Turkish teacher and researcher Doğan Yücel, a prolific author on the PakTurkFile website, answered our questions. Explaining how he collected countless memories both while teaching and working in a business association in Pakistan, where he lived for 7 years, Yücel emphasized such memories must be passed on to future generations.

Having taught Turkish at the PakTurk Schools between 2004 and 2011, Doğan Yücel stated that he wrote his memoirs as a debt of loyalty to his Pakistani friends and colleagues and the years he spent in Pakistan. He also emphasised the history and achievements of the PakTurk Schools must be chronicled and passed on to the future generations.

Yücel said his memories come alive whenever he hears the name Pakistan or comes across a Pakistani, and added, “We still cook Pakistani dishes at home, albeit occasionally.”

Yücel stated that while he taught at the PakTurk Schools, he also worked actively in an association that convened the businessmen from the two countries. “Hence, I collected abundant memories, I experienced many exquisite things, and I met different people. We organized trips to Turkey and hosted guests from Turkey,” he said.

Explaining how they put a lot of effort and poured sweat with the Pakistani education volunteers who fatefully allied with them, Yücel emphasized the essential value of relaying experiences to future generations.

Expressing his wish to revisit Pakistan at the earliest opportunity, Yücel also stated his wish to visit the places he had not seen during the seven years he had been in Pakistan.