The Kindness of Strangers: Istanbul

How a simple gesture became my most memorable Christmas moment

In the New Mosque, headscarf and heart secure.

It’s Christmas morning and I’m in Istanbul, about to enter a mosque. 

It’s a sunny but wickedly windy morning, and the square is quiet. A pair of local girls sit on the steps of the mosque. One is eating a simit, the delicious dark rings of bread smothered in sesame seeds sold from carts all over the city. I snap a photo of the blue domes of the mosque – the Yeni Valide Sultan Camii, located near the Egyptian Spice Market – and grin at a fact I’d heard the day before: though locals call this the “New Mosque,” it was actually built in 1665. It’s astounding to me as a resident of a country that wasn’t even founded at that time. 

I pause on the steps to pull a rose-colored scarf from my shoulder bag to cover my head before I go in. But I’m making hash of it; the wind keeps whipping the scarf out of my hands, and I can feel the scarf sliding back off my hair every time I try to tie it.

Suddenly, one of the girls I’d spotted earlier materializes in front of me and nods to my scarf. “Do you need help?” she asks. I smile and nod gratefully, and she gently takes the scarf out of my hands. She is inches from my face as she carefully, with the lightest touch, arranges the scarf around my face, tucking it in and securing it deftly.

“There,” she says, and we beam at each other. “Thank you,” I say in English, and fumble for the word in Turkish, but before I can remember (Teşekkür ederim!) she smiles, nods and melts into the crowd.

I walk into the mosque awash in gratitude, still feeling the butterfly touch of that girl’s fingers on my face. It had been an interaction of seconds, but already I know I won’t ever forget it. That gentle act of humanity and generosity meant more to me than a big pile of presents under a Christmas tree ever could. 

It was a reminder of how travel reinforces my belief that people are inherently good. And a good reminder to be generous with strangers no matter where I am.