Istanbul, Turkey (Part 1)

With country number 58, Paraguay, in the rearview mirror, it was time to press onwards – towards a place I had only ever transited through, Turkey. In 2022, I ran a few sessions in Burkina Faso and my family and I traveled through the Istanbul airport, waiting for our next flight for nearly three-quarters of the day. The extent of my stay was reserved to the confines of the airport, though I hoped I might one day make it back to explore further.

That exploration was supposed to be back in March of this year, but as always, plans changed and this Turkey run was put on hold until my schedule freed up in May. Finally, the calendar struck May and I was off on an early morning red eye to the country where East meets West – Turkey.

Landing around sunset-time, I was dropped into a city like no other… one bustling with people, trendy cafes, incredible food, and more. I typed my Airbnb’s address into Google and was met with the unfortunate quote of a $40+ taxi to get there. Instead, armed with a 50 lb check-in bag at both my sides, I rolled up my sleeves and began a 90 minute public transportation adventure to Kadikoy – my home base for the next week, a hip neighborhood on the Asian side of the country.

After a $3 metro ticket, and a bus ride, I was home – where my host, Ali, greeted me warmly. He was a football fan as well and we basked in the familiarity of our shared passion before I decided to hit the hay after a long day of traveling. The next day I planned to head towards Sultanbeyli, the venue of our Turkey-based sessions and the home office of our beneficiaries – Refugees Association (RASAS). I hoped to get acquainted with the country and their transit system, and to connect face to face with our partners while preparing equipment for said sessions.

I was greeted with open arms by my two contacts at the organization, Fatma and Didem. Didem was the point person on the partnership, organizing everything down to the date, time, number of participants, jersey sizes, and more. She was world-class. Popping into one of RASAS’s administrator offices, I thanked them sincerely for welcoming me and our football program. I was excited, but anxious too – understandably so. 

After an hour of chatter over the painstaking process of inflating footballs, I was offered a ride to the nearby bus station by a woman named Hande and some fellow staffers. We spent the car ride speaking excitedly about the following day’s football class, but also about Turkey and all their country had to offer. Conversation flowed about typical organizational stuff, including grantmaking and combating burnout. They even gave me recommendations of sights to see during my trip. In no time, we had reached the bus station and my new friends pointed me in the direction of a bus that would take me directly to Kadikoy.

“The last stop is yours. Don’t worry, you can’t possibly mess it up,” they said, reassuringly. I was touched that they made sure I got to where I was going before peeling off into the city.

Barely in the country for 40 hours, it was now program day and man was I giddy. The sun was shining, the warmth was warmthing, and I couldn’t wait to begin. Plus, thanks to my visit to RASAS campus the other day, all I had to do was throw a backpack on and catch my direct $0.50 bus towards Sultanbeyli.

Just like any other big city, Istanbul has a traffic issue, so I made sure to plan accordingly, leaving Kadikoy at 2 o’clock for the 4 PM session. It was normally an hour-long trip, but that could easily be stretched to two with Turkish rush hour traffic. Luckily, my journey was more of the former than the latter, as I showed up just before 3 o’clock. With plenty of time to kill, I popped into a nearby bakery and grabbed a pastry to snack on.

Didem was nice enough to let me wait in the office before heading to our playing space to set things up for the session. While there, I met more RASAS staffers, including an art teacher who regularly holds classes for the organization’s beneficiaries.

“Is he Turkish?” she asked Didem, nodding towards me. I know I’m ambiguous in the face, but never in my life had I ever gotten Turkish before!

Time successfully killed, I headed down four flights of stairs to the childcare center sharing the same street as RASAS’s main office. We would be holding our first session in a small free space next to their fenced-in playground. Yes, the space was small but we’d certainly dealt with smaller in the past. “It won’t be a problem,” I reassured Didem, “we’ll make it work.”

Fortunately, I knew what I was getting into since I had checked out the playing area the day prior, so I adjusted our curriculum accordingly. Everything all set up, the only thing left to wait on were the kids. To provide a little bit of context, though their name is pretty straightforward, Refugees Association (RASAS) provides aid and community to the refugee population of Turkey, a majority of which hail from Syria.

I apologized the day before to Didem, admitting that my knowledge of the Turkish language was somehow less than zero, but this proved to not be a hindrance as the kids participating in the session very much preferred Arabic and we got by just fine with the words I had retained from sessions in Egypt, Lebanon, and Morocco. 

I couldn’t help but smile as the kids tried to grab my attention throughout the session, yelling out “Teacher! Teacher!” One boy approached me early on with Didem by his side – “he just broke his leg two months ago, so he can’t run super fast but he says he will try his best.” I greeted the boy with a handshake and thanked him for the heads up.

