Yıldız

Below are three segments of journal entries that I wrote about our experiences volunteering every week at an Armenian Girls' Home in Istanbul. We always cherished those days with them...

February 10th

We were greeted by forty or so girls ranging from kindergarten age to 16-year olds. We were ushered down to a basement play room-living room area. For a few minutes we all stood facing each other there, mutually enthusiastic, curious, and shy. The girls, all dark-eyed and dark-haired, had filed in front of us and filled out the room like a fidgeting choir. We introduced ourselves and finally broke the divide by mingling in with them and sitting down, at which point the room exploded with sound as we all began talking. Many of the girls don’t know any English at all, but a few of them had written out questions to ask us and could help interpret our answers for the others. We Westmont girls were a bit frustrated by not being able to communicate more effectively, but there was a surprising amount that we could learn from them despite the lack of shared language... All the girls that live there are Armenian, Orthodox Armenian Christians. Armenian is their primary language, but they obviously learn Türkçe. They go to Turkish school during the day, sometimes have English lessons with one of the women who work at the home, and sleep/eat/play at the Armenian home, taken good care of by each other and by the house mothers that preside over each well-kept room filled with bunk beds and the girls’ few belongings. A few of the girls are orphans, but most of them have families ( in “underprivileged” circumstances, or unhealthy ones).

Leah had brought a guitar along with us, and we started singing for the girls...to our surprise, they immediately and exuberantly joined in to Justin Bieber’s “baby...baby...baby...ohhhh!” and we all proceeded to sing a slew of other American pop songs. They also belted out one of Turkish superstar Tarkan’s songs and showed us their glossy Turkish tween magazines with pull-out posters of Zach Efron and Taylor Swift...they peppered us with questions about who was most popular and if we knew the lyrics to songs by Shakira and Bruno Mars. It was strange to encounter our American pop-culture there. A couple of girls from our group pulled out their phones and started playing music and snapping photos, and I was struck by a sadness that one of the first ways we related to these Armenian girls was on the terms of a pervasive Western culture that I wasn’t necessarily proud of...How badly, I thought, I wished the girls didn’t have some kind of desire to please us with their knowledge of American pop/teen culture, didn’t want to immediately ask us if each of us had a Facebook. I wanted them to see that they didn’t need to know who Taylor Swift was for us to be impressed with them. I wanted to show them that we could appreciate their own youth culture -- but then, much of the youth culture here borrows from Western example, so maybe the whole issue is unavoidable. Still I found myself wishing that Beyoncé and our iPhones would just go away. There was a dissonance between those things and the simplistic lifestyle of the Girls’ Home that itched at my heart. 

As the evening wore on, we were all touched by the Armenian girls’ love for each other and the attention they showered on us; we were also moved by how much they seemed to love the extra affection we gave them during our first visit. Many of us bonded right away: Yıldız, who is fifteen, one of the girls who stayed next to me the whole night, gave me her bracelet before we left the home... She wrapped it in a tiny, colorful plastic baggy and was visibly delighted when I murmured “Ohh!! Çok güzel, teşekkur ederim!!” as I unwrapped it and let her clasp it around my wrist. During dinner (after a beautiful Armenian prayer) I listened as some of the girls told me about their big dreams to become professors, teachers, fashion designers, doctors, and to travel to Brazil and the United States. I admired how they saw no limits to what they could do with their lives, even though they admitted that it was sometimes “çok zor” (very hard) to be Armenian in Turkey. How beautiful the girls were with their wide, dark brown eyes and thick black hair and quick smiles and laughter and olive-skinned hands that reached for our pale ones. There were some moments when we failed completely to understand each other and instead just laughed hopelessly and hugged each other. Even if we couldn’t communicate effectively, there seemed to be an understanding (tinged with a hint of sadness) that at least each party wished that we could... the most we could demonstrate sometimes was by a hug or a squeeze of a hand to show our affection for each other in lieu of words to verbally express our interest and care. When we had to leave, everyone queued up for cheek kisses and “Görüşürüz”es...several of the girls came back multiple times for more kisses, reminding me humorously of the little minions in Pixar’s Despicable Me returning to the line for more goodnight kisses from the newly tenderhearted Gru. 

