch. I made friends with the protestors and government supporters while I was there. While I knew that Turkey has experienced political violence in the past, I had been hoping that something had changed in the political scene. Instead, identities are in as much conflict as ever in Turkey. Thinking about it kept me up a few nights.

The scale of the protests surprised me, but I saw people protesting in Beyoglu, particularly Taksim Square, on a pretty regular basis, most about jailed or dead journalists. I stayed at a hostel not even a quarter of a mile away. I’m not expecting there to be as much social unrest when I return, but I am increasingly curious as to what I will see when I return. Will the trees in Gezi park be gone, or will there be more protests? I am not expecting a new government, but these questions linger as I wait.

I’ll keep this post short, but I’ll get back to you all before I leave.

Görüsürüz