Turkish Delight

Bursa Part 6: Puppets!

2008-04-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

So it turns out Bursa is also famous for its puppets? Traditional Turkish shadow play was popularized during the Ottoman period, and apparently until the rise of radio and film, it was one of the most popular forms of entertainment in Turkey.

The central theme of the plays are the contrasting interaction between the two main characters: Karagöz (meaning black eyes) represents the illiterate but straightforward public, whereas Hacivat belongs to the educated class, speaking Ottoman Turkish and using a poetical and literary language. Karagöz's native wit always gets the better of Hacivat's learning (but his money-making ventures always fail).

Karagöz and Hacivat themselves are supposedly modeled on two laborers whose banter entertained their co-workers (and slowed down the work) during the construction of a mosque in Bursa during the reign of Orhan I (who ruled the Ottoman Empire 1326–1359). They were executed for the resulting delay of the work, but became folk heroes. One version of the legend says that a contemporary of theirs, one Şeyh Küşteri, made camel-hide puppets of them and began to perform plays.

The puppet museum!

Model of Karagöz

Model of Hacivat.

Bursa Part 5: Carpet Shopping

2008-04-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

Outside the Green Mosque, we made a friend named Yunus who invited us to tea. Surprise! He turned out to be a carpet salesman.

No but actually, he was truly charming, and inside his shop, he didn't even show us any carpets until I started looking around me and noticing how beautiful everything was.

You could call him an excellent salesman, but in any case, I ended up settling on a small prayer rug for my mother--an antique Kurdish piece dyed with saffron. It reminded me of a sunrise. Even Jeremy--normally not a big shopper--told me to get it.

Here's where it is now--hanging in my mom's prayer hut in Southern California.

Bursa Part 4: The Green Mosque Cont'd

2008-04-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

Inside...

As soon as you walk in, the wall on your left.

Bursa Part 3: The Green Mosque

2008-04-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

For a short period in the late 14th century, Bursa was actually the capital of the Ottoman Empire (followed by Edirne, and eventually by Constantinople). Even after the capital was moved, the city continued to be important an important commercial and administrative center of the empire.

To that end, the city is home to the famous 'Green Complex'--which includes the Green Tomb and Green Mosque (Yeşil Türbe & Yeşil Cami). The tomb was built in 1421 to house the body of the fifth Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed I.

Unfortunately the glorious Green Tomb was closed for renovations, but we were able to see the Green Mosque just across from it.

Here you can see a glimpse of the Green Tomb through the trees, across from the Green Mosque on our left.

Doorway to the Green Mosque.

Stone carvings on the doorway.

Outside the entrance.

Bursa Part 2: Fake skiing

2008-04-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Like a bunch of idiots, Sidney, Jeremy, Lauren and I had forgotten to bring ski gear with us to Bursa. But we figured we'd at least check out the mountain for possible ski trips in the future.

This turned out to be a terrible idea. We took a long, bumpy, crowded, expensive dolmus ride up the mountain, only to realize that yes, it was beautiful, and we damn should have brought our gear. We spent the afternoon drinking beer and staring sadly at the gorgeous mountain and the happy skiers joyously flying down it.

Bursa Part 1: The End of the Silk Road

2008-04-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

Note: Apologies for my apparent inability to blog on a schedule. I will try harder!

In late January I went for a quick weekend trip to Bursa, a lovely city just a bit south of Istanbul near the coast of the Sea of Marmara. The city is famous for its thermal baths, the stunning Green Mosque, iskender kebab, nearby Uludag Mountain--the most popular ski resort in Turkey, and for its silk bazaar.

We began the day early on Saturday with the silk bazaar. Bursa was actually the last stop on the mythic Silk Road. We wandered about the old passageways, through tea gardens, into tiny shops. It was about 60 degrees out--a welcome respite from the harsh winter back in Ankara.

"Long Bazaar"?

"Cocoon"

Silk scarves. I bought 3, plus a poncho.

Tea garden inside the Silk Bazaar.

The Legacy of Atatürk

2008-01-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

Each year on November 10, at 9:05 am, the entire nation of Turkey stops. Traffic stops in the streets, pedestrians halt. For one moment, the nation as a whole silently mourns the passing of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, known as the “immortal leader and unrivaled hero” in the preamble to the Turkish Constitution.

I think there’s no question that Atatürk was a great leader. As Stephen Kinzer describes in his wonderful book, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds, it was Atatürk who miraculously transformed the ashes of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI into the phoenix that became the Republic of Turkey. By the conditions of the Sèvres Treaty, the Ottoman Empire would have been carved up among the various victorious allies, with only a small part of the mountainous and inhospitable region of central Anatolia left for the Turks. Yet, as Kinzer describes, Atatürk rallied the Turkish people, and “in one of the most astonishing military reversals of modern history, turned utter defeat into brilliant triumph, ripping to shreds the Sèvres Treaty under which modern Turkey was to have been aborted before it could be born” (41).

And to his great credit, Atatürk went on to prove himself even beyond his military prowess. After his victory in the Turkish War of Independence, Atatürk could have gone on to try and reclaim the lost parts of the Ottoman Empire—southeastern Europe, Greek islands, Syria, to name a few—but instead he put away his uniform for good and turned his attention inward.

In his some 15 years as leader, Atatürk made sweeping, dramatic changes to Turkish society—some of which continue to haunt the country today. Most dramatically, he established a strictly secular state for a once—and for many, still—deeply religious society.

Kinzer writes: “According to its constitution, Turkey is a secular state with no official religion. But the truth is that Turks profess, and must profess, a highly developed faith enveloping and defining every aspect of their lives. It is the cult of Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic and now a virtual deity” (35).

My limited experience here in Turkey so far has not disproved any element of what Kinzer describes. Indeed, the love of Atatürk is much more intense than I could have imagined. His picture hangs everywhere. His statue is on every corner. His blue eyes seem to stare at me wherever I go…

Yesterday I visited Atatürk’s mausoleum, or Anıtkabir, as it is known in Turkish. Rising on a hillside above the center of Ankara, it’s a great, marble structure of beige—imposing, stark. Inside the main building is a symbolic sarcophagus—a 40-ton block of solid black marble—beneath which Atatürk’s body lies interred.

Granted it was a Sunday afternoon, but the place was packed. Red arrows laid out a clear path from the entrance to the tomb, directing visitors on the “suggested route.” Funny—my experience in Turkey so far has not much suggested that Turks are fans of lines. Getting a coffee from the café in the morning is basically hit or miss. But here, at Atatürk’s mausoleum, I’d never seen a line so well ordered.

Inside the mausoleum is also a museum about Atatürk, containing relics of his. His beautiful clothes are laid out in glass cases, his swords, his shaving kit. His books are open to pages that have been underlined. Atatürk sound bytes are everywhere—“Teachers are the only saviors of nations” or “Peace at home, peace in the world” or “Happy is he who says, ‘I am a Turk.’” There are also photographs, paintings and murals depicting important events. It’s interesting how the museum phrases certain things:

-For example, instead of “killed” they always say “martyred.” As in, “Turkish soldiers were martyred by the Greeks,” or “_____ was martyred by the Armenians.”

-In one exhibit, they talk about how Atatürk closed hermit retreats, mausoleums, and dervish lodges—including the one where Rumi had lived. The placard ends on the note, “Thus the sources of resistance that would nourish religious fanaticism against the reforms were eliminated.”

-Next to a painting depicting the Anatolian Massacres perpetrated by the invading Greeks during the Turkish War of Independence, the placard reads, “During these massacres, the fact that clerics paid a provoking role has been historically proven.” The painting shows a chaotic, violent scene, a woman’s breasts casually exposed at its center, and nearby a fierce-looking Greek cleric holding up a cross.

In any case, Anıtkabir is an experience.

I don’t even feel entirely comfortable discussing in detail here my feelings about all of this, nor my experiences with other Turks in talking about Atatürk. Suffice it to say that one of my Turkish friends suggested to me that I avoid the topic with Turks, even if it’s to praise him.

However, in an attempt to understand the phenomenon of Atatürk, and to sort through my conflicted feelings about his legacy, I have decided to try and learn as much about him as is humanly possible. The first step down this road is reading Andrew Mango’s monster 700-page biography, Atatürk. I’m about a fourth of the way through now, though I admit I need to take periodical breaks—On the Road being the current one. When I come across them, I intend to communicate interesting anecdotes about Atatürk to the blog.