February 31st 

Sometimes we leave the Armenian Girls’ Home utterly exhausted... the girls have so much energy and love to give, and also love and attention they clearly want to receive; but communication without language then reverts to body language, giggles, clapping games, hugs, pictures, and singing, all of which are wonderful but take quite a bit of energy to sustain. One of the girls patiently counted with me in Turkish all the way up to one hundred, and kept pointing to different objects so that I could work on my Turkish words. During our visit this week, the school’s governors and board came for dinner, so we stayed for longer than usual as the board members came around the tables to talk to us and the girls, congratulating them on this or that recent academic accomplishment or their good health, etc. The girls also sang two Armenian songs after we’d finished our meal, clapping their hands with their chanting melody. We asked them what the words meant, and they said the song was about love. One of the governors of the Home, an elderly and well-dressed woman with clean English, chatted briefly with me where I sat between my friends... “We must maintain our Armenian tradition. It is difficult when we live in Turkey. That is why the future of our youth is so important to us.” The governor also expressed gratefulness that we were there with girls; “It means very much to them to have you here visiting them,” she said. 

March 14th

After dinner at the Girls’ Home tonight, Yıldız ran upstairs and then returned with shy eagerness with a notebook, its inner cover fastidiously decorated with colorful magazine clippings (the words“Paris”, “Bruno Mars” each had their honored place) and handwritten notes. She turned page after page of the notebook; on each one was a carefully colored dress of a different design and pattern and style. They were creative and lovely, born of a girls’ imagination. Yıldız wants to be a fashion designer. Leah and I ooh-ed and aah-ed over the designs and lingered in admiration over our favorites. It made me happy that Yıldız wanted to share her dream with us, and that she delighted in our praise of her drawings. Her older sister is going to have a baby soon -- a boy. His is going to be named after a mountain in Armenia. Yıldız talks about it every Wednesday, and motions with her hands to show us how big her sister’s belly has grown. Next week is our last visit to see the girls... I’m going to miss them. I still wish I could communicate more with them. Several of the girls are “friends” with us now on Facebook, so I hope we can still stay connected in some way through that. Who knows, maybe someday they will come to visit America and I can see them grown up and actively pursuing all the glittering dreams they have. Or maybe I will come back to Turkey, and see them shining here in what they’ve succeeded in pursuing. 

March 21st

Yesterday we said our goodbyes to the Armenian girls. 

We sat in the little living room on the mismatched couches together and braided little bracelets... Many of the girls made two with the same colors, one for themselves and another for one of us. Yıldız made one for me of red, pink, and brown colored thread. I found out tonight that Yıldız means ‘star’ in Turkish. At dinner they honored our presence with slabs of helva and whole, hefty apples...the apples were obviously a treat and the girls devoured them with delight. But the whole evening was tinged with melancholy too, because all of us knew that it was the last time we would see each other. 

“Don’t forget me, don’t forget!” Sirarpi hugged me tightly. Another tiny girl clung silently to Leah. Some of the older girls had hefted Anna up completely off the ground and were tossing her up in the air before almost dropping her with breathless laughter. There were lots of kisses everywhere, lots of sad faces, confirmations of “Facebooks??” “Evet, evet!” and “I am missing you! Do not forget!” Gabriella started crying and buried her beautiful little face in my shoulder and held on to my hand until the last possible minute. There was another exchange of warm cheek kisses and “I love you”s and hands grasped in last goodbyes, then we were shuffled out the gate in the dark. And I wanted to break down into sobbing, uncontrollable tears, but didn’t. As we started walking back to where we could catch taxis back to Yeditepe, Leah said miserably, “I’m going to drown my sorrows in hot milk and coffee.” I think that part of the reason saying goodbye to the girls was so hard was because we realized, too, that in only a few more days we will have to say goodbye to Turkey as well. 

We want to stay in contact with the girls, even if only a few of them, for as long as we are able and in whatever way we can. The language barrier always makes our communication difficult, but we have built relationships with these sweet, sweet girls that we do not want to let go of. Anna said later that this is where our service project really begins. For all the love we gave, we received far, far more back.