Fulbright Mid-Year Meeting

I’m not  a fan of bureaucracy.

But, my time here is chock full of it: To get a bank account, you need a residence permit, a tax number, and a number that is assigned by the government, which can take anywhere from 1-9 months to receive. You can’t be paid without this number, or without a bank account. Getting a cell phone requires a passport, a phone registration document, and no foreigner can purchase a cell phone contract. Under any circumstances.

The structure of things is comical because, ultimately nothing is orderly. Unlike the monotonus, if predictable bureaucracy I encountered in France, Turkish bureaucracy seems to be for show, and my Fulbright experience has been tinged with this flash and red tape, and it seems I’m not alone.

If you’ve been keeping up with my blogs, you’ve heard about the problems regarding Fulbright’s expansion. Essentially the American Fulbright Commission handed over everything to the Turks, allowing them full control of us without explaining this to us at any point. We slowly began to realize that we are first Turkish university employees and second Fulbright fellows. And, while I have lucked out with a phenomenal staff at an incredible university in a forward thinking city, this is absolutely not the case for many of my friends.  This weekend's meeting was a bloodletting for Fulbrighters throughout the Cumhuriyet,  and I have some favorite remarks:

“Its important to just remember to stay alive.”—A.S.
While addressing the Commission and fellow Fulbrighters regarding the state of our mental and physical health.

“Overall, I give it a rating of 280 Van cats.”—C.T.
After speaking about the feral cat population in his city, and deciding to use feral cats as an arbitrary rating system with which to rate his Fulbright experience so far

“Yeah, I still have to walk 20 minutes when I want to take a shower.”—J.I.
Talking about how his situation has improved

“You’re welcome to come visit, but bring your own water or you’ll have to haul it 2 km.”—D.R.
Addressing the executive members of the Fulbright Commission, inviting them to his rural placement, where there is no running potable water

“Without YÖK, you wouldn’t be here.”—A.O.
Reminding us to remain positive

“Who do we work for?”—R.B.
When asking for clarification about who we actually work for

“Secil, who do you like more? Us or the full grant recipients?”
“Euhhhhhhh…” walks away, thinks for a minute, returns, “Well, I will always remember this group, because we all suffer together.”—Secil Yazicioglu, American Programs Officer, Fulbright Turkey
After addressed by several inquisitive Fulbrighters regarding her undying love for us

“Yes, I would like you to write me a letter before you leave my country telling me what is wrong with your university.”—Dr. Yusuf Ziya Ozcan, President of YÖK (Turkish Ministry of Higher Education)
Addressing me personally after dinner, after skipping our briefings discussing exactly what hisorganization needs to change

“Next year will never be the taste of this year, if you ask me it’s a good thing, I will only remember this year as bad… If you survive, it is enough… My job is to count heads…All the suffering is worth it, I hope I filled the 15 minutes”—Ersel Aydinli, Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission
After showing up unprepared to give the opening address that was supposed to be 15 minutes long

The day was tipped off by a flurry of Turkish media. A dozen cameramen and reporters swarmed into the room to tape the Dr. Yusuf Ziya Ozcan’s speech regarding YÖK’s sizable contribution to Fulbright’s expansion, he then, to our collective horror, veered off saying the program will be doubled next year (can I get a hell no!) Ultimately a PR ploy, it was an unwelcome start to a very, very long day.

Next, the newly appointed Ambassador addressed us, he offered a combination of humor, respect and solidarity that was lacking from the Turkish side. Having been an English Teaching Fellow himself, my favorite comment was something along the lines of, "I only went to Italy, you came to Turkey!" And, for all the Turkish media in the room, who definitely missed the emphasis, it was meant to be a, you crazy, adventurous kids, kind of an emphasis. He’s a great man who solidified his position on my good side when he made Sam Adams beer available at the reception at his home later that evening.

The most galling thing about the entire day was that not one member of YOK stuck around for the quote-un-quote bitch sesh that went on. There was also Ersin Aydinli who, after listening to stories of homelessness, borderline persecution, and outright hostility had the balls to tell us, yes it seems the positive has outweighed the negative. Ass hole. 

The one perk was staying at the Hilton Hotel.