I am also attaching a few interesting articles that relate to all of this, and essentially to Turkey’s current political situation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/world/europe/16ataturk.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=login

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/world/europe/25turkey.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7207109.stm

In summary, I want to cite the best quotation I’ve heard from Atatürk—-one that I didn’t see at Anıtkabir:

“I am leaving no sermon, no dogma, nor am I leaving as my legacy any commandment that is frozen in time or cast in stone,” he said shortly before his death. ‘Concepts of well-being for countries, for peoples and for individuals are changing. In such a world, to argue for rules that never change would be to deny the reality found in scientific knowledge and reasoned judgment.”

Scrumptious Sundays!: Pişmaniye, or Helva

2008-01-27T13:25:00.000-08:00

There’s a restaurant that my friends and I have been frequenting lately on Friday nights, a nice treat for ourselves after a long week. We’ve chosen this restaurant in particular I think because every meal comes with free pişmaniye, or helva as some may better know it.

The thing is, there are different kinds of helva. I’d tasted it before as it is traditionally made more in the Balkan states—where it’s made with sesame. It can also be made using semolina and sunflower. I haven’t tasted all the different kinds, but the unifying characteristic seems to be, um, it’s like eating sweet paste.

Turkish helva is made of something called “floss helva” (wikipedia…so this might not even be correct), which apparently is what happens when the combination of wheat flour and sugar are flossed into thin strands, which are then continuously wrapped into a ball shape and then compressed.

However, whereas the sesame kind that I’ve tried has a drier texture, more chalky, Turkish helva is like eating…butter. So much more moist! Like cotton candy soaked in sugary syrup! Like a sweet cloud made of rice pudding! Like mashed potatoes, except dessert. You notice I’m having trouble describing the ecstasy…

The picture I’m providing doesn’t even do it justice.

Scrumptious Sundays are Back!: Romanian Food

2008-01-13T09:59:00.000-08:00

People keep asking me about what Sidney and I did in Romania, and the only thing I can really think to answer is, “eat.”

I mean, it was really, really, really cold, and a lot of the time we just wanted to sit in a warm restaurant. Plus, food served as extra padding.

A couple dishes we enjoyed:

Below is something called bulz – polenta, cheese, and sour cream baked together in a clay pot. Sooooooo good.

Mici is a spicy beef sausage, which we ate both in restaurants and from vendors in the Christmas Fairs.

White sour tripe soup, or “ciorba de biurta.” This sounded exciting, and the actual broth was very good—garlicy, buttery, delicious—but the actual pieces of tripe floating in it were kind of scary. When we got home, Sidney looked up “tripe” on wikipedia:

“Beef tripe is usually made from only the first three of a cow's four stomach chambers…Tripe is also produced from sheep, goats, and pigs. Unwashed (or "green") tripe includes some of the stomach's last content and smells very unappetizing to and is unsuitable for people, but is a favorite of many dogs and other carnivores and is often used in dog food.”

In general we also just ate a lot of pork. You can't get pork in Turkey for obvious reasons, and we thought we'd fill up our pork quota while we had the chance.

There was also this one pastry that Sidney bought at one of the Christmas fairs, and which I fear I will never learn the actual name of! I can only describe it…it was a hollow cylinder of dough, probably 8”in length—somehow magically soft and doughy on the inside and crunchy on the outside, coated with crystallized sugar.

Every meal was accompanied by delicious beer. Now I am going to describe the beer, but I also just want to add that I think sometimes the blog gives the impression that I am an alcoholic. I’m not. I just really appreciate the taste of good beer.

In general, it seems the Romanians do dark beer especially well. The one we drank most often was Ursus Black—strong, fruity, barely sweet, perfect. Our other favorite was Silva Dark, which was slightly more bitter.

We also drank very strong brandy made from plums, called palinca.

I hate __________

2008-01-10T06:32:00.000-08:00

Lately I’ve been doing a history-themed lesson with my students, which involves imagining a dinner party in which we would invite 12 important people from history over for dinner. In general it inspires good discussion in that I ask them why each person is important, what that person did, and what that person would talk about with the other people at the party. For example, what would Atatürk talk about with Napoleon? What would Muhammad talk about with Rasputin?

Something that disturbed me immediately was that at I think every single dinner party one of the students has said that they wanted to invite Adolph Hitler. The thing is, bringing up Hitler in Turkey does not carry any of the same kind of weight that it does in the USA. As much as it bothers me, I try to be conscientious of this. When the students invite Hitler I ask them why he should be invited, and they usually say that it’s because he’s important to history in that he killed a lot of people, and was a very bad man.

Today, though, was a little different. One of the students invited Hitler again, and I asked why, and she answered with a satisfactory answer. But then one of the students suddenly said, “I hate Israelis.”

I looked at him. “You mean, Hitler hated Israelis?” I asked (a lot of the students get confused with I-You-He/She, etc).

“No,” he said. “I hate Israelis.”

The thing is, as much as my instinct in this situation was to start screaming at the kid about how hate destroys all of us, I really have to tread carefully in situations like these. First of all, I try and remember that these kids’ language skills are really not equipped to have nuanced, articulate conversations. They may not be able to express what they really mean. And it’s not fair for me to yell at them when they may not have meant how it sounded. I decided to change the subject and ask him after class what he exactly meant.

However, the kid could tell that his comment had upset me, and a little later I heard him asking his friend if “Israeli” had been the right word. “Jew” his friend answered, as in “Jew” had been the word he’d sought.

I interrupted them. “Jews?” I asked. “You don’t like Jews?”

“Yes, Jews,” he answered.

“I’m Jewish,” I answered, without expression.

Readers may know that I’m not really Jewish, but at that moment I thought it would be much more effective in confronting the problem to claim simply and straightforwardly that I was Jewish, rather than going into more complicated issue about how “I have a lot of friends who are Jewish, and that comment really offends me.” Of course I could have said that, as it’s true, but the other way seemed a more direct and powerful route.

Indeed there was a kind of tremor in the class at my statement, and the kid immediately realized his mistake. “No, no” he said. “Not you. I mean, leaders.”

I said okay, and that we would talk about it later. I don’t want to assume that the kid is actually an asshole anti-Semite. A lot of the kids seem to confuse Israelis with Jews, and country names with nationalities—as in, Israel rather than Israelis. Again, it’s not fair to take them literally at every word because their language skills just aren’t that strong. Nevertheless, the experience was disturbing.

What was even more upsetting was my boss’s reaction when I told her. After the class I asked my boss, Nazan—who is the head of my teaching unit—if she thought there was a best way to approach the situation. Her reaction?

“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean it. You know, he probably just heard someone say something sometime about the Israel-Palestine conflict, and he repeated it. I’m sure if you asked him specifically what was happening in that part of the world that he wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

“Isn’t that even more of a reason to address it?” I asked her.

“Well, you know, I don’t think he’s even ever met a Jewish person.”

I decided to do the same thing again. “Well I’m Jewish,” I told her.

Again, Nazan looked shocked. “Oh, Annacim (-cim is a term of endearment in Turkish), I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”

I did talk to my student later, and he assured me that he had meant the country of Israel, rather than its citizens or, in general, believers in the Jewish faith. Of course I still didn’t like that he used the word ‘hate’, and I told him in general that he should be very careful with that verb. Whether or not he was sincere in his changing of the original statement, I’ll probably never know.

The thing is, I don’t mean to make it sound like either Nazan or this student are bad people, because they really aren’t. But this moment in class is just an example of the kind of attitude that many of the students have, as well as the attitude that the teachers have toward dealing with situations like this. In general the teachers tend toward babying the students with excuses, rather than confronting the problem openly.

The attitude seems to be, ‘well as long as there aren’t any Israelis around, then there’s no problem.’ Out of sight, out of mind…or something.

Transylvania Part 4: Above the clouds

2008-01-06T08:48:00.001-08:00

For our last morning in Braşov, Sidney and I took the cable car up the mountain that overlooks the city. We went up, up, up until we were at the top of the mountain, frolicking in the forest and looking down on an ocean of clouds.

Here you can see the treetops poking out of the clouds:

Transylvania Part 3: On the train to magic!

2008-01-06T08:11:00.001-08:00

One of the best parts of Sidney's and my trip was that we got to take lots of train rides. Now in the past few years I've had some unpleasant train rides, which have somewhat disabused my notion of the magical train ride. But truly, chugging through the Romanian countryside past silver forests and snowscapes was as lovely as it sounds.

