It is irresponsible to not mention and give credit to our fearless leader, A, who made this little adventure a success. She demonstrated exceptional qualities that both enhanced the education of travel and the collective bonding of our group.
When she inherited our group, we collectively spoke about 10 words in Turkish. Approximately seven of these ten words were mangled derivations of “Hello” (“merhaba“). We were not going to get too far without her. While we all could locate Turkey on a map and had some vague understanding of Anatolian history, we were not going to merge these thoughts into a cogent understanding of the country without some serious interpretive work.
Although tired – having completed with another group that morning – and at the tail end of a cold, she mustered the energy to organize our group of merry misfits and build a good foundation for the rest of the trip. She communicated well; setting the expectations for the group. She knew her stuff; able to field a great majority of questions coming from many different perspectives. She gave us enough tools to not be completely dependent upon her; in particular, the language lessons. Citizens of any nation are going to respond more favorably to you if you speak their language – even a few words. Giving us some basic communication and language tips helped the people we met on the streets react more positively towards us, which left us with a warmer impression of the people and the country.
The group was full of independent travelers; neither familiar with nor comfortable with the thought of being on a traditional guided tour: i.e. on the bus, off the bus, every meal included, 24/7 monitoring by guide, disengage brain. A constructively channeled these independent tendencies, giving us an orientation to explore on our own and, as a result, allowing her more time to herself without us underfoot. We probably liked the group more because each individual could – and did – go off independently to see and do the things he/she wanted to experience on their own.
No one felt that their question was stupid. She did not reflect any frustration about other guides back at us – even when other tour leaders made belittling comments for the benefit of their herd. She did all this with intelligence, a sense of humor, and – most important of all – grace.
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