Cebrail, who spent a life-changing year on an exchange program from New Zealand to Turkey, reflects on his biggest discoveries and lessons learned.
Overcoming the honeymoon period and homesickness
I did my exchange in Istanbul, Turkey, as I am half turkish it felt like a good way to learn the language, culture and travel a little bit around the country. When the other students and I had our first orientation just a few days after we had first arrived, we were all filled with excitement and it felt like a holiday. The freedom we had newly gained was exhilarating and it fueled our wanderlust. Eventually the orientation finished and we had to go to our host families. I and 2 other students were going to Istanbul and we couldn’t be more excited to live in one of the biggest cities in Turkey full of history and culture.
The first few months however didn’t live up to my excitement. Much of my day to day life felt repetitive, school was boring and it felt as if no one wanted to interact with me and finally my host family was rarely ever home. The lack of stimuli and adventure made me homesick and caused me to second guess going on an exchange thinking it was nothing like I had imagined or close to how people glamourised it. As days went by I became less motivated to go out, to go to school and even go out on the weekends. I found myself talking to my friends’ family back home who were curious to learn about what I was doing and they wanted to see where I was going and I never had anything good to say, usually talking about school and how I didn’t want to go.
I realised that I needed something to do, something that would force me into situations where I needed to converse with and meet people, a hobby that would give me motivation to go and document my life in Istanbul. After very little thought and a quick check at my bank account I decided I would go and buy a camera and I would go out and take pictures of whatever looked interesting to me. After I got the camera my mindset completely shifted and I wanted to go and explore and talk to people. I had a proper reason (in my eyes) to go by myself and develop my language and social confidence. Because of my camera I went almost everyday out to the city after school and on the weekends.
Everyday felt amazing and worth me being there. I was enjoying my life in a new country and i had put the glamour and hype behind me to face everyday as an exchange student.