On one such trip we took a day trip to the town of Sinaia to see Peleş Castle, the "jewel" of Romanian castles, or something. We chose this castle over the more famous Bran Castle--which is actually not supposed to be as impressive, and which sounded like a massive tourist trap. Anyways, Peleş looked like the castle from Disney's version of Beauty & the Beast. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

There are lots of different kinds of trains in Romania, and our friend Ted who did the peace corps there gave us some tips on which ones were okay to take, and which ones weren't. Unfortunately when multiple trains are arriving at the platform at the same time, it can get confusing which one is the right one.

So on the train ride back to Brasov from Sinaia we ended up on an "Accelerat" train instead of a "Rapid" train as we were supposed to. Realizing this, we tried to read Ted's handwriting on the advice sheet he'd given us; it looked to say something like "drunkies."

Sure enough, the only people on the train were drunk, friendly old men and a 16-year-old boy named Mario who stared at me adoringly for most of the ride. When the train pulled into the Brasov station, all our new friends (unfortunately most of whom were camera-shy) insisted that this wasn't the right stop. "No!" they said. "Not Braşov!"

"But there's a large sign right there that says Braşov..." said Sidney.

Eventually I think they figured out that it really was Braşov, considering that Braşov was the last stop on the line.

Here's Sidney on the Drunky McDrunk train...

More Sibiu Christmas Fair Pictures

2008-01-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

The main square, twilight:

On the night of the 23rd, they lit dozens of these kind of candle sculptures all over the square. And they lifted this giant ball of flame into the air with a crane--I assume it was supposed to be the Star of Bethlehem:

Transylvania Part 2: The Christmas Fair

2008-01-06T06:45:00.000-08:00

Both of the Transylvanian towns that Sidney and I stayed in had Christmas fairs. These involved a large glowing Christmas tree in the midst of a brightly-lit square filled with tiny booths selling mulled wine, gloves, random knick-knacks, sausage sandwiches, pastries, earrings, rosaries, etc. At night there was usually singing, and in Sibiu there was even a Santa Claus!

It was pretty much the cutest thing I'd ever seen. What was nice also is that it seemed, I don't know, cute in a sincere way? A few years ago I went to Prague and I didn't really like it that much because it felt like all the cuteness and charm had become tainted somehow, that it'd become self-conscious. The cuteness factor was there for us--the tourists--as opposed to the people who actually lived there.

Whereas in Transylvania Sidney and I didn't meet a single other tourist the whole time we were there. Granted I think during the summer time Transylvania is fairly touristy, but the Christmas fairs were so lovely in that it felt like we were witnessing an authentic celebration within the community, rather than just a big show put on for us.

Above is the square in Braşov.

Mulled wine!

Main pedestrian street in Braşov.

Above and below is the town of Sibiu, European Capital of Culture 2007.

Transylvania Part 1: There had to be Christmas.

2008-01-06T05:13:00.000-08:00

So even though Turkey doesn't really celebrate Christmas, we were lucky enough this year to have Christmas just barely overlap with Kurban Bayram--a holiday based on the Islamic calendar, thus changing every year. Kurban Bayram ("Sacrifice Feast") honors the time when Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isaac in the Judeo-Christian tradition), as commanded by Allah. The most important aspect of the bayram is the ritual sacrifice of a sheep. Kurban Bayram in Turkey is marked by the sounds of baying lambs everywhere, followed by silence.

In any case, as interesting as this sounded, I knew I would be feeling homesick around Christmas time, so my friend Sidney and I decided to leave the country. Our requirements for where we went:
1) There had to be snow.
2) There had to be Christmas.
3) It had to be cheap.
4) There had to be delicious beer.

Romania passed all of our tests with flying colors, plus extra credit because it turns out Romanian is a Latin language! Who knew! After dealing in Turkish for 5 months, this would be a cinch.

Specifically, we were avoiding the depressing commie side of Romania and heading immediately for Transylvania--that beautiful, mountainous region where it turns out there are no vampires and only really friendly people.

December 19th, 9 am: Our plane touches down in Bucharest and Sidney and I immediately catch a train to Braşov, one of the larger towns in the region of Transylvania. We've made a reservation at "Eugene's Guesthouse,"--of which we know little besides it got a good rating on hostels.com.

It was perfect. Eugene is a stout, older man who lives with his tiny mother in a warm apartment that smells always of soup. We were essentially being put up in his living room, which we were happy to do. In general I much prefer to stay in people's houses--hotels and hostels can feel so sterile to me. I dislike the too-starched sheets, the bad art on the walls, etc. Here there was a Christmas tree in the living room and our bedroom was cluttered with books and random pieces of this family's life. In the morning his mother would leave us pieces of cinnamon toast and chocolate near the door.

Below is the courtyard to the house, and below that Sidney watching Alias in the living room.

We spent the next two days just wandering around the snow-covered streets of Brasov-- into churches, through graveyards, back and forth through cafes.

Ruminations

2008-01-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

For those who read the blog regularly, apologies for my long absence. I plan now to be back on track.

Part of the reason for this absence is that lately I’ve been both literally and figuratively all over the place; the holidays here in Turkey have been wonderful in that I’ve been able to travel, and at the same time horrible in that I’m actually physically aching with homesickness.

I’m trying to use the New Year as an opportunity to really evaluate my experience here so far, but it’s so difficult to sum up because I change my opinion every hour.

I teach a class on Wednesdays that is so difficult—the students stare at me with “dead fish eyes” as my friend Chessy aptly puts it. They respond to nothing, they don’t answer questions, they hate every activity or topic that I try with them. Every time I leave that classroom I am filled with rage; I leave just wanting to fly home and teach yoga.

But then last Saturday I went to the old part of Ankara with my friend Shubra and we found a map store. It was perfect—-darkly lit, cluttered with original Ottoman maps, and there was an adorable old man with a pipe who owned it. Then in the afternoon we somehow wandered into a café where there appeared to be real Turkish hippies—I mean REAL hippies! We sat next to a large mural depicting Native Americans while an old man with flowing white locks served us tea and some guys in the corner improvised on the guitar. Shubra said my joy was “palpable.” Of course at that moment I didn’t want to leave Turkey.

Everything is just so back and forth. I’ve made some Turkish friends and sometimes we have conversations and I feel like we’re really connecting in an un-artificial, organic way, and then sometimes I feel like our understandings of the world are so far apart that I wonder what the point of trying is.

I guess the only thing that’s certain is that this experience so far does not fit into any kind of post-college perfect narrative of “oh well you know she was considering selling her soul and working in publishing in NYC but then she realized that her heart was telling her to travel and so she did and she never once regretted her decision!”

Actually, at least at this moment, I really don’t regret this decision. I’m glad to be here, and I hope to keep chipping away at this country.

I think maybe I’m just uncomfortable with the thought of going abroad and learning about a country and working to understand it, and then in the end, really not being so infatuated with it. I came back from France absolutely head over heels for France, and it seems a lot of my friends who spent the year abroad in college had similar experiences of falling in love. I know now it was naïve of me to expect this—-especially since the study abroad experience is so different from working abroad.

Did I really expect this experience to fit into a narrative? Maybe a little, since you know, I like books and all. It’s nice when things fall into place.

I’m trying not to want so much for it to fit. I’m trying I’m trying I’m trying to open it up and let it unwind and let it be whatever it is that it is.

The Dream of Suburbia

2007-12-03T13:05:00.000-08:00

When a woman named Petek picked me and several other Americans up from the Ankara airport almost 4 months ago, the first thing she said on the bus ride to our new home was, “Now girls, don’t worry. Ankara has lots of nice malls.”

Similarly, on the bus tour of the city a few days later, most of the commentary from our guide Hande consisted of, “And here is the CEPA Mall, which has the nicest shops,” or “Here is the ARMADA Mall, so named because it looks like a boat,” or “ANKA-Mall is so big it’s like its own city!”

The other students on my program and I tried to explain a couple times that we weren’t so interested in Turkey for its malls, but our point seemed lost.

In general, I don’t like the city of Ankara so much because it feels very suburban. It’s easier to shop at a mall than it is to find a quaint shopping street. It’s easier to do my food shopping at the mammoth grocery store near where I live than it is to haggle over tomatoes in an open air market.

This is not to say that quaint streets and open air markets are nowhere to be found in Ankara—they do exist—but they are just not as emphasized.

I talk often with my students and my fellow Turkish teachers about how I want to move to Istanbul next year, and they frequently tell me that I shouldn’t go. According to them, Istanbul is chaotic, crazy, crowded, and that Ankara is a much easier city in which to live.

In many ways, they are right. It is easier to deal with parking lots and check-out lines than it is to deal with crowded narrow passageways and grocers who may or may not be ripping you off. But I mean, if I had been interested in convenience than I would have stayed in Southern California rather than move to Turkey.

