When you get a face full of tear gas, if your eyes and mouth aren't protected, it'll burn. Lemons and water mixed with milk makes it burn less.
For those students studying abroad in OU's Journey to Turkey program, they got the standard curriculum of two classes: Turkey's foreign policy and Economic Development in the Middle East and Turkey.
In addition, they got an introductory course in protest and civil unrest.
Miranda Shaughnessy, a May graduate with a bachelor's degree in international security studies, said the first protest she went to on June 3 was relatively non-violent — it was before the police started using water cannons and tear gas to quell the protesters.
The second one she happened upon by chance, and things had changed.
She saw the clouds of tear gas rising from the city of Ankara as she and others arrived, lots of protesters and lines of riot police. During this protest, she saw an elderly woman get sprayed with a face full of tear gas simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Had we been a few feet further up, we would've had the same thing happen to us. We could smell the tear gas. It smells like menthol to me," Shaughnessy said.
When the protests broke out around Turkey during OU's Journey to Turkey program, many of the students saw this firsthand, although they felt uncomfortable admitting it because professors instructed them not to go.
The conflict in Turkey right now is between the two major political parties in the country: the more liberal and secular CHP and the more conservative and Islamic AK party, who currently is ruling the country, said Elizabeth Moyer, a student in the program.
However, even within those two groups there are dissenting players and lines between sides that sometimes aren't so clear-cut, she said.
While almost 98 percent of the country is Islamic, which doesn't necessarily mean they practice the faith, Turkey has been envisioned as a secular state since it was founded, Moyer said.
That sets the stage for the protests, which broke out in Istanbul on May 21 when the AK party pushed through the government to develop a mall on top of Gezi park in a busy shopping district called Taksim square, she said.
Since then, the conflict has turned into a bigger issue, representing the strife between both parties and the individuals who compose them, both politically and religiously, she said.
The protests began a few days after the group left Istanbul, however, and the movement soon spread throughout the country and caught up with them in Ankara.
Shaughnessy remembers being muddled when she first learned about the protests, because when she and the rest of the group were in Istanbul, they didn't notice anything unusual. As well, there was a lot of confusion within the group about what the people actually were protesting.
Moyer echoed similar sentiments, saying that before coming to Turkey, she wasn't very familiar with the political situation. Even so, her professors couldn't have predicted the protests either, she said.
The protests were sort of like concerts, except more dangerous, said one member of the group who asked to remain anonymous, commenting on the variety of people attending and the dress code.
"People are getting dressed up to protest like you would dress up to go to a club or something," she said. "Not in the fancy way, but in how they deck themselves out in protective gear and know exactly what to wear and bring."
Going to the protest for the first time, this student found out her attire wasn't quite up to dress code, and despite wearing layers of shirts to cover her mouth and nose, when she got sprayed with tear gas, it still burned.
While Shaughnessy wasn't explicitly involved in the protests — she didn't get burned or become involved — she did witness its effects on other people, seeing protests run from waves of gas, a plethora of Richard Nixon-style peace signs, a woman being carried off to get medical attention after being doused with tear gas, graffiti of anarchy symbols calling for Turkey's prime minster to step down.
The sights elicited mixed emotions for Shaughnessy, anything from curiosity to sadness, she said.
"I would be lying if I said that at no point have I been frightened. I feel hope that there will be positive changes for the country; sadness for the violence perpetrated against the protestors and for those who have died or been injured," she said. "Excitement to have been a witness to something historical; aggravation toward the youth who I feel are uninformed and really should be in school."
Shaughnessy went into the journey program hoping to see and learn about Turkey. She left with a heightened sense of awareness and a level head, which she thinks will help her to remain calm but wary during her career in international security, she said.
Though the journey program ended Wednesday, and the students who participated have gone their separate ways for the most part, the protests still continue with no sure signs of stopping anytime soon, Moyer said.
On top of that, there's no evidence to indicate that tensions between the conflicting sides will increase or decrease. Right now, things appear to be up in the air, Moyer said.