18 months later - Life as "the other": permanent state or merely a phase?

18 months has now passed since I left the U.S. and began a journey with the goal of working my way around the world. From January 2009 to August 2009 I moved my way through New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Nepal and India, stopping to study and travel in New Zealand for three months and working in Cambodia for four months.

In August 2009 I started work in Istanbul, Turkey, going home for Thanksgiving to complete the world circle, and came back after to set up my daily life in one of the largest, most over-crowded and oldest cities in the world.

To idealize the last 18 months would be a mistake. Much of my learning has felt like trial by fire. Never the less, it was an amazing journey, and the things seen and stories heard continue to inspire me and underscore for me what I should decide to give a fuck about in this world.

New Zealand and Australia were a source of inspiration via natural beauty and wide-open spaces, and also an interesting introduction to the anti-American mindset that pervades much of the world outside the U.S. At least those were the only countries on the journey in which I could understand nearly everything that folks were saying about America. It is entirely possible (and likely) that it’s been worse in Cambodia, Turkey and Europe.

AUSTRALIA:

NEW ZEALAND:

Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia knocked the wind out of me again and again in both wonderful and trying ways. The eagerness with which my Cambodian students showed up to our 6 a.m. classes provided a stark contrast to my students in Turkey, who would rather have played with their iPhones or danced on their desks than learn English, but whose spirited enthusiasm for fun was often appreciated under the scowl.

My visit to Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia, where Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed men, women and children, and my visit to Chiang Mai to see an old friend from college who was working to help Burmese refugees enter the country were poignant reminders of my luck in this world of having been born to parents in the US who were able to protect me and provide for me and my education.

THAILAND:

CAMBODIA:

In Malaysia, I saw the mix of Indian, Chinese and Malay cultures and the ways in which they mixed (and yet remained separate). A country I often reflect upon now living in Turkey with its pervasively mono-cultural ideology.

MALAYSIA:

Moving through Nepal and India once again frustrated, inspired and humbled me. Seeing the way daily life plays out for the general population was breath taking, as the colors, smells, sounds and energy of everyday life were manic and stunning at the same time.

NEPAL:

INDIA:

The trips I’ve taken this year within Europe (Italy, Spain, Germany and Czech Republic) were a foray back to fully “industrialized” countries (despite the concrete block reminders of communism in East Berlin and Czech Republic).

ITALY:

SPAIN:

GERMANY:

CZECH REPUBLIC:

The later trip to Egypt was again a reminder of just how developed, moderate, clean and functional (albeit haphazardly so) Istanbul truly is.

EGYPT:

Indeed, even since settling in to life in Istanbul there have been serious highs and lows. Finding an apartment, working in the Turkish workplace and learning my way in Istanbul has been a struggle. A respiratory infection that took root in November still threatens to rear its ugly head each time I am stressed and my pigeon Turkish indubitably fails me when I need it most.

TURKEY:

All of this leaves me exactly where I am: heading into another year in Turkey, this time switching jobs from a high school to a university (where I was recently hired) and going into my long-awaited 8-week summer vacation.

I have chosen to continue living the ex-pat lifestyle not only because I saw fewer options at home, nor because I am still seeking to escape something there, in fact just the opposite, but rather because deep down I think perhaps I actually enjoy being “the other.” Other than friends and loved ones, whom I think about on a daily basis, I no longer actively miss anything from the US.

Perhaps it was growing up as one of four white kids in my class at Fredrick Douglass Elementary, where I was regularly told that I was single-handedly responsible for slavery, or the high school lunches I spent huddled in the library writing angry poetry, avoiding the vicious high school social hierarchy.

I often ask myself whether it’s the chicken or the egg that led to my proclivity for putting myself in situations where I am “the other,” but in the end I hope that, whatever it is, it will allow me to learn about the world and pass that learning on to students, friends and loved ones, whether by proxy, osmosis or simple communication of my experiences.

Family members often ask me when I am coming home. It’s a question I can only answer with “I’ll be home for 5 weeks this summer!” (not the answer they want, I know). It’s a question not even I know the answer to yet.

Living abroad brings with it unimaginable daily stress, but it also brings excitement and small victories that are difficult to explain. It brings a social circle of intelligent, social, like-minded individuals, working in fields from business to journalism to teaching, who have also chosen to shirk the traditional career/life path in pursuit of something a little bit different.

And, somehow, amidst this storm of inconsistency and struggle, I have found my place. I have found a footing, and, although it is constantly in flux, I have fashioned a room for reflection and space for peace to enter.