Probably for many Turkish people, I think the suburban lifestyle represents a step forward. Convenience and efficiency are good things for them. And I can see why, coming from a country famous for its emphasis on efficiency and convenience, Turks might think that this is what I, as an American, also want—that is, I want malls.

But of course, having experienced plenty of malls, I’m able to reject them. When I think of malls I think of suburbia. When I think of the word “suburbia” I think of teenagers driving home drunk and gas stations everywhere and people who are fat because they never walk anywhere, they only drive. (Of course it’s easy for me to say that I reject the conveniences of America until I have to deal with my Turkish bank…)

My friend Elif here is one of the only Turkish women I’ve met so far who understands why I don’t really want to go to the mall when I’m here. She laughed when I told her about Petek picking me up from the airport, and she said, “Of course you didn’t come to Turkey to see malls.”

At the same time, we were once talking about the differences between America and Turkey and she said to me, “I love the space of America. I love the green lawns and the big houses. This is what people long for here.”

Perhaps if I had lived my whole life in an apartment in the city, I wouldn’t so easily reject the spacious living rooms and lawns that come with suburbia. Perhaps if I had always done all my shopping at an outdoor market within walking distance of my house—as I now long to do—I wouldn’t begrudge the sweetness of a shopping cart or the trunk of a car. Perhaps I would even long for a mall…

Scrumptious Sundays! (er...Monday): Roka

2007-11-26T03:50:00.000-08:00

This weekend I went to a restaurant called Roka, which is the word in Turkish for I guess "rocket leaves" in English? I never knew what those green things were called...

Anyways this is a simple, small restaurant on a tiny street. There are few decorations, and the bare wooden tables are low to the ground. The patrons sit on tiny stools. There are no menus.

The meal begins when the "garson" comes and spreads a plastic covering across your table, and then dumps a garden on top of it--leaves of roka, iceberg lettuce, arugula, and lots and lots of parsley. He then takes lemons and squeezes them on top of the garden.

There is no silverware. You eat at the salad with your hands, and it's delicious. So fresh. In a few minutes the garson follows with handfuls of cherry tomatoes, roasted tomatoes on a stick, and heads of roasted garlic.

Finally he brings sandwiches of thick, fresh bread stuffed with kofte--or meatballs. With kofte it's best to drink ayran--which is a salty drink made of yogurt and water, served cold. I love it, but a lot of the Americans here can't drink it because it makes them sick. I guess if you're lactose-intolerant, it's especially hard on your system.

The meal finishes when the garson rolls up the plastic covering on the table and brings us tea. This whole thing cost 10 lira per person, or about $7.

The Mediterranean in October Part 3: The Eternal Flame

2007-11-18T06:23:00.001-08:00

One of the draws for tourists to Olympos is the Chimaera, or eternal flame. Called in Turkish Yanar taş (flaming rock), it consists of some two dozen vents in the ground emitting flame, grouped in patches on a hillside about a 20 minute drive from Olympos. The vents emit methane thought to be of metamorphic origin, which can spontaneously ignite? (not really sure how geo-thermal stuff works...) In ancient times sailors could navigate by the flames. Near the site are the remains of an ancient temple to Hephaestus, the Greek God of fire. After seeing the Chimaera, one can understand the Olympians' veneration, as these flames retain an air of mystery, even 2000 years later, in our vastly different age.

The Chimaera takes its name from the myth of Bellerophon. The Lycian King, Lobates, sent Bellerophon to kill this fire-breathing monster--part lion, goat and serpent. With the aid of the winged horse Pegasus, he succeeded, and after completing other tasks, King Lobates permitted Bellerophon to marry the king's daughter and thus become heir to the Lycian throne. Carried away by his success, Bellerophon tried to ride Pegasus up to Mount Olympus (also nearby); for his presumption, he earned a great thunderbolt from Zeus.

Here is Apo, our friend who worked at the hostel.

And Mark, who also worked at the hostel, a crazy dude originally from Zimbabwe who entertained us all weekend with his stories, from fighting in the Rhodesian civil war to living with nomads in central Turkey.

In the end I just want to note I understand that Olympos may not have been the most authentically "Turkish" experience I could have had, seeing as it's a fairly touristy region. But after being here for 2 months I really just wanted to go somewhere pretty, where I could relax and reveal my shoulders without causing a ruckus.

And there is value in these kinds of excursions too. There's a reason Olympos is somewhat touristy--it's beautiful.

And I also don't think there's much wrong with hippies choosing to congregate in certain areas, as easy as it is to make fun of them (after all, I'm from just such a place). It's normal for people of like-mind to want to be together. I think it only bothers me when people talk about being "open-minded", but then never really encounter or consider anyone who isn't similarly "open-minded." It's fine to hang out in a bubble, but you might want to venture out occasionally.

I'm trying to venture out right now, but then I also admit that I find myself gravitating as always to people who remind me of myself. Guess it's easy to criticize, harder to walk the walk.

The Mediterranean in October Part 2: The Hike

2007-11-18T05:46:00.000-08:00

Images from a day hike that Sidney, Megan and I took...

The Mediterranean in October Part 1: Hippies ain't so bad

2007-11-18T03:37:00.000-08:00

From September 13 to October 12 of this year was Ramadan, the 9th month in the Islamic calendar and the most venerated and blessed month of the Islamic year. For more traditional Muslims, prayers, sawm (fasting), charity, and self-accountability are especially stressed at this time.

Most of my students and coworkers, however, did not observe religious practices so much during this time, though some of them were abstaining from alcohol. I think the atmosphere of the university where I work does not generally encourage religious observance or the observance of more conservative traditions.

In any case though, Ramadan ends with probably the biggest holiday weekend in Turkey, the equivalent of Thanksgiving in America. And so with my 4-day weekend two friends and I went to Olympos, a backpacker/hippy haven near the city of Antalya, on the central Mediterranean coast.

Olympos is not really so much a town as a long dirt road speckled with hostels, tree houses, cafes, and tiny travel agencies. At almost all of the hostels you pay between 20 and 30 lira for a room, the price including a gigantic, delicious breakfast & dinner.

I admit I had heard amazing things about Olympos, but based on the source of the good reviews was sort of expecting it to be a beachy version of Amsterdam--meaning people with dreadlocks everywhere talking about how "amazing" everything is, and the smell of pot lingering in the air.

Maybe Olympos is like that more during the summer when it's crowded, but our time there was perfect. I was happy to see families around as well as people my age, and the general atmosphere was not at all sketchy but happy. And plus, every time I make fun of hippies I end up remembering that I actually really like hippies most of the time (until they start talking about crystals), and that I maybe even am one.

Sidney, Megan and I would usually get up around 9. The outdoor eating area of the hostel was arranged mostly in these kind of loungy-booth things, which made the mornings great because after eating a gigantic breakfast you could lie back down again and stare at the sky, resting your hands on your full belly and occasionally reaching for another cup of tea.

(Here's Sidney at breakfast, drinking tea).

After breakfast Sidney, Megan and I would walk to the beach. The path to the beach leads you past an array of ruins--2,000 year-old stone walls leaning casually between the trees, the giant sarcophagus of one Captain Eudenides, dated from the 1st century BC.

Indeed one of my favorite things about Olympos was how lightly the ruins seemed to be taken. The site of Olympos dates back to the Hellenistic Period, from at least the 2nd century BC, and in 78 BC the Roman commander Servilius Isaurieus added the city to the Roman Empire. If this kind of historical site was located in America, I feel like everything would be walled off in glass cases, and there would be signs everywhere telling you where not to step.

But maybe since Turkey has so many ruins, or maybe for some other reason, the attitude seems to be more like, "meh...here are some more ruins." You can read a book whilst sitting atop a Lycian tomb, or sunbathe next to an ancient fortress. I know this attitude may not be the best for historical preservation, but it brings new meaning to the phrase "living with history."

A sign said the inscription on this sarcophagus reads: The ship is anchored at its last Harbour, never more to depart, for no aid is now forthcoming from either wind or sunlight; Captain Eudemos, taking leave of the light-bearing dawn, was buried there and his ship with its lifespan short as a day, like a broken wave.

Anyways, as you walk down this path of ruins, pine trees, and sunlight, you come around a bend, and suddenly there's the beach--spectacular and white, framed by mountains, the water warm and waveless and blue even in October:

More images in the next post...

We go everywhere together

2007-11-17T15:57:00.000-08:00

Some of you may remember that a couple of months ago I commented briefly on my disappointment in the romance of Turkish bazaars.