While I have a pretty cushy apartment, and placement for that matter, many of my fellow Fulbrighters cannot count on certain comforts typically deemed a simple standard of living in the US: hot water, access to brewed coffee, TV, and 24-hour electricity to name a few. And, while it is these very experiences that equip each of us to speak authoritatively on Turkish culture, a slight bump in our standard of living, if only for a weekend was certainly welcome. The Hilton Hotel redefined comfort with a pool, jacuzzi, fitness center, attentive staff, Crabtree & Evelyn bath products, plush robes, comfortable beds and bacon.

If it was an attempt to placate us in our rage, it was too little too late, but I was happy to accept the bribe. I was thrilled to take the first bath I’ve had yet in this country, take a dip in the pool, and eat bacon while overlooking the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran(the Hilton Hotel’s neighbor).

The Trip to Trabzon Or, A polemic on the Turkish planning process

You know those weeks where nothing quite goes right? I mean, nothing really goes wrong, but man, nothing works the way it should. This has been a large part of my experience in Turkey. Moving to a new country is bound to have its emotional ups and downs and sure, each country has its quirks.


In France I was made to wait outside at 5:30 in the morning to get a ticket so I could come back in the afternoon with an unknown array of documents that nobody seemed to be able to agree upon, all just to get a residence permit that I really didn’t need.


In the Netherlands your bike could be stolen while you were still on it—well not literally but damn, you turn your back for one second…


In Turkey, nobody seems worried about paying us.


It seems the Turkish Higher Education Commission (YÖK) decided they wanted more Americans through the Fulbright program. So, they told the American Fulbright Commission that they would pay our salaries. They Americans handed us over, with only a cryptic notification, without asking it seems any questions at all. Well YÖK changed their minds, passed us off to the universities who are now telling us they don’t really have to pay us for the first month we were here because according to the paperwork that we had no access to, we didn’t legally exist. Some universities, saddled with this new salary and no increase of funding from YÖK, denied the housing we were guaranteed, ignored the Turkish lessons we were guaranteed, and are now saying they may or may not be able to pay us some time perhaps in January or February maybe before we leave but who knows maybe not. The Americans feel badly, but ultimately they can’t do anything because they gave us to the Turks.


I have spent a few weeks debating about writing this in the blog. It is a pretty sad picture of an incredibly well respected program, but it’s the truth and I believe that while this may not be the most professional thing I have ever done, it is the right thing to do. If I wanted to battle for housing, salary and general decency, I would have joined the Peace Corps. And while I have been amazingly lucky, with a staff and administration who genuinely care about our well being, who have mobilized to help us in each and every crisis, ultimately this should have never been allowed to occur.


Every conversation I have had with my colleagues seems to reinforce that this is a typical day in the office. And, while I am loath to impose my American standards on a foreign situation, I signed a grant authorization with THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT and not the Turkish one. But, I guess, this is the situation and I can complain until my face is purple, but I have found that the more I look the more I find evidence that this is not a unique situation here, it’s a cultural thing.


Take my most recent trip to Trabzon…


After a 16-hour bus ride, we arrived at 4 am. The whole thing was nothing short of a fiasco. I am still not entirely sure who was responsible for the planning of the whole week, but it seems that they did not pay any attention to several critical details. It all started on Saturday night when Selen discovered that we were both scheduled on a bus that would arrive in Istanbul the following Sunday, at 3:30pm.


Problemo numero uno.


Remember, this is an 18-hour bus ride. Remember that I must hop a bus to Tekirdağ once I arrive in Istanbul. Remember that there are thousands (literally) of students making this exact same trek. Remember that I work at 8:45 in the morning on Monday. Remember, any of you who have had the pleasure of interacting with me when I’ve been deprived of my necessary 8 hours of sleep. Problem, var.


Typically this could be remedied with a quick phone call to the bus station, or even better to the airport but, yes, it is the week of Kurban Bayrami. What does that mean? Ever tried to catch a flight anywhere in the continental US the day before Thanksgiving? Multiply that by like a thousand and you’ll pretty much have it. There are no busses. There are only planes at astronomically high prices (not 45TL one way but something more like 185TL).


