It has a funny story. On the exact same day that I decided to quit my programmer job, a job that was just about to give me a significant raise, but a job that I started to feel as a misuse of my energy and time, I bumped into a call for a filming course in Turkey. I have just made up my mind to follow my dreams instead of following that of others (my boss wanted to prove that he can transform me into the next Zuckerberg). Having a long-time fascination for films, I knew this was the chance to start over. In the past, I already edited a couple of short and/or documentary productions and I simply adored both the process and the outcome. On that November day, I felt it was time to refresh and improve these dormant skills in me, bringing my creative storyteller spirit to the next level. So I quit there. And so I applied here. And two days later I was selected as the Hungarian participant. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare, as November turned out to be an incredibly busy period for me. Before travelling, I even caught a massive cold, so for a couple of days I was considering to skip the trip. Finally I managed to settle all the inner and outer turmoil, thanks mostly to a large dosage of lemon and garlic (lemon for the germs, garlic for the jerks). :-)
..FYI: not just the ladies..
Before travelling to the location of the traning course, I had to stay in Istanbul for two days. OK, I didn't have to. I wanted to. And it was the best decision. Being an open-minded person and priding myself on being curious and tolerant, I have a hard time admitting that I did have some prejudice against going to an Islamic country. Not because of the typical Western reason, the fear of Jihadic violence. No, that I didn't have, as I had researched that area long before to know that extremists exist everywhere, killing in the name of anything. But what I couldn't accept (and in a way I still cannot) is the gender issue. Since lately I am quite gender-conscious -- actually I was even called the Equal Opportunities Officer a couple of times -- I view many things through these lenses. And let's accept, most of the established churches, Islam being one, perform quite badly in this respect. With all these preconceptions, I arrived to the banks of Bosphorus and I found myself fascinated by the city and the culture marked by mosques, minarets, and muezzin. Istanbul had such a unique atmosphere that simply mesmerized me. I must say, those two days took me on a spiritual, inward journey (and it was not just because of the large dosage of Turkish tea I was cleansing myself with :-).
In this mindset, I had to continue my journey to Kars, a small town next to the (closed) Turkish-Armenian border. Seemingly, it was a completely uninteresting and unimpressive city, especially after Istanbul, but its relevance lies exactly in the ethnic conflicts, of the Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian, Russian, and Azerbaijani inhabitants, that resulted in the very decadence we see today. The city had too much history to cover and we had too little time to explore, so the filming part of the training was not as successful and effective as I had expected. (We started to make short films about antiracism, about local relations, about the torn down monument of the Armenian-Turkish friendship, and so on, but nobody really completed their projects in those 7 days.) There was, however, a lot to learn on a different level. We were a multi-ethnic group of 30 people, just like a school class. As a teacher and coach, it was an eye-opening experience for me to be on the other side.
We were representing quite different cultures, backgrounds, and world views. Occasionally, I was the only one in my group of 5-6 that was not religious, let alone, not Muslim. Nothing really was self-evident, like on what grounds I (and Western mainstream ideology) think it was debatable why Muslim women have to cover their faces, or why LGBT (what? who?) are not unnatural to claim rights, or why is given so much space in politics. All the group projects were challenging, because we needed to reach a group decision. It was rare when two people were on the same side. The reason that I (we) felt frustrated so often in these group processes made me (us) realize how bloody difficult it is to live in real democracy, one vote meaning just one vote. :-) Also, as a teaching method, I came to view groupwork a bit differently. Previously I had glorified it, considering it more effective, in most cases, than individual or frontal methods. Now I was reminded that it should not be overused though, because it does have its social-cooperational value, but as far as work-efficiency is concerned, it heavily depends on the personality of the members, which only occasionally is free of conflict.
We had a funny task once. As a social-cultural experiment, we had to draw our countries on a blind map. The Netherlands started, then came a miniature version of Germany (to correct the size problems set by Holland). This is when I was supposed to put Hungary on the map. It was hilarious to see how I placed it so damn far from Western Europe (yes, my mis-perception of the position of Hungary :-). To mend the situation, the Italian girl decided to draw her country reverse, as if Italy was "kicking" Hungary away. This is how we ended up with a new, very welcomed, neighbor: Sicily. Bella Taormina! :-) On the East, then, Azerbaijan became our new border-country, which again is a very fortunate change if you bear in mind that it will become a lot easier like this to travel to the European Games next year. :-)
All in all, it was a successful 11 days. We reshaped borders, brought cultures together, and had a lot of fun.
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