Halloween- American style!

I have never been a major Halloween person, but I would be lying if I said I don’t enjoy a good costume party. So when the opportunity to attend one such party offered itself up, of course I jumped on it.

I spent all last week teaching my lovely students about Halloween and we used spooky-themed vocabulary. We discussed the history of Halloween (when the Celts—pre-St. Patrick—thought the barrier between this world and the afterlife became so thin that spirits could cross through and menace the living) and the modern, more cultural (let’s get dressed up and drink ‘til morning) version of the holiday. They learned such great terms as “to scare” “to dress up as” “goblin” and “zombie”. They also practiced the formation of sentences such as, “Jacob is a werewolf. Werewolves bite people during the full moon.” As well as, “ Edward Cullen is a vampire. Usually vampires turn into bats and they can fly. Edward does not turn into a bat.” 

This whole lesson was introduced with the question, “Does anyone know what holiday is this weekend?” This produced some confusion initially since this past Friday was the Turkish Republic Day (87 years and counting...) I had totally forgotten about the holiday, but of course my lovely students were quick to remind me. Why does this matter? Because there are NO CLASSES! So, to celebrate, Sherri and I hopped a bus to Istanbul.

While walking together through Sultanahmet, quite possibly the most packed section of the city, we ran into Eli, another Fulbrighter. He was on his way to see Sarah, Michael, Hayfa and Hayfa’s friend (who was visiting from her ETA post in Romania) who were all having lunch at a kebab place just across the street. We all hung out and caught up. Hearing about other people's situations is always a great way to remind yourself that you're not alone. Michael's student told him some cryptic message about being in a cave with a burning bush and that he was afraid for his safety (...yeah, strange right?) Others have been evicted by their university and barred from teaching. It makes everything I am doing sound particularly rosy...


After this, Sherri and I went to meet a former Fulbrighter named Rebecca who lives in Taksim. She and some of her awesome expat friends were heading over to the American consulate where the marines were hosting a Halloween party in their residence. Two of them had been travelling in the Balkans working on a story and had only just returned to Istanbul the day before. They had no costumes. Another, a Kurdish-Danish journalist didn't seem aware that you dress up for Halloween parties. But, her American friend Ascher decided (last minute it seems) to dress as "Hipster Ahmadinejad" the costume consisted of hipster clothing and a tattoo of Arabic script saying something like God is Great.  We took a while to get over to the consulate (which is in the boonies) so when we arrived around 10:30, the party was in full force.

Ahmandineja-diggy in the flesh.

Walking into a full-blown, frat house style party is never a good idea unless you are several drinks deep, which none of us were. I felt (for all of you HWS folk) like I walked into a Chi Phi party the second week of school, except rather than having a bunch of drunken underclassmen, it was a bunch of drunken 40-somethings.  There was a bad strobe light in the corner, which destabilized rather than added atmosphere, a covered pool table that became a dance-stage much to the chagrin of one particular marine and several very inappropriately dressed men and women. Ahhh, America.

Semper fi (... that's the marines right?)

I was worried that the whole scene might be a bit too much of a culture shock, but then a miracle happened. I went to the bar and ordered a beer. Then the bartender asked, “What kind?” Now, for those of you who have never been to Turkey this may sound normal, but in Turkey there is one kind of beer, Efes Pilsen, which tastes like watered-down Miller Lite. Sometimes you can find Tubourg too, but it’s rare. So when she told me that they had SAM ADAMS, the night made a brilliant turn for the better.

Once we acclimated ourselves, met some people, and saw the gorgeous view from their massive terrace, any feelings of apprehension I had felt upon arriving had melted away. I gave in to the Lady Gaga remix, did my best to ignore the strobe light and danced the night away.

Rebecca as Minnie Mouse, me as Rosie the Riveter and Sherri as a pirate.

Selen's birthday dinner!

Cheers!

I met Selen in 2003 when we picked her up from the AFS orientation in Boston. We took her to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch and horrified her with American portions. Our relationship--while tense at times--has withstood several years and one giant ocean. I am lucky to know her and constantly reflect on how lucky I am to havefamily living so near by to sleepy Tekirdag, especially when that family is located in Istanbul.