Now, I have just met these people. Like, really, about five minutes ago. I am not about to complain about an important family trip that I have been graciously invited to partake in, plus they must have the anxiety of the engagement to contend with. Selen, however, is having none of it. After about an hour of going back and forth we finally decide to take the Friday tickets (initially meant for the parents of the man getting engaged) to Bursa, and then on Saturday I will take a bus to Tekirdağ.


So, like I said, we hop the bus to Trabzon, well, we try to hop the bus, but its an hour late. Not quite the ideal way to start an 18-hour trip. We get on; everybody is already in a bad mood. I believe I have talked about the quality of Turkish busses, I have stated before that typically they are quite comfortable especially considering the prices. Some even have little TVs (not that I really use them, since I don’t understand much still.) This bus was more of a Fung Wah. While it did have an attendant (all busses have an attendant who serves tea, water, and little goodies periodically) he looked sleep deprived, then Selen and I noticed the water had been stored under our seats. The bus smelled of stale cigarettes, and said attendant would take my coffee/tea before I drank it since I would let it cool longer than he felt like waiting.


My biggest fear going into this whole thing was that there are no toilets on Turkish busses. After many discussions, we have still yet to comprehend why this is. I was unsure, therefore, how often we would stop. Well, much to my surprise, we stopped at least every 2 hours, this pleasant surprise quickly soured once the sun went down and they would throw the lights on and open the two doors letting the cold night air rush in. There was, therefore, very little chance of sleeping for more than two hours at a time.


There was a man who got on the bus about half way to Trabzon who sat in front of me who had a habit of lowering the back of his seat abruptly. Each and every time he would pin my leg in a most painful way, once he smashed me in the face and even my loud yelps of pain did nothing to get his attention. My favorite stop had to be the one at about midnight or 1 am. It was probably about 40 out, windy, and there was nowhere to go. The restaurant smelled of something putrid, plus their windows and doors were all open, and the outside courtyard had a horrid mingled smell of human refuse and stale hot-dogs. I assumed the human refuse smell came from the bathrooms, but when I went to relieve myself, I found that they were particularly devoid of smell. I am still perplexed where that smell came from but needless to say, I chose not to buy any food from the establishment.


Finally we arrive in Trabzon—an hour early, even with the hour delay at the start, problem is, it is 4am and freezing. We make our way into the bus station and everyone kind of just lingers. Selen starts asking questions and I know there’s something wrong. Apparently we had reached the end of the planning. This was the end of the line. It was 4 am but nobody had thought to figure out where we would be sleeping, even though they knew we would arrive after the hotel closed for the night.


Problemo numero dos.


Selen (just please, picture this if you know her) flies into a frenzy. She’s yelling at her uncle—the plan’s architect—who it seems, was completely aware of the pitfalls and totally fine with his plan’s lack of plan. He was content to hang with the homeless in this semi-closed bus station until his sister woke up and could come rescue us from this hellhole. I was just sitting, semi-comatose, on a radiator letting it warm my backside. It was—unlike anything else that whole 24-hours—quite soothing.


Ultimately Selen won. At about 4:15 we hopped in some taxis and drove to Selen’s uncle’s sister’s house. She and her family were up to welcome us. Then we all sat down and started chatting. I noticed that nobody seemed to have any plan of sleeping. It was damn early and we could, if we got down to business, get 5 or 6 hours in before we had to do anything. After close to an hour and a half of bleary-eyed discussion (all in Turkish) I gave into the idea of sleep, it seemed all anybody needed was for one person to give in so that they wouldn’t feel bad giving in, too. I was perfectly content being the ringleader. I am foreign and was getting nothing from the conversation, especially in the state I was in. So, after two hours of a nap, I got up and started our first day in Trabzon.


----------------------------------------------------


I am trying now to reajust my expectations, and I am making a great deal of progress. Patience is a virtue right? And I have never been one to be called patient. Its good practice and all of this has brought me closer to my friends here in Tekirdag, because they have been my sanity lifeline. But, I am no f-ing volunteer. I want my money. 

Thoughts on the Turkish hazırlık, its students and uncomfortable racial discussions

So my camera is out of commission. I, like the genius I am, packed the wrong camera charger when I came to Turkey. So, for nearly a month now I have been wandering around camera-less. Trying to think of something to write without having images to back it up has led to this entry. One about my students. 