I was happy to see some of the older (young) boys, besides Mohammad, exhibiting stellar leadership qualities throughout the session. Particularly, one boy named Hamza, could be seen shepherding his team back and forth during the relay race portion of the session, while another boy named Itep cheered on his squad to put forth their best effort. After relay races, we jumped into two rounds of ras or yed, with the first go-around fielding one single victor while the second (ran by Mohammad) grabbed us two more. The boys were eager to show off their English, as they asked me questions born of curiosity, mainly about who my favorite players were or if I was Team Ronaldo or Team Messi. 

Throughout the session, the boys displayed an incredible amount of support and respect for one another, constantly applauding each other through our relay races, through ras or yed, all the way up until we passed out new footballs to our victors. It was certainly a touching sight to see. Our winners list was fully populated, and a (slightly) larger space near the childcare center was now vacated – so I decided it was as good a time as any to jump into a match. I tasked the boys with splitting up into teams and kicked things off in a different way than usual.

Rather than hitting a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine who received the ball on kickoff, I instead called for captains from each team to approach the center circle. Then, they stood with their backs towards each other, the ball elevated off the ground supported only by their bodies. Then, with a blow of the whistle, the ball would hit the ground and the game would begin. The kids got a kick of it (quite literally) and so did I!

Our scrimmages were going well with one team very much dominating the others, but suddenly, I noticed blood dripping down my left hand. In a moment of clumsiness, I had cut myself on my whistle. A RASAS staffer quickly came to my aid, bandaging me up with an improvised wrap covering the better part of my entire left hand. The kids pointed at my wound and quickly connected the dots to a popular football player, “Teacher! You are like Benzema!” I laughed and smiled, quickly catching onto the reference of the player notorious for playing with a bandaged hand. Plus, there were certainly worse players to be compared to than one of the best strikers of his generation!

As time wound down, I drew the program to a close, making sure our winners collected their prizes and everyone was content with their new jerseys. I looked on quizzically as a few of them came back with a small sized jersey to exchange for a medium because the small was “too big”… “make it make sense!” I said with a chuckle. Didem wanted to film a short interview summarizing the session and my experience working with RASAS, and I was more than happy to share my account of the day’s event.

“We will just put away the leftover gear for Sunday’s session and then head up to the top floor,” Didem told me, for the two resident chefs on the rooftop had prepared me dinner as a way of saying thank you. Myself famished and marveling at the food placed in front of me, the chefs smiled watching me put down three meat balls and three apple pastries. Equally, Didem shared the same look of joy. “It’s good because you are not picky,” she said.

“Picky? Look at my arms, I’m one missed meal away from a casket, I can’t afford to be picky,” I said with a laugh.

Didem offered an apology that was far from needed – “I’m sorry we were not able to order you something or offer you anything more,” she mentioned.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“So we could show you the true Turkish hospitality.”

“You guys fed me! I could never ask for more, that’s plenty enough,” I said reassuringly, finishing the last of the meat balls.

Our chat continued – “The boys were actually asking when the next class would be, I tried to tell them it was just a one time thing, but they were simply too excited,” said Didem.

“Well… I have my Thursday, Friday, and Saturday free,” I said “…so if you’re down and if they’re down… just know I’m down too,” I added.

“The same boys, is that okay?” she asked, since we didn’t have enough jerseys to accommodate newer kids.

“Yes! And the same place!” I said.

“We’ll try for Friday then,” she said, “just because the boys had been so excited to play in today’s session.”

I was excited, but knew that the weather would ultimately determine whether or not the surprise second session pushed through. Meanwhile, I enjoyed catching up with Didem over my specially-prepared post-program meal. “You know Didem, football and sport is such a powerful tool for integration into society.”

“Yes!” She responded. “Especially for youth. This and cultural events, even the arts… we’ve found them to all be incredibly effective, we even had a choral program for a while which the children loved.”

“I love that,” I answered.

As I drove back towards Kadikoy in the company of colleagues, we couldn’t help but smile about the day’s happenings. I laughed about our jerseys and how some of the kids could barely fill them out. “Don’t worry!” said our driver – Hande, “it’s actually a very Arabic thing for the parents to give them jerseys that are too big for them – so they’re very much used to this…” she said confidently, other passengers very much agreeing.

“Shoes too!” she added, the entire car bursting with laughter.

That was that. Our first session in our 59th country all done and dusted. A great partner organization, the perfect company of colleagues and even parents in attendance, and most importantly, an incredible group of young athletes in participation.