Phillip and Rebecca Mefford

My Turkish friend, a fellow-English teacher, followed up our text message conversation with “I’m waiting for you.” Waiting? Am I late? Oh no, am I being rude by not respecting her time?   Not at all.     She had translated the socially expected phrase  seni   bekliyorum  directly into English. This does not mean that she was at that moment stressing over my tardiness.  Bekliyorum  means “I’m expecting your visit” or “I’m looking forward for to when you come over . ” It is a sweet, polite phrase that you will hear almost daily in Turkey.     Sometimes  seni   bekliyorum   is used in real-time when someone has made all the necessary preparations for you to come and are anticipating your arrival. Often it is said casually in parting as a gesture of hospitality. Sometimes it is merely a polite nicety. Often, they really mean it.   Getting together over a hot beverage and chatting about life is a way that people bond in this country. As is often s

Participating in s ocial engagements are  an important part of engaging in community and culture.  It is a great way to sharpen language skills, deepen friendships, and have fun. But as an outsider it can be very intimidating. In our home culture—the culture we grew up in-- we are taught social rules and cues organically.  The host culture—the culture we move to—most definitely has certain variants on the cues and rules that we need to consciously tune in to. And even when we have achieved the initial goal of becoming aware of those cues and rules, we still need to take the next step of adapting our own actions to fit them. This, of course, includes discerning how important  following t hese social rules are to the success of the relationship, whether  or not  they carry moral connotations,  our personal willingness to integrate versus stand out, and what we would be communicating if we did not adapt accordingly.  We  essentially need to put on our anthropologist caps, amateur