For my reflection this week I'm going more free-form rather than breaking things down by sections. I wanted to take the time at the end of this crazy adventure to write in prose. A friend visited me in the city last weekend. I loved taking her around but I found that I really missed speaking Turkish. I realized I'm really going to miss it here. When I first walked to the NGO office, about thirty minutes from my apartment, the streets were a maze of crowded traffic intersections and narrow cobblestone streets. Beautiful and completely foreign to me.

Walking to the office for my last time, I'm struck by how much this place means to me now, because of the relationships I have built. The cafe on the left is where I brought Amerikan kahvesi for a colleague in the office as an inside joke, the interpreter from Damascus who taught me basic Arabic phrases to use with my students who do not know Turkish. The bookshop on a hill in kuledibi is where I sat for hours after work one day, drawing little animal outlines for my students to color in, and it's also where I walked past grinning the next week after they loved them so much they'd take them home.

My supervisor here asked me if I was going to get anything for myself before I left Türkiye as a souvenir. But nothing could be better than the notes from my students here. The little bracelets that say "deyz" that they gave me as a surprise one day, giggling conspiratorially. The little specks of glue and paint that I won't get out of my clothes from the day my students made slime, and from the day we painted little flowers as we learned words for the seasons.

I feel jealous of the person who I trained to take over from me here, and even two weeks ago I told my students zaten üzgünüm because I'm leaving. But I'm so so glad that they will keep going here, finding a classroom in this building where they can play and be safe and learn supported and cared for. I've learned far more from my students than I taught them, about joy and grit, liveliness and creativity. 

Above all, I feel enormous gratitude towards all of my mentors and colleagues in this office and at Georgetown who got me here. To Colleen and Laidlaw for making all of this possible. To my Turkish language professor Candan Kirişçi (who teaches Turkish while I teach English here), who has always been exceedingly warm and welcoming in her home city here. To the incredible social workers and psychologists I share an office with, whose work inspires and informs me every day. I hope I will be able to maintain these friendships and return one day. 

Çarşamba günü gidiyorum, az kaldı, ama bu yazdan hiç bir şey unutmayacağım. Daha sabırlıyım şimdi, Türkçem daha iyi, ve yeni arkadaşlarımı çok severim. 

To end with the motto of the NGO I'm at (umuda doğru), after this summer I'm left with an orientation towards hope.