Well, I take everything back. Turns out you can find totally awesome things in Turkish bazaars…like POCKET WATCHES.

Today I bought myself a gold pocket watch for about $10 and promptly strung it on a thick gold chain around my neck.

Old Turkish man meets bling?

Me and the Mud

2007-11-12T07:15:00.000-08:00

Last week I called my mom weeping, no bawling.

“There’s just…so much…MUD…everywhere,” I sobbed into the phone.

It’s true. The city in which I live is basically a huge construction site, which means there’s lots of dirt everywhere. When it rains, as it has been, the dirt becomes mud, and the world seems painted in brown.

Granted, I was being a little dramatic (“the color brown reflects how my soul feels” sniffle, sniffle), but this just goes back to my point that aesthetics matter.

In 2006 when I was in Paris, I swore to everyone that it was the city that had healed me of a broken heart—-someone had done the equivalent of stab me in the chest with a knife, and I swore that it was only Paris’s golden buildings and red awnings and lit windows that made me smile again. The city became my lover.

I specifically think color matters. Perhaps if mud were violet-colored, or fuchsia, it wouldn’t be so bad. When I think of Paris I think of the color gold, and I think of how when I walked through the city at night I never ceased to be awed by the reflection of Notre-Dame glowing in the waters of the Seine. I worry that when I look back on my time in Ankara, I may only think of the color brown, the color of mud.

But then perhaps the way the world looks only gets to you as much as you let it. If anything, mud provides amazing opportunities for humor!

For example, after the flood of tears to my mother last Tuesday night, I woke up late the next morning and, having missed my shuttle, was forced to get to class via the pedestrian crossing of a treacherously muddy ravine, soaked through from a storm the night before.

My friend Laura and I stood staring at it for about 10 minutes before we set out across, I think hoping that maybe a magic carpet would appear to take us across. Of course it was a shit show (no pun intended). By the time we were half-way across, the soles of our shoes had accumulated so much mud that we were both 4” taller, and Laura had already fallen and gotten mud in her hair.

Just as we had gotten through the worst of it, a tractor appeared and gave us a ride the rest of the way. It pulled up in front of the building where I teach, and Laura and I hopped out while 4 of my Prada-bagged, Gucci-sunglassed students stared, open-mouthed.

“Teacher,” one of them said to me as I passed. “What happened?”

I don’t know, student. I don’t know.

p.s. In the phone call with my mother, my only other complaint concerned Turkey's serious lack of seasonal ales:

“Why am I here in this godforsaken land while my friends in New York get to hang out and drink Sam Adams Oktoberfest?” (sob)

Scrumptious Sundays!: Istanbul Street Food

2007-11-04T13:31:00.001-08:00

I spent last weekend wandering around Istanbul, deliberately avoiding any place of historical significance, and generally eating a lot. I think my favorite thing about going to new places is exploring the cuisine. Istanbul has some of the best street food I’ve had (excluding Magic Carpet in Philly, of course).

1. STUFFED MUSSELS: For food lovers out there, this is a spiritual experience. My favorite thing is that these are generally only sold at night. Walk down Istiklal Caddesi at 2 in the morning and there will be men out with carts of midye dolmasi, or fresh mussels stuffed with pilaf rice and onions and tomatoes and parsley and pine nuts and currants, flavored with lemon juice and sometimes nutmeg. You can generally get 3 for 1 lira, and 6 would probably be equivalent to a meal.

2. KUMPIR: This is probably more unhealthy than a cheese steak, but it’s really fucking good. It’s a baked potato, split open and stuffed with butter and cheese, then topped with any and/or all of the following: pickles, sweet corn, corn drenched in spicy tomato sauce, spicy tomato sauce by itself, green olives, black olives, sausage, steamed peas, carrots, mushrooms, Russian salad, mayonnaise, ketchup, and others that I probably don’t know of…

3. SIMIT: Simit is a circular bread with sesame seeds, sold by vendors all over Turkey either by trolley or by large platters carried on the head. It doesn’t generally interest me so much unless it’s quite fresh (usually only in the morning), in which case it is warm and chewy and crispy all at the same time.

4. DÖNER SANDVIÇ: I’m sure most of you are familiar with the rotating spit of lamb, beef, or chicken, which is then sliced off in thin, vertical layers and sandwiched in buttered pita bread with tomatoes, onions, lettuce. If not, you should become familiar with it.

Of course there is more, but I have to save some for later posts…

Turkish Political Climate

2007-11-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

I know that Turkey has been in the news a lot recently for various reasons, but I’ve been reluctant to write about the politics of the situation simply because I want to be as fair in my assessment of the situation as possible.

That said, I hope everyone understands that my views are coming out of my fairly limited experience here—I’m sure what I’ve seen is just the tip of the iceberg—and that they are in no way meant to constitute a totally objective perspective.

At the moment, the most pressing political issue in Turkey is the potential of an invasion into the northern, autonomous, Kurdish region of Iraq—a mountainous region harboring members of the PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party). Although I recently read a BBC article in which members of the PKK were quoted as saying they were confused by why they were labeled as terrorists, all of the USA, the EU, and NATO have declared them as such.

Though more than 37,000 people have died in various Turkey-PKK conflicts since 1984, the last month in particular has seen intensification from the PKK, with more than 40 Turks dead, including civilians.

Imagine that 3,000 militants are hiding out in Mexico and periodically crossing the border to blow up bridges and place land mines, and that they’ve killed 40 Americans within the last month. Would America not react with rage? Would America not demand immediate military action?

It seems a hardly subtle hypocrisy that the current administration brings up so often “the fight against terrorism,” and yet encourages Turkey not to defend itself against an organization that the U.S. itself recognizes as terrorist.

Of course I understand that the situation is complicated, and it seems that America and Turkey’s respective interests are just fundamentally misaligned. But you can understand where Turkey’s anger toward the U.S. is coming from.

However I am happy to report that as of yet I have really not experienced any anti-American sentiments personally. It seems that most Turks, and probably even most people, can differentiate between the nation and the person.

However, this also doesn’t mean that there haven’t been some tense moments. In talking about politics I try to be very, very cautious about what I say.

In class I am not supposed to talk about politics. I generally follow this rule, but if the subject comes up and the students seem engaged then I go with it—if only because I go with anything that gets them talking. Up until a few weeks ago I was fairly convinced that all of my students were totally apolitical. As of now they still seem fairly uninformed and uninterested in getting all the sides of the situation, but that doesn’t mean their tempers haven’t been aroused.

For example, I became upset with one of my classes whilst trying to have a discussion with them about censorship. “Teacher, this is boring,” one of my students said. “You know, we are not interested in this. This doesn’t apply to us. We go to class, we hang out with our friends—censorship is not interesting to us.”

“Censorship doesn’t apply to you?” I said, probably without concealing my contempt (Turkey may call itself a liberal democracy, but it certainly does not allow freedom of the press). “So does anything in the news interest you?” I said.

Just the PKK, was their response. As soon as the topic came up, one student who is traditionally silent said, “We will kill all of them, inşallah” (inşallah, as I understand it, means “God willing.”)

The students went on to describe to me how the Americans were giving “guns and food” to the PKK. “I saw it on tv with my own eyes,” said one student. “The guns came from America.”

Of course I’m pretty sure the American military isn’t directly supplying the PKK with weapons, but as my friend who works at the Council on the Foreign Relations said, “the transfer isn’t that indirect either.”

Anyways, this was a rather tense moment in class, but luckily for me, as passionate as the students were about the subject, they weren’t directing it really at me. But I figured it was time to change the subject. I decided to end on the note of, “Listen, I really, really sympathize with you guys, and if I were you I would also be angry. I hope that things turn out okay, and that America does the right thing.” Considering that my students aren’t even really equipped to use the past tense, I didn’t think it would be a great idea to have a serious, complex discussion about American-Turkish political relations.

I just want to reiterate that even as you may see images on tv of Turks burning American flags, I think most of them can differentiate between the people and the politics. When I was in Istanbul last weekend I was at a restaurant where the news was on television, showing an anti-American rally. An older, grizzled-looking man who reminded me of my grandfather approached me:

“I want to apologize,” he said to me, “for what you are seeing on the tv. America and Turkey have been great allies for many years now, and what you are seeing on tv is not an expression of hate. It’s just that there’s so much pent-up frustration from feeling powerless to defend ourselves. People are angry right now, but it doesn’t mean they don’t like Americans.”

Tomorrow there is to be a meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Erdoğan. We’ll see what happens.

Quote from one of my students:

2007-10-26T09:02:00.001-07:00

"Angelina Jolie's lips are very successful."