Anyone who spoke to me at any point last year is pretty aware of my aversion to teaching. After being a teaching assistant at HWS for the French department, I was pretty aware that teaching is not my calling. However, if you're a broke twenty-something and you want to travel for free, teaching English is the way to go. Still didn't interest me. When I saw the Fulbright ETA program, why on Earth would I have applied then? Teaching university aged students seemed interesting to me. They were adults who would need minor parenting, because they were enrolled in these English classes, they had an already-established desire to learn English. Well, much to my dismay, I was informed, upon arrival in Ankara that I would essentially be teaching kids in a post-grad year. "Damn it," was really all I could muster. 


After nearly eight weeks of teaching, much to my surprise, I actually enjoy my job. Yes, there are days where I want to physically assault a student or two, but really what workplace doesn't have that kind of tension? There are days where I wish either my Turkish or their English were better so I could explain, properly, how they have made my day or even my week with the little things they say or do. There are other days where they pull me out of a pit of dispair without even realizing they are doing anything comical. 


For example: The American government gave us these massive pictures for us to use in the classroom. They are supposed to show "average American life" but I mean, what the hell does that even mean, right? To them it means showing our diversity, be it ethnic, cultural, social, or educational. I decided to use these massive pictures (they're probably 18"x 24") and have them describe what is happening in the images. They could come up with their own ideas about what the people are doing or thinking. The whole goal was to get them to have a combined use of the present continuous (I am doing) and the present simple (I do). Unfortunately, Turkish-English dictionaries can have poor translations and they certainly don't take the time to explain nuance. So, I kind of laughed it off when, to describe an image of two boys in wheelchairs playing tennis, my students started the sentence with "The two defective boys are playing..." For some reason, handicapped and disabled are not in their dictionaries. So after five classes of this, it got to be pretty funny. I had to explain that no, people are not defective but rather that word is used for tables, chairs, windows etc. The students were embarrassed, but things like this happen all the time. 


For example, the word for a black person in the Turkish-English dictionary is negro. Which, yes, I had to take the time to explain was not a word that people use. In fact, it is a word that is very hurtful to many people. It also doesn't help that Eti, a Turkish version of Nabisco, has a chocolate cookie called a Negro.

Yep, that's right. A negro. 

But really, trying to explain such a complex socio-cultural history as racist language, to a bunch of students that think "I am go to the my home" is a correct sentence, is a very difficult matter. It also forced me into some pretty uncomfortable situations. One student, a real rap connoisseur, asked about the word... yes... nigger.  I cringe to even write it here. Saying it in a loud enough voice that my students can hear me, I find myself saying, almost yelling, one of the most foul, hurtful words in the English language. I find myself diving into the deep abyss of racial history, I find myself explaining slavery and Jim Crowe to a bunch of Turkish bio-chemical and agricultural students who really, for the most part, couldn't care less.

Then there are the times when students say truly silly things, for example, they are a street walker. When I explained that this means prostitute, they certainly listened up. They often confuse prepositions. One student told me that his window is in his bed. And, while certainly not a roaring hilarity, it makes me chuckle to see how difficult our language really is. Turkish does not have prepositions but rather cases that indicate in, at, on, under, over, to, from etc. which is really a whole kind of nightmare for me, but they are literally having to include words that simply don't exist in their own language. 

Then there are the little things, like the name Ufuk, a common name here that (it means horizon), you know, the 12-year-old me finds pretty hilarious. There are also little things like these that I see around the city on a daily basis that, while they can't even come close to China's legendary poor translations, are still pretty funny. 

But wait, what's that in the lower right hand corner?

Sexed-semen? Is there any other kind?

Again, heh, my inner twelve-year-old. Snot, heh.

The little white family, with white teeth, on the toothpaste tube, wait, white power? 

The NAACP would do well to come to Turkey and do some sensitivity training...

Now again, not to make light of these racial issues but in Turkey, they simply aren't an issue for Turks. Of course that's not to say they don't have their own problems, but their problems aren't defined by race. They simply have no platform from which to begin to understand my aversion to these racially charged words and phrases. Plus, it doesn't help that you simply cannot discuss their historical "problems" and yes "problems" is in quotations because I can be thrown in jail for mentioning them. Best not to, not here any how. 

There's also a town called Batman.