Blog: Reunion Dinner at Turkish Cultural Center Long Island

Turkish Cultural Center of Long Island in Medford had a Reunion Dinner for the 2011 Turkey Trip participants on April 20.

Warm conversations have been exchanged by the attendees of the event. TCCLI President Sadri Altinok has shared his first trip experiences where everyone was amused by many funny memories. One of them was that some of the relatives were not expecting the ones who went with the group to come back, because they thought that Turkey is a very dangerous country. But everyone knew that this is not the case.

Rafael Flores who was one of the participants expressed his respect and thankfulness to TCCLI. He emphasized that he went to many other countries, but indeed Turkey was different in a positive way. And that he wants to be the cause for a future alliance between the two countries  Turkey and Salvador.

Mr. Kamlesh Mehta was impressed by the history that Turkey has. He said “Every inch of Turkey has history. I can feel it, but not describe it.”. He said that he feels culturally connected since in history some Kings of India have married women of Turkish descent. He also has expressed that Turkey has a huge potential with its system of secularism and having almost a 99% muslim population. That he did not feel any sign of conservatism during his trip.

Sadri Altinok gave a brief speech about the person who gave the inspiration to the Hizmet  Movement, Fethullah Gulen.