Well, last week was an important holiday. It was the 25th anniversary of Selen's birth so of course I made the trek to Istanbul. Before anybody gets any ideas about Turkish public transportation, I would like to interject a bit of my own first hand experience. Their busses are phenomenal. And, while I have yet to use their train system (I've only heard good things) their subways are are also impressive. I had a certain amount of skepticism before boarding my first bus but in the several I have since taken, my respect and affection for their services has only grown. This is nothing like the Fung Wah and from what Emily has told me of her trip to Boston from Rochester, it seems Greyhound has something to learn as well. They serve tea at least once each ride and also offer some kind of cookie or little cake, even though the trip averages 1:45. You do occasionally have to put up with a smoking driver, but I have found the seats comfortable and the staff friendly. One driver was so worried I would not be able to find the university on my own (after living there for 4 weeks) that he enlisted a student to deliver me there. When she saw me getting off to go to the hotel, she in turn enlisted another student who was also getting off at my stop to be sure that I found the hotel. Oh and the going rate is between $7 and $11 each way. But, back to the original story...

Delicious little fish that tasted like heaven.

Selen's birthday was a blast. Due to my lack of close friends (... I am still optimistic) as well as the social taboo of single women drinking in public places, I have not had a "night on the town" since I arrived. We headed to a fasil in Taksim, the famous center of Istanbulli nightlife and shopping (as well as the home to the Turkish Worker's Party--yes the communists are located in the center of Turkish metropolitan capitalism... hahaha.) We went in through some door that looked like an alley access route and then proceeded up a flight of stairs into a beautiful, dimly lit restaurant. I got to meet her friends (who were all amazing and so patient with both my English and Turkish), we got to dance to traditional music and eat delicious mezes (Turkish tapas.) The raki flowed, as did the music, as did the dancing. It was one of the more refreshing nights I have had (though, truth be told raki leaves you with a bad headache...)

The damage, both to the food and to my head...

Çay bahçe

I've been posting quite a bit and I hope you find them as entertaining as I do. I eventually will slow down but right now, everything is so new and exciting (or at least entertaining) that I have a lot to talk about.

While it deserves its own blog, I will dedicate this post to the Çay bahçe or tea garden. This will certainly not be the last time I write on the subject, but let me just speak about my initial reactions. There is so much to say about Çay bahçeler that I hardly know where to start. Its almost like writing about Irish pub culture.

First, çay, or tea, is served nearly constantly and in every conceivable social situation. Waiting on paperwork at the police station? Have some çay. Meeting with the university superiors? Have some çay. Have 15 minutes between classes? That is why God gave us çay. There are people specifically employed by business places (who bear a name that phonetically is Chef) whose sole position it is is to bring around trays of tea. The university has one for the Foreign Language Department. It seems that both the Rector and each of the Vice Rectors have their own çayci (çay-bearers.) The police station had a half dozen. There are even çayci running around the streets bringing tea to different businessmen as they work. I must have 8 cups a day, and that's on the low end of normal.

When you are invited to go out for a drink, don't be fooled. They don't want a beer, they want çay (much to my dismay.) So the Çay bahçe is an outdoor/indoor restaurant/cafe sort of a scene where you sit and just hang. A guy comes by periodically bringing around tea to those who want it. It is a phenomenal place to practice your Turkish. Sherri (the other half of the Tekirdag teaching duo) and I draw a lot of attention babbling away in English, because of this we often find strange new ways to impose our Turkish on unsuspecting strangers.

The other day, one such situation presented itself.

We were sitting drinking tea when we heard beautiful music coming from a table just next to ours. This brilliant sight is what we saw. So, Sherri decides that you know, what the hell, why not chat him up. I mean its not every day you come across someone with this kind of talent who has the looks to match. She starts talking to him and we find that alas, he speaks no English. Somehow we manage to talk for about a half hour and through much dictionary use and pantomime he invites us to his show later that night.

And, like that, thanks to the Çay bahçe we have our first Turkish friend.

Hazırlık

I am teaching at a university but in a hazırlık or prep-year. Depending on the university and department in which you wish to study, a proficiency in English is necessary. Because the language programs in most high schools (much like in the US) are quite substandard, many students fail to pass the entrance exam. These otherwise qualified students are then relegated to the hazırlık where they receive 26 hours of English instruction per week for an entire academic year.

