"The more that you read, the more things you will know, the more that you learn, the more places you'll go."
-Dr. Seuss
Hello everyone. My name is Mustafa. I am a 20 years old person who lives in somewhere called Bursa, Turkey. I am a junior student at university, and currently, I am studying English Language Teaching. Hopefully, I will become an English teacher someday.
My biggest passion in this life is travelling, I always loved being on the road. But unfortunately, I never had the chance of going beyond my country's borders. I have never been abroad before. There are multiple reasons for this. I always wonder how it is like outside where I live, for example, I always wonder how are European cities' architecture and design, of course, I can see them from the Internet, but I want to see them with my own eyes while I am still alive. I want to know how are different country's cuisines, I want to taste them all, I want to learn about new cultures and meet new people. Is that too much to ask for?
Conditions and circumstances for travelling across countries are not same for a European Union country citizen and for a Turkey citizen. First and the biggest obstacle is the currency. The currency unit we use, Turkish Lira, is becoming worthless day by day because of the government's awful economic policies. It just hurts me that is something I can not change. Last year, €1 was equal to 6.25 Turkish Liras. Two years before that, in 2017, €1 was equal to 4.38 Turkish Liras. Today, €1 is equal to 9.66 Turkish Liras. Why am I telling that? Because every day I am getting a little more desperate. I am working at a bar as a waiter for months. I am earning 7 Liras per-hour, at my luckiest day with tips, I am going back to my dormitory from my 9-hours shift with something between 75 - 90 liras (which roughly equals to €7.7 - 9.3). Most of this money is spent on buying daily needs anyway. Not to mention I can not work every day because there are very high unemployment rates and we have plenty of staff (all of them are poor students like me). Therefore, they do not let me work every day so others can have work shifts. I will give just one example for you to understand how expensive is everything in Turkey nowadays: An iPhone 11 is being sold at 8.000 Turkish Liras whereas the minimum wage in Turkey is just 2324 Liras. When you go to an ordinary market, essential things like food are too much expensive. What I am trying to infer is that it is impossible to save up money for my stay in Poland.
Secondly, we subject to visa applications. I mentioned at the title that I selected for Erasmus exchange program. I need to pay $90 for my type-D visa. It is a lot when converted into Turkish Lira.
How good English teacher will I ever be if I do not speak and interact with native speakers of that language? I want to improve myself. I might sound complaining from the beginning of my text, but I am telling the facts, the city I live in is not tourist-attractive. There is nearly nobody whose main tongue is English.
I have dreams. To follow my dreams, I worked hard and made myself eligible for this exchange program. With your support, I believe I will learn about lots of things during my education abroad and trips, and I will transfer this knowledge to my future next-generation students.
Many thanks & love...
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