On Teaching

2007-10-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

Last week my students staged a mutiny of sorts, and I decided it was time to finally write something about my job.

Speaking to a class of 6 students, I told them that they were stuck on a desert island with no food. Somebody needed to be sacrificed in order to feed the others. I told them that I wanted each of them to give a reason for why they should not be eaten—i.e., “I am a ship engineer and I can build us a ship to get off the island.” Or, “I am a widow with 14 children at home and if you sacrifice me then my children will have no one to take care of them.” They were all very creative in answering. The most surprising answer came from a girl, Buşra, who is normally very shy and sweet, but who busted out with, “I have AIDS. If you eat me you’ll get it too.”

Anyways, after they gave all their reasons, I gave them pieces of paper and told them that they had to vote on one person to sacrifice, Survivor style. I collected all the papers: 6 votes for Anna, zero for anyone else. I wasn’t even supposed to be an option! They were cute about it though, and the joke seemed to be an affectionate one (unless I totally misread it). And in a weird way I was proud of them…as in, way to think outside the box guys.

I think maybe the reason I haven’t written anything about my job until now is that I feel so ambivalent about it. Ask me today, and I’ll smile and say I’m happy. Today my students were good and they engaged in discussion, and one of them even stayed after class to write me a list of things to do in Istanbul this weekend. Had you asked me yesterday I would have glared at you and told you to fuck off.

I am working at Bilkent, an English-speaking university. Before any student begins their regular classes—i.e. their undergraduate courses, their PhD. courses, their vocational courses, whatever—they must pass a test that shows they can speak English. However they don’t have to speak English to be accepted to Bilkent. This means that almost every student who passes through the university must pass through the machinery of BUSEL—Bilkent University School of English Language—where I work. They take English classes at BUSEL until they pass a test that says they speak well enough to attend regular classes.

In this way BUSEL is a lot like purgatory. Except for a few exceptions, most of my students are about 20 years old. They have graduated from high school and been accepted to one of the best universities in Turkey, yet they still cannot take classes that interest them. They are living on a university campus, yet they are still on a high schooler’s schedule—class 6-7 hours a day, every day.

BUSEL is indeed a machine, not a well-oiled one. As we are dealing with about 3000 students, the school is divided into 13 units, each with about 15 to 20 teachers, and each unit dealing with about 200 students. All of these students and teachers and units trying to meet the same standards of English proficiency create a fuckload of bureaucracy that I really despise. There are also a lot of acronyms—HTU and TU and CIP and COPE and ECA and CAT and CTU, to name a few.

The problem with BUSEL is that apparently the students leave with writing, reading, listening skills…but they don’t speak. Our bosses have tried to explain this as, in the Turkish education system, the students are basically not allowed to mistakes. This is of course antithetical to learning a language, especially with speaking, because when you are learning a new language you have to just put yourself out there and know that you will make mistakes. It’s the only way to learn. In their time at BUSEL the students have still mostly been in classes of about 20, and needless to say it’s easy to get away without having to contribute more than a couple sentences each day.

This is where I come in. Last year BUSEL hired about 50 recent college grads to come and be specific “Speaking Skills Instructors.” This sort of makes us guinea pigs, and many kinks are still being worked out. But for now I have 10 classes, each with about 5 students, and each of whom I see for 2 hours every week. I do have to plan my own lessons, without a book, but I don’t have to grade papers or give them tests. The point is just to get them to talk—which is actually harder than it sounds.

Not only are many of them extremely insecure about speaking, but many of them also seem to be interested in few things besides going out with their friends. This makes it difficult to really have a discussion on substantial topics. I’m trying not to be judgmental, but I’ve realized quickly that even if Bilkent is one of the top three universities in Turkey, it’s not UPenn.

This isn’t to say that my students aren’t intelligent. Most of them are very clever, and I have a lot of fun goofing around with them playing games like the Survivor one above. It’s just that their worlds seem so closed—probably not unlike most young people in the U.S.A. Or maybe really just like anyone, anywhere. Am I being too pessimistic? Maybe Penn just spoiled me.

Many of them also just don’t see why it is so important for them to learn English. They say motivation is the hardest thing to teach. As Bilkent is a private university, I think a lot of them are there because their wealthy parents want them at the best school. Unless they are planning to study and/or work abroad—why should they have to learn English? They are in Turkey after all. I can sort of understand their frustration.

But then, after everything, some days are really good. Like today. I told them I wanted to talk about “the future!” (imagine grand, sweeping hand gestures--I work hard to get them excited). I had them imagine inventions that would make their lives easier. One girl drew a train on the board that would come to houses at night and take crying children to the moon so their parents could sleep. One boy drew a remote control fishing line. One drew a flying television? (not sure why televisions need to fly…but whatever).

Scrumptious Sundays!: Mantı

2007-10-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Mantı is something like a Turkish version of ravioli. It consists of a spiced meat mixture, usually lamb, stuffed into little dumplings, which I think are then steamed. Afterwards you pour yogurt on top of the dumplings, and then on top of that a spicy tomato sauce. It’s then topped off with ground sumac, dried mint, and crushed red peppers. It’s delicious.

I ate it for the first time while in Kapadokya. As I think I’ve mentioned, yogurt is everywhere here. This is a source of great joy for me.

On the morning after graduating from college...

2007-10-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

I've recently finished Joan Didion's book The White Album, and I can't understand how I ever survived without her.

In her essay, "On the Morning After the Sixties," she writes about her undergraduate experience at Berkeley in the 50's:

We were all very personal then, sometimes relentlessly so, and, at that point where we act or do not act, most of us are still. I suppose I am talking about just that: the ambiguity of belonging to a generation distrustful of political highs, the historical irrelevancy of growing up convinced that the heart of darkness lay not in some error of social organization but in man's own blood. If man was bound to err, then any social organization was bound to be in error. It was a premise which still seems to me accurate enough, but one which robbed us early of a certain capacity for surprise.

At Berkeley in the Fifties no one was surprised by anything at all, a "donnee" which tended to render discourse less than spirited, and debate nonexistent. The world was by definition imperfect, and so of course was the university...We were that generation called "silent," but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period's official optimism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man's fate...

The personal was all that most of us expected to find. We would make a separate peace. We would do graduate work in Middle English, we would go abroad. We would make some money and live on a ranch. We would survive outside history, in a kind of "idee fixe" referred to always, during the years I spent at Berkeley, as "some little town with a decent beach."

I don't know if my generation has been compared before to that of the 50's, but Didion's description struck me. Not that I consciously want to survive outside history, but I get irritated when I read these baby boomer columnists in the NYTimes who complain about the differences between my generation and the activist, communal nature of the 60's (i.e. Rick Perlstein, "What's the matter with college?"). Yes, there's a huge part of me that wishes that my generation was more like that of the 60's, but please, understand that it's a different context now...and as much as I wish that I was all gung ho about ideology or idealism, the truth is that I distrust both of these things. Most of my closest friends feel similarly, I think. Part of the reason we're not more like the generation of the 60's is because the 60's already happened.

I don't know exactly what I'm saying. It's not that I think my co-graduates and I don't feel civic obligation and responsibility and even passion--in fact just the opposite. I've been consistently amazed by my friends' personal investment in the world (and this opposed to my students here in Turkey, who don't know what/where Burma is, but more on that later...) It's just that I feel my peers are taking more personal and solitary routes, as opposed to that sense of community that the 60's are famous for.

And maybe also, we expect less. I don't want to speak for everyone so I'll switch to the first person. I am often skeptical of "ideologies" or "movements." I don't expect to be able to make or find utopia. I want to do my part to make the world better, but I'm not sure if the world ever really does get better or worse. Perhaps the best I can do is redeem myself.

And then Todd Haynes, in talking about his new Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There, said:

In the 60's, it was just all the young people who were in the same club, and that's all you had to be was young to get in, and to be given that same little wink, that same little smile, that same little code. And now we're like in clubs of one you know, 3 zillion million different tiny clubs and our little internet worlds and our little things and you can join or not, but we're all so alone.

In a way, I feel that Didion, Haynes, and myself are all talking about the same thing.

Scrumptious Sundays!

2007-10-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

At the request of one Ms Kelly McCormick that I talk more about food, I’ve decided to devote each Sunday to the description of at least one traditional Turkish dish.

In general I’ve been very happy with my culinary experience thus far. It’s true that Turkish cuisine is a tad limited – most dishes are composed of some combination of beef, tomatoes, yogurt, flat bread, and spices. The thing is that this doesn’t bother me because these are all items that I tremendously enjoy.

