A lady working in a community garden caught the eye of Dr. Jennifer Brooks as she traveled between towns in western Turkey during a recent trip.

Asking her Turkish hosts to stop, Dr. Brooks talked briefly to the lady, who was the owner of the community garden in which small plots were leased to local residents. Dr. Brooks, who is associate professor of history and civic education (or Commons) at Tusculum College, asked if she could take the lady's photo.

As they posed for the picture, the lady removed the scarf she was wearing over her head. Dr. Brooks asked that she put the scarf back on, and the lady explained that when she was in the nearby city, she did not wear anything to cover her head. However, when the lady was in the suburb of the city, where the community garden was located, she would wear a scarf and in her home village, she wore a head covering and an outer garment with long sleeves.

This chance encounter was reflective of the culture Dr. Brooks says she found in western Turkey, a mixture of tradition and history with a modern, westernized society. Dr. Brooks was among a group from East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia who traveled to Turkey recently as part of Rotary International's Group Study Exchange (GSE) program, which sends teams of non-Rotarians to other countries around the world to promote vocational and cultural exchanges.

"Being in the presence of history is what I will remember most as well as the hospitality of the Turkish people we met," Brooks said of the four-week trip from late April through mid-May. The GSE team of five traveled in the western region of Turkey, bordered by the Aegean Sea (which separates it from Greece) to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south.

As expected, Brooks found that region to be westernized, although she was surprised at the level of ethnic diversity among the people there. Turkey differs from the United States in that there is a dominant religious faith – 99 percent of the people are Muslim. An interesting similarity is the separation of church and state in both countries, Brooks noted, an aspect which helped heighten her anticipation of the trip. Turkey has been a secular democratic republic since the 1920s.

The GSE team members, all of whom, except for Brooks, were from Southwest Virginia, made presentations to about 15 local Turkish Rotarian Clubs about East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. The team ended their presentation by singing a Turkish folk song in the Turkish language. "It always got a big reaction, but I think they were being polite," Brooks said. The song was not difficult to learn, Brooks said, and she also learned some common Turkish phrases.

At some of the Rotary meetings, Brooks sat with people who could speak English, although at a few she faced the challenge of dining at a table with people who spoke only Turkish. "Fortunately, food is a universal language, so I could understand when they were asking me if I liked a particular dish," she said.

The food in Turkey was "wonderful," Brooks said, and one of her favorite photos from her trip was of a woman preparing gozleme, a staple dish in Turkey. Gozleme is unleavened flat bread which is folded with vegetables, cheese, and sometimes meat inside. Small, open-air roadside cafes were numerous along the two-lane roads, and do not have a similar counterpart in the United States, she added.

During their trip, the GSE team members stayed with host families, members of the local Rotary Clubs they were visiting. Brooks stayed with 11 different families, some only for a day or two, which did not give much opportunity for her and her hosts to get to know one another. The team from this region kept a busier schedule than anticipated after stops were added to the itinerary that were originally to be visited by another Rotary team, which had cancelled its trip.

Brooks was able to stay with a few families for three nights, which gave a chance to get to know them better, she said. Most of the families had children who were teenagers or a little bit younger in age. Family life for those in western Turkey appeared to be similar to what it is in the U.S., she said, with the nuclear family being the primary focus. However, she said, it was not uncommon to find a family living in one apartment in a complex, and grandparents, aunts, or cousins all also living in the same building or complex.

As part of their trip, the team members visited businesses and farms. Whether Turkey should join the European Union was one of primary economic issues being discussed, Brooks said, and a surprising level of opposition to joining the EU among many of the businessmen and agricultural exporters the team visited. Many were concerned that meeting the labor and environmental standards required of European Union members would hurt Turkey's ability to compete in the niche markets in which the country increasingly has become successful.

"Turkey strikes me as a rich country in many respects - in natural resources and a rich agricultural region," Brooks said. "At the same time, the country clearly has some significant economic challenges. There are difficulties in finding positions in some professional areas. For example, there are a lot of engineers there, and many can't find work as engineers."

Higher education is also very competitive, she said. The team did visit some private primary schools, and the educational structure there is very different than in the U.S., Brooks added.

Children in Turkey often take exams at different points in their education to determine what type of school they can attend for the next stage of their education. According to the parents Brooks met, this placement can affect dramatically students' ability to perform on later tests that determine university entrance and placement. Families with the income to do so in western Turkey, thus, appear to send their children to private schools if at all possible. Brooks noted that one of her host families had a 14-year-old who spent the weekend she stayed with them studying to do well on one of these tests.

The team members visited with middle and upper-class Turkish citizens in western Turkey, and only had the opportunity to visit private schools, Brooks cautioned, so the economic and educational situations and challenges may be different for other segments of the society or for other regions of the country.

The war in Iraq was naturally a topic of conversation as southeastern Turkey borders Iraq. Unfortunately, she said, the hectic travel scheduled did not provide opportunities to have in depth discussions about the war.

"The people I talked to seemed to have a lot of questions about what the U.S. was doing," she said. "But, I didn't have an opportunity to have lengthy discussions with them about the war. They were more interested in what I thought about Turkey and how much I knew about the country."

A common concern about the war among the Turkish people was what impact it would have on tourism in the country, Brooks said. "Some people felt it was having a negative impact on the economy, that there were not as many French and Germans visiting Istanbul or the coastal regions as usual for that time of year. The Gulf War also had a negative impact on tourism in Turkey."

One of the characteristics of Turkey that attracts tourists is its long and rich history. The team members had the opportunity to visit many of the historic sites in western Turkey, which ranged from a pre-Roman settlement to sites that dated from well into the 20th century.

Visiting a historical site in Turkey is much different than many sites in the U.S. as visitors are allowed complete access to most sites, Brooks said, noting that the team members were able to walk around in the Roman ruins and touch the ancient stones. One of the best preserved Roman stadiums is at Aphrodesius, near the inland city of Nazilli in Turkey, and Brooks and another team member ran a lap around the stadium floor.

Sites from the Byzantine and Ottoman empires were also numerous. "That Christians and Muslims of these empires lived side by side is very interesting," Brooks said.

The team members also visited one site that many might not expect to find in Turkey, an English castle built by crusaders in 1399.

The team members had the opportunity to visit Pamukkale, a beautiful sparkling white plateau. At Pamukkale, hot water filled with calcium salts and carbon dioxide flows from four underground springs. When the water cools, the calcium deposits solidify, creating a white terraced landscape.

One of the most interesting and melancholy sites the team visited, Brooks said, was the Greek village of Kayaköy abandoned by its 25,000 residents once Turkey won its independence. When Turkey became an independent nation, Greeks living in Turkey were to move to Greece and the Turks living in Greece were to return to Turkey. A small community of Turks lived near the Greek village, but there were not enough people to take it over, and the Turks who did move there, didn't like it and left.

Brooks is now sharing these and other experiences she had in Turkey as part of presentations she is making to local Rotary Clubs.