Nearly all the Fulbrighters from this year were sent to smaller cities with new universities. Namık Kemal opened, as far as I can tell, in 2006. The school expands greatly from year to year and is still under construction.

Many people have asked how the teaching is going. And, interestingly enough, its going quite well. My students are great and while they may only understand a portion of what I ask them to do, they are very enthusiastic. I am hoping this enthusiasm does not wane in the weeks and months to come, its the only thing that makes the teaching tolerable. Why is that, you ask?

As I mentioned, the university is quite new. In fact the building I teach in is not yet completed which makes for an outrageously loud academic atmosphere.

This is the view from one of my classrooms. Notice the boarded windows and the construction material strewn throughout.

The doors were quickly thrown up a day or so before classes start, some being put on backwards so they do not close (and cannot block out the sound of welding and drilling.) All the classrooms are missing a teacher's table or desk and many were made far too small to house the 25 students that each must hold. Every room lacks a window that actually opens, turning them into ovens, roasting both myself and the students in the afternoon sun.

I tried to put this all out of my mind, I tried not to be such a Debbie Downer but then my colleagues all spent an afternoon complaining as well with one so enraged that she dragged our Rector (something of a cross between a President and a Provost) down to see the situation. After spending no more than three minutes surveying the situation, he told her to calm down, that everything is fine, that she should stop complaining. I suggested she should have asked him to observe a day's worth of classes (where he could sit and roast in his three-piece suit) before passing judgement but it seems that this would have overstepped the lines of propriety.

Even the old buildings aren't safe from the construction crews. Our office building must be updated to become earthquake proof, but the government does not pay to re-build buildings but rather to alter them and their foundations. So, each year they knock down one of the walls, inserting some new foundational elements and then patch the wall back up. The effect looks something like this.

Notice the offices above, mine is on that first floor just to the right of the post. And yes, the building opens to the outside.

Its all been quite the adventure, really. And, let me say, once the classrooms are completed and the workmen go home, and the dust from the construction is finally cleared, the building will be magnificent. Its just the road to get there is already taking a toll. And its only day 4.

My first 24 hours.

After arriving in Tekirdag yesterday evening quite composed and reenergized from my afternoon with Selen, I met Hakan, one of my supervisors here who took me briskly to the school's hotel. The facilities, while not quite the Ritz, are spacious, largely clean and modern (I have internet after all.) I went down to the Migros (the closest thing I've experienced to a Wal-Mart) to get some real-sized shampoo and body lotion, etc. and as I'm mindlessly wandering around working to get my bearings I hear a loud commotion to my right.

The Migros is set up as a kind of CVS/Sears/Staples on the ground floor with a supermarket in the basement. You take a kind of escalator-moving sidewalk combination contraption down and back up again. Well, somehow a small child of about five had fallen down while trying to step off the escalator and was wedged under her father's shopping cart. He was desperately trying to move backwards so as not to crush her, but there were people behind him and he was being pulled forward on top of his daughter. Everyone was just kind of staring at the situation as this poor little girl came closer and closer to being scalped by the escalator so I ran over and yanked her out from underneath the shopping cart. Speaking next to no Turkish I kind of patted her off and stood there awkwardly while her father tried to calm himself down. Props to the little girl--she didn't even cry. And, more strangely than that, her father just kind of took her by the hand and walked off... no word of thanks to me. All in all, very strange.

When I went to check out, the cashier was the nicest girl ever. She is probably around my age and her name was something that sounded like Cheetah. I think its Çitam but somehow pronounced otherwise. I've seen her twice and she still remembers my name. She calls out, "Ah-leks-ahn-dah-rah! Hohv ahhre yu!" It makes me feel warm and welcome.

Speaking of warm and welcome, I feel so fortunate to be here with these people. And, while my arrival was a bit rushed, two of my colleagues came by today to show us around. They are kind and helpful and I feel so lucky. That said, not all of my new friends are feeling quite as warm and welcome. Before leaving Ankara the brilliant Kate started a google group for all of us ETAs. Its meant to be a private message board as well as a forum for English teaching/classroom management ideas. Today's hot topic is regarding arrival to our new homes. Where some are currently settling in their two-bedroom apartments and having dinner with their new colleagues, others are significantly less comfortable. One individual has yet to meet anybody from her school and is still unclear who it was that picked her up from the bus station. Nobody seems to know why she is there and the soonest she will be able to speak to anyone will not be until Tuesday. Two others seem to have moved into an occupied apartment where they found slippers, sewing supplies and prescription drugs.