Last night though, I think I had my most exciting culinary experience yet. I had dinner at a coworker’s house; her name is Duygu, and my boss has appointed her “my social buddy”—meaning that she will help me by buy bus tickets, that she will get me drunk, and that she will set me up with a Turkish pilot (more on that later).

Anyways, last night Duygu and her fiancé had a dinner party where they served a super labor-intensive traditional dish called çiğ köfte (pronounced chigh keufte, meaning literally: raw meatball). The process began when Duygu’s fiancé, Fati, laid out newspapers and blankets on the living room floor. Then he brought out a huge plastic tub—think one for washing clothes—and dropped what looked like a log of raw minced meat into it. On top of the meat he poured a bowl of cooked bulgur (cracked wheat rice), already mixed with chopped onions. Then he took various bags and jars of spices and dumped them into the tub as well—red pepper flakes, cinnamon, oregano, cumin, and a particularly delicious spice called isot—a blackish crushed chile from the eastern region of Turkey.

Then Fati got down on his hands and knees onto the living room floor and started kneading the meat. He did this for about an hour and a half. Occasionally Duygu would get down on the ground and pour some rakı down his throat, or wipe the sweat off his face with a napkin. About half way through, he added tomato and pepper paste, then continued kneading. At the very end he added fresh parsley, mint and green onions.

While Fati was kneading away, the other guests started arriving, and we started drinking rakı. Rakı is an anise-flavored aperitif, and it is Turkey’s unofficial (or maybe official; I’m not sure) drink. It’s very similar to pastis, sambuca and ouzo. It’s best to consume rakı with meze, the word for a selection of appetizers or small dishes, similar to tapas in Spain.

At Duygu’s that night we had a couple different meze dishes—including patlıcan salatası (cold fried eggplant), acili ezme (hot pepper paste) and beyaz peynir, or feta. Most meze dishes are cold and full of olive oil, which Duygu says is good to drink with rakı because the olive oil coats your stomach and thus protects you from getting drunk.

What I find especially elegant about rakı is that it is meant to be drunk quite slowly. The flavor is very strong, and though I do enjoy it, I can only sip at it. Plus it seems that it really shouldn’t be consumed without food. In this way it seems like such a civilized alcoholic beverage.

Or at least it’s supposed to be a civilized beverage. Usually when one drinks rakı, you fill a glass about a third of the way up with rakı, and then the rest with water. However, Duygu’s pilot friends decided that I seemed tough, and so they filled my glass more like ¾ of the way full with rakı (unbeknownst to me). I noticed as I was drinking it, especially in combination with the spicy meze, that my chest felt like it was on fire. In any case, Duygu tasted my drink at some point and realized that my rakı was definitely stronger than it was supposed to be. Once my rakı had been de-concentrated, it suddenly seemed so weak after the first glass that I started drinking it fast, like it was water. “Slow down!” Duygu said.

Fati finally finished kneading the çiğ köfte and then he started rolling it into little finger-like pieces. When he was all done, all of the guests got down on the floor with him to eat. I liked to roll the çiğ köfte into pieces of flat bread, but I noticed most of the guests liked to eat it wrapped in pieces of lettuce. With the rakı we drank a special juice called şalgam—it means, literally, “turnip,” but it’s actually made from the juice of purple carrot pickles—heavily salted, spiced and flavoured with turnip, and fermented in barrels. The şalgam compliments both the köfte and the rakı with its saltiness. I know it sounds kinda weird, but I liked it!

The whole dinner experience was kind of funny because Duygu and her friends kept telling me that “they never do this”—i.e. make çiğ köfte and eat meze and sit on the floor while listening to traditional Turkish music (although they do drink rakı pretty often.) But then they all seemed so comfortable doing it, as if they’d done it a million times. Clearly the language barrier contributed to my confusion, as Duygu was the only one amongst 10 who spoke English. But in the end I guess I understood the night to be a kind of special occasion thing that they don’t do often—probably just because they don’t have time—but that they were nevertheless familiar with.

Not to be arrogant, but I kinda got the feeling that the entire event was organized around me—me as in, I’m a foreigner and a guest who Duygu and Fati wanted to treat to a nice time. This even when I can barely form sentences in Turkish? Truly I was amazed at their patience with me—both my hosts, and all the guests. More evidence of Turkey’s wonderful tradition of hospitality!

Below are some images I found on the web of, respectively, rakı, meze, and çiğ köfte.

Top 10 Things I Miss

2007-10-07T03:02:00.000-07:00

Responses to the blog both public and private have commented on how exciting this must all be, and how it seems I am having a fantastic time.

For whatever reason, I feel the need to express that yes, I am happy to be here, and it’s true that this is all very exciting. However, it’s also true that I’m kind of lonely, and that there are moments when more than anything I just wish I were home…wherever that is.

Top 10 things I miss:

1) Green Line Café Mornings – iced coffee, french toast bagels, stolen NYTimes arts pages.

2) The porch.

3) This makes me sound so idiotically bougie, but seriously…independent movie theaters.

4) Boys who speak English.

5) The ocean…really any large body of water would suffice.

6) White Dog Beer Menu (Turkey has literally one brand of beer, and it’s not fabulous.)

7) Hippies.

8) Autumn.

9) As if we needed proof that I’m really a nerd…I miss literature classes.

10). Sangita’s okra & potato dish – I tried to make it myself, and it just tasted like salt.

Happy Birthday Rumi

2007-10-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Rumi's 800th birthday. He was born in what is now Afghanistan, but for most of his life he lived but 3 hours from where I am now--in Konya.

Konya has become a destination for hundreds of Rumi disciples every year. In December there will be huge festivals celebrating his legacy, but for now we'll just post a poem:

THIS WE HAVE NOW

This we have now
is not imagination.

This is not
grief or joy.

Not a judging state,
or an elation,
or sadness.

Those come
and go.

This is the presence
that doesn't.

It's dawn, Husam,
here in the splendor of coral,
inside the Friend, the simple truth
of what Hallaj said.

What else could human beings want?

When grapes turn to wine,
they're wanting
this.

When the nightsky pours by,
it's really a crowd of begars,
and they all want some of this!

This
that we are now
created the body, cell by cell,
like bees building a honeycomb.

The human body and the universe
grew from this, not this
from the universe and the human body.

Final Trabzon Diary: The Creep

2007-09-30T02:53:00.001-07:00

Saturday: In any case Ozcam is nowhere near as bad as the experience we have the next day. In the morning I am eating breakfast alone (Abby and Patrick have already gone up) when a man, probably around 50, comes down to eat as well. He tries speaking to me in Turkish, but very quietly and I can’t hear him. I assume he’s just asking me who I am, where I’m from, etc. and I tell him in halting Turkish that I’m a teacher at Bilkent University, I’m from California, etc. He nods, and then he makes some sort of hand motion that I take to mean “you, me, go somewhere in a car.” I say, uh no, and I point to my ring (which I’ve been wearing on my left hand since I got to Turkey…just easier most of the time) and then to upstairs, as in, my husband is upstairs (poor Patrick). I take my leave and assume that’s the end of it.

We stop at the pharmacy on our way to catch the dolmus and as we’re crossing the street, the man from breakfast pulls up next to us. He literally stops traffic and gets out of the car and makes a hand motion to me like, “we’re going now?” I shake my head and go into the pharmacy.

I watch through the window while Abby is buying sunblock and see the man park his car and wait by the pharmacy. This is an example of instinct – all he’s doing is waiting in his car, but I have this gut reaction of complete fear. I make Patrick hold my hand when we leave, just to drive home my unavailability to the man (poor Patrick, who has a girlfriend back home, reluctantly agrees). We hold hands till we get into a dolmus, and as I’m looking behind us the guy seems to be gone. We breathe a sigh of relief and relax.

We get to the beach, about 15 minutes away, and it’s beautiful. The water isn’t black at all—rather turquoise, and it’s super hot and thankfully there are lots of women in bikinis (apparently the “no shoulders/no legs” rule that we’ve come to use in Trabzon doesn’t apply at the beach.) But as we’re laying down our towels I see a car drive up behind us—it’s our friend from breakfast.

He comes over and sets up a beach chair on the sand about 20 feet away from us and proceeds to sit there and stare at me for the next 5 hours. He doesn’t go in the water, he doesn’t read—he just stares. I don’t know if he followed our dolmus, or if he asked the man at the hotel where we were going for the day. Occasionally he’ll get up and walk a wide circle around us, still staring, but never approaching. I’m extremely freaked out but I’m not really sure what to do.

