NSLI-Y 2025 Turkey – Week 4
Our student Norah continues to hone her travel writing skills with this entry for week 4:
The cohort is barreling through the second half of our time in Türkiye, with only two weeks left until we depart from Bursa. Despite this week’s relative tranquility and slow, hot days, it passed in the blink of an eye.
Monday afternoon’s cultural discussion focused on Turkish villages (köy) in preparation for our Tuesday afternoon trip to the nearby Ottoman-era village of Cumalıkızık. Around 20% of Türkiye’s population lives outside of cities, although that number is generally decreasing for a variety of reasons, including economic opportunity in cities. Still, villages are incorporated into Türkiye in integral ways; many Turkish people living in urban areas have relatives or friends in villages, and/or have direct experience of village life. In Türkiye, villages and cities have always existed in a close relationship. In fact, Cumalıkızık was founded in the early Ottoman period as part of a waqf foundation to provision Bursa as the first capital and in particular to support the public works of mosque complex of Orhan I.
Situated at the foot of Mount Uludağ, Cumalıkızık is about 10km outside of Bursa, a relatively short bus ride from the language center. Our tour of Cumalıkızık—named for the Friday (Cuma) mosque that provided a gathering spot for neighboring populations—started with an orientation to the historical situation of the village. At the entrance to the village, along its cobblestone streets, is a sycamore tree (çınarı ağaç), an important symbol of the Ottoman Empire. Traditional Ottoman village houses—characterized by their construction of stone on the first floor, wood on upper floors, bright blues and reds, shuttered windows, and courtyards—have stood here from their original establishment. We continued through the small streets lined with vendors, including those of karadut (black mulberry) products, a local specialty we sampled in both juice and ice cream form. We saw a 300-year-old mosque, the famed Cin Aralığı (a very narrow alleyway), and had time to explore the village by ourselves.
Due to adverse weather conditions, we moved our language partner activities from its usual location at Kültürpark to the school, and held a film-based Turkish exercise inside. There, we learned about the favorite movies of our peers, Turkish and American alike, and tried to guess movies based on a fully Turkish description.
Language classes this week worked with new grammatical structures (spending lots of time on possessives), vocabulary, and more. On Friday, one class enjoyed a variety of baklava, because what facilitates learning better than a little sugar?! Later that day, both classes joined during the last class period of the day for an extremely competitive round of Kahoot (we eagerly await a rematch).
We capped off our week with Ebru, a traditional water marbling medium practiced in Türkiye for centuries (examples of Ebru used in book bindings suggest at least 500 years, but no one is sure how much further back it goes). The process involves dropping small amounts of paint into a large pan filled with a water and animal bile concoction, using thin awls to make patterns with the paint before placing a piece of paper on the surface. It was a wonderfully artistic end to our exploration of traditional Turkish culture this week.
In the week to come, there is much to look forward to, including a Turkish cooking class and museum visit. But perhaps many of the best moments of the next week are yet to be revealed. We will find them while spending time with our friends and host families, while grabbing simit for breakfast and drinking çay well into the evening, and while learning Turkish inside the classroom and out.
This week, Sanya also submitted some of her photos to give you another student’s perspective of the week.
Sanya’s photo blog:
Practicing Turkish after school at a café
In Cumalıkızık
In Cumalıkızık
Cin Aralığı
We met Turkish teenagers and were talking to them in Cumalıkızık
Group photo in Cumalıkızık
Norah and I stopped by the Green Mosque
Walking in the park before our Ebru workshop
Group Ebru
Posing with our Ebru instructor
Since students are often engaged with the activities and less able to capture everything on camera, we’ve included some additional photos for your enjoyment.
Occasionally, students have the opportunity to interact with Turkish students who are also taking classes at the language school. Here, Puru interacts with one of the school’s Turkish students (in Turkish!)
Students and host siblings gather for a group photo at the entrance to Cumalıkızık
Sanya buys an ice cream from a traditional Maraş ice cream vendor. The gum-thickened texture helps slow the melting in the hot weather, and for the price of a cone, you also get a show
Sanya, Beren, Henley, Norah, and Hankyu cool off with cold treats. Christian goofs off in the background.
Andrew works with language partner Taha
Griffin talks about film with his language partner Melisa
Saira learns the art of Ebru from a master artisan
Norah’s Ebru flower slowly takes shape
Some of our students and host siblings show off their Ebru creations
Caroline, Saira, and Puru aren’t afraid to experiment with their new Ebru skills