Our own university does not seem to be clear on our housing situation but we were assured that the vice rector is a kind man we are sure to love. They have assured us that we can speak to him and he will help us sort it out. All are agreed that staying in the hotel until June is a bad idea.

I am teaching tomorrow morning at 8:45 am. I don't know who or where and rumor has it the classrooms are still under construction. But somehow, I think it will all be okay.

Two Whores

Cell phones are closely controlled here in Turkey. I'm starting to see that the embassy security team wasn't exactly kidding when they said Big Brother is watching. To prevent cell phones from being brought in en masse from abroad, every foreign phone must be registered before it can be used with a Turkish SIM card. I didn't entirely understand why this would be such a problem until I went shopping for a phone today.

This phone, which retails for maybe $200 and change in the US went for about 1200YTL (That's about $1000 folks). I have yet to see an iPhone in a store but I feel they would take nothing less than a kidney in payment. My baby cost 100YTL (the cheapest I could find and has both a flashlight and FM radio!!). She doesn't look to bad either:

In addition to the exorbitant pricing, one, if Turkish, must register the SIM card with the powers that be. That means that you must provide a photo ID--even if the phone is a pay-as-you-go--before the SIM will be activated. They photocopy your ID and write your phone number on the sheet.

Foreigners are not exempt from this process. You must provide a passport before they will sell you your SIM. All I could think about was the Jason Bourne movie where he's talking to that Guardian journalist in Waterloo station and he just walks up and buys two cell phones at a desk and drops one in the guy's pocket. Can't pull that here Matt Damon. Not that I am any kind of super spy maniac out to expose the inner workings of the CIA, but it was strangely invasive.

The staff at Turkcell made the whole experience quite enjoyable however. We got this young guy with a pony tail who, when we asked if he spoke English responded, "Hayir, Russiya", or something like "No, Russian" though I think he was joking because he had a hearty laugh after that one. Bouncing back and forth with about 80% pantomime and 10% each Turkish and English we finally had done the necessary paperwork. He then told me "Two whores." He had been a pleasant guy the whole time, and in any case there were four of us. He clearly wasn't sure he had said the right thing, especially after seeing my face and hearing the three others burst into laughter, when his colleague chimed in, "Two hours, must wait use cep telefonu."

Ah, wait two hours...

Day 1

Luckily for me, my voyage here was (quite possibly for the first time ever) entirely uneventful. I made all my flights, my luggage arrived when and where it was meant to, even finding a taxi to get to the hotel was without any complication. The only part of the voyage of note was running into Andrew Mahoney in Logan Airport and discovering that we were both flying on the same plane to Amsterdam (he's going to be studying in Jordan for the semester.)

Today was full of characters--the head of the Turkish Higher Education Council (YOK) addressed us this morning to welcome us etc. when much to our surprise a dozen or so reporters, cameramen and film crew swarmed in. The Minister continued on as if nothing had happened, but to be honest I didn't hear much of what he had to say being distracted as I was by the TV camera shoved six inches from my face. Once he had concluded he joked with us that he had to go make an official statement to the press since none of them understood a thing he had just said (he addressed us all in great English.) He left the room and never came back. Maybe I made the evening news?

Then after a few discussions regarding the Embassy and their health services followed by a political discussion with the Embassy's political strategist, we were addressed by two security agents who gave us an (and I quote) "Unclassified Security Briefing". One of the two men grew up in Brooklyn (and talks like it) he had worked on the US-Mexico border in narcotics and other arms smuggling (and you can tell). Suffice it to say this man's every though is how someone could possibly cause any kind of harm to any person with any imaginable instrument. And while I am glad that it is his job and not mine to identify and neutralize threats to Americans, his presentation offered several comical points. The highlight may have been when he showed how a person could use the strap of a woman's purse to strangle her to death--demonstrating on our YOK liaison, a diminutive, sweet woman.

If this is day one, I imagine it will only get better from here.