I arrived back in Washington on Saturday afternoon, greeted by my parents, after an amazing and thrilling week in Europe. The last few days in Antalya were memorable, as I said bye to the people that I have come to know and love there over the summer. I wrapped up my contribution to the social skills arts and crafts project, which turned out to be a success despite the original plan falling through. The team from the DR, and the staff/children at the rehab center had a blast making crafts and playing with the children. It was beautiful to see the [View Full Entry]

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I’m sitting here at Karns, with Aysagul and all the dep girls, who are watching a movie on Karn’s big screen. There is a major thunder and lightning storm outside, and we have all seen rain for the first time in MONTHS! It’s pretty exciting to see rain and the smell is powerful. A Turkish friend and special education teacher, named Belma, came over tonight and we baked cookies. I have 2 more days left at the rehab center, and then we leave for Istanbul. The past few weeks have been filled with productivity, if you call it that. Verna and [View Full Entry]

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It has been a pretty busy (in a good way) past few weeks. As I have gone through this summer, I have often found myself thinking of the different things individual friends and family members would appreciate in certain moments. For example, I was walking down a street in Istanbul the other day, thinking of the things my brother, or my sister, would appreciate about the particular sights, sounds, smells, and aspects of culture I was experiencing through my eyes. Since we each see things through our own eyes and appreciate and notice different aspects of things based on our past [View Full Entry]

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Today I went to rehab center #1, and spoke with Stella about how a particular child was doing after I introduced a technique called "brushing" to him and his mother last week. Stella said the mother had reported yesterday that the child did not like the brushing (although the child did appear to like it when he was in control of the brush doing it on himself) last week during his therapy session. The 6 (I think) year old child recieves therapy for mild mental retardation, hyperactivity, and behavioral difficulties. When I walked in the room last week the mother was [View Full Entry]

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Some of you may be wondering about my safety over here in Turkey, due to the recent shootings in Istanbul at the US consulate, and the kidnappings of Germans in the far eastern Turkey. I'm sure it's made the US papers. This update is to assure you that we are taking extra safety precautions here in Antalya, (such as not hanging out at American type places like Starbucks for long periods of time, avoiding large tourist crowds, etc). Verna is not too concerned. 3 years ago when there were bombings in Antalya that injured some people, we were made to stay [View Full Entry]

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It’s been a couple weeks since I wrote, so there is a bit to catch up on. I can’t believe I have been here for a month. Despite everyday being quite different with new surprises coming at me consistently, I’ve gotten used to a kind of basic routine. I’ve been enjoying walking a lot, usually at least 3-4 miles each day. Despite the heat and getting drenched in sweat, its more fun to walk to the rehab center than ride the dolmesh/bus because there are so many things to look at along the way- lots of window shopping, interesting people, and [View Full Entry]

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I spent 4 full days at the rehab centers this week, mainly observing the therapists and the teachers at work. It has been fascinating to learn the ins and outs of therapy services children receive here in Turkey. Here’s the scoop: Rehab centers are for children with a variety of special needs, with a large percentage of the children who attend them diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, Autism, Mental Retardation, and Learning Disabilities. I also saw a boy with Spina Bifida and a 19 year old with Muscular Dystrophy. Over 500 children total are served by these two rehab centers. There ar [View Full Entry]

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I’ve been in Turkey for a week now, and here’s the story: Lessons of the week: 1. God answers prayer, even if it's delayed 2. Just being in another country is enough to see the world through a different sort of lens, and make you question your opinions on things, and spark realizations about little things- like how honesty in business is often taken for granted in the US, how important it is to know that others have confidence in you, how the definition of Christianity is really misunderstood, here and around the world, how humor can help any situation and [View Full Entry]

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I'm only occasionally not clicking "quiet publish" so I don't clog all your inboxes. But I have written A LOT since I sent out a publish notification so if you have missed the past couple weeks of entries and wish to read you can click on previous entries. I arrived in Turkey a few days ago, and have been getting settled. This week I start to work out what I'll be doing here this summer with the special needs population. It is nice to be out of Uzbekistan, and I have really enjoyed re aquainting myself with Antalya! I had forgotten, [View Full Entry]

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Written from the plane, sent from Istanbul Airport- awesome free wireless internet! They do it right! I’m writing this update from a plane- I’m flying Uzbekistan airways from Tashkent to Istanbul, and from there I’ll fly to Antalya. I’ll post this blog next time I have internet. The last 3 days of our stay in Uzbekistan went by quickly. Monday and Tuesdsay we went to the neuro hospital for children. I’ll write about that in a minute. Tuesday night I got some sort of sickness and had all the symptoms of flu- I won’t go into details. But Yulduz is co [View Full Entry]

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