He leaves when we do, waiting for me when I come out of the showers. I skirt past him and he makes another hand motion where he looks at me and puts his two index fingers together--it means something along the lines of "you and me, we should be together." As we’re walking to catch a dolmus back he drives up next to me and keeps motioning for me to get in the car. I tell him “Hayir!” (No!), and eventually he drives away. Abby is freaking out and Patrick looks worried.

We get back to the hotel, half expecting him to be waiting for us, but he’s not. Patrick thinks that maybe the man thinks I am a prostitute—something I’m skeptical of, unless there are prostitutes who play hard to get? Maybe it’s because I was eating breakfast alone? Because I look vaguely Russian (some people have told me that) and Turkey has a problem with “Natashas” who come from Russia? We don’t know but we hope he’s gone.

We nap and about an hour later there’s suddenly a loud, persistent knock on the door. Patrick wakes up and I motion for him to be quiet. The knocking continues for a while. Abby is napping but she keeps muttering in her sleep and I want to gag her. The knocking stops and the phone in our room starts ringing. Abby wakes up and we tell her what’s happened and she decides she's had it, and she’s going to tell the man who owns our hotel.

We go downstairs and my stalker is waiting for us in the lobby. Abby grabs the guy at the front desk (“Probleme var mı!”) and whisks him up one floor to where we have breakfast. We can’t find the word “stalker” in our dictionary, and so Abby reenacts a highly engaging skit of what happened at the beach. In fact I’m so stunned by her acting capabilities that I’m barely contributing. The man who owns the hotel—who we’ve gotten to know over breakfast each morning (his name is “Huseyin,” but “not Sadaam”—his words not mine)—understands what Abby is saying. When we tell him about the knock on the door he suddenly looks terribly upset and he explains that my stalker came to him carrying a bouquet of flowers and asked to know which room I was in. But at the end of our discussion he says for us not to worry and for us to leave and have dinner and that he will take care of it.

We go for dinner and buy some baklava to give to Huseyin. We come back and he’s waiting for us. “I speak with customer,” he says. “Customer is very bad man. Customer is gone now.” We thank him about 1000 times, give him the baklava, and that’s that.

So there’s a detailed explanation of our trip to Trabzon. In the end what I think stuck with me the most, ironically, is how wonderfully kind and hospitable the Turks are! I think my experience with the creepy man wasn’t a product of being in a foreign culture but rather just an encounter with a wierdo. Besides that, I was amazed at how lovely most people were to us—Huseyin from the hotel, the man from Izmir, Petek and her children, and many others who I haven’t mentioned who simply stopped in the street to see if we needed help (plus our friendly dolmus driver Ozcam, in my opinion, not shared by Abby). Extreme friendliness seems to be a strong characteristic of Turkish culture, which distinguishes it from some others (cough, les francais...not really, everyone knows I'm a francophile yes?). Anyways, what warm and generous people the Turks are!

Below are some final images from around and about the city.

Trabzon Diary 3: The Shift in World View

2007-09-30T02:42:00.001-07:00

Thursday evening: We follow the map that our friend gave us and decide to check out a few mosques. Unfortunately I have forgotten my scarf back at the hotel room, and so for the first one I wait while Abby and Patrick go inside. They come out 10 minutes later looking vaguely traumatized. Apparently Abby made a huge faux pas when she went in the men’s entrance instead of the women’s. They say that the men inside praying didn’t seem to mind much, and all that happened was that one of the men showed her the way to the other door. Nevertheless Abby and Patrick seem panic-stricken.

So understandably when we reach the next mosque on the trail—this the one in the very city center, the one closest to our hotel—my two comrades are reluctant to go inside. But I have bought another headscarf by now, and I insist on going inside. Abby and Patrick follow.

When we get inside we stop inside a small vestibule-type room where we remove our shoes while a woman wearing a full burka stares at us—-we’re obviously out-of-towners. Abby suddenly notices that my hair is sticking out at the back of my scarf and starts manically tucking strands of loose hair under the scarf. The woman watches us and then starts to smile. She comes up to me and grabs my cheek affectionately and starts speaking in Turkish. I smile, and say “Turkce bilmiyorum,” (I don’t speak Turkish) and she just laughs and keeps squeezing my cheek. A little boy waiting for his mother in the vestibule speaks English well, and he asks us where we are from. We tell him and he tells the woman in the burka, who keeps smiling.

When Abby and I finally get inside the actual mosque, we stand awkwardly facing mecca while various women around us are praying. Most of them notice us but pay little attention, but another woman in a burka watches us. I am nervous that I am doing something wrong.

Here I should admit that, up until this point, burkas have really freaked me out. It’s not that I am really afraid of the woman inside the burka so much as just the whole concept. I think it’s because for America and, in general, for “the west,” the burka has become such a potent symbol of what we don’t understand about Islam – it’s become the Other. By its nature the burka is mysterious—it’s black, it effectively conceals the woman inside. The discomfort that I feel when I see one is not rational, and it makes me feel ridiculous and ignorant and all of that. But it is present nonetheless.

When we are putting on our shoes in the vestibule again to leave the mosque, the woman who has been watching us inside the mosque is also there. She smiles and starts speaking in Turkish. It turns out the little boy from before is her son. “She’s from California!” the boy says excitedly, and points to me. The woman smiles more broadly and comes over and does the same cheek-grabbing thing to Abby and me as the woman from before. Her name is Petek. Her daughter is also waiting in the vestibule, about 5 years old, and she grabs our cheeks too. We start talking about why we’re in Trabzon, the little boy translating, and our conversation continues as we leave the mosque.

Patrick is waiting for us, looking puzzled, as Abby and I exit the mosque having an animated conversation with a woman in a burka and two small children. Petek and her children are wonderfully warm, and Abby and Patrick and I are smiling like 5 year olds at Christmas. They tell us their husband/father is working in Belgium. The boy notices my wrist band and I tell him about how I saw the Smashing Pumpkins in Istanbul a few days ago (he’s 10 but he’s a fan). It ends with a photo, an exchange of email addresses, and me feeling like maybe my world view has shifted.

Like I said, it’s not like I was ever afraid of the woman inside the burka—but in retrospect I think I thought that maybe she never smiled. Or that somehow she was so, so different from me—“she” as in any woman wearing a burka—that we would never be able to do something as simple as have a conversation. It’s such a ridiculous assumption in retrospect that I’m ashamed. Meeting Petek and her children was wonderful.

Friday: We choose Friday to take a trip to the Sumela Monastery, Trabzon’s most famous tourist destination. The monastery was founded in the year 386 by two Athenian priests - Barnabas and Sophronius according to the Turkish Ministry of Culture. Legend states that they found an icon of the Virgin Mary in a cave on the mountain and decided to remain in order to establish the monastery. Following the conquest by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1461, it was granted protection by order of the Sultan, and given rights and privileges which were renewed by following Sultans--one example of the Ottoman Empire's historical tolerance for religions other than Islam. Monks and travellers continued to journey there throughout the years and the monastery was extremely popular up until the 19th century.

We catch a dolmuş and start heading up into the mountains. Our dolmuş driver, Ozcam, has a good sense of humor. It becomes cooler as we start gaining altitude. The mountains are thick with green trees. It looks like Colorado.

We stop for photos and the monastery is in the distance—what looks like a sheer rock face overlooking a gorge. It’s a beautiful day and it’s not as humid as the coast and I feel happy.

Ozcam drops off some of his other passengers at a place where you can hike a couple miles up to reach the monastery, but he likes Abby and Patrick and me and insists on driving us closer. We try to explain that we actually want to make the hike, but he doesn’t understand this and thinks we are just trying to be polite.

He takes us as close as he can and tells us he’ll be back in a few hours. We hike for about ten minutes and reach the monastery.

As I’m staring out the window of one of the stone rooms into the forest and the mountains and the deep gorge below me, I hear a call to prayer from one of the mosques somewhere below us. The voice echoes through the gorge. I can’t hear any of the other tourists right now—it’s silent except for the mountains and the imam’s quiet, ecstatic plea. I think about how if one wanted to spend one’s life devoted to God, this would not be a bad place to do it.

Ozcam picks up us at 1 o’clock and we drive back down to Trabzon. He drops off the other passengers and tells us he wants to show us a view of the city. We drive to the top of a hill and drink çay whilst looking out at the blue water and the tops of buildings.

Ozcam seems to really like us and wants to hang out all day—it seems he could drink tea for hours, and after that he wants to buy beer and drink it with us by the sea. This is fine with me, as I find Ozcam very entertaining. However little do I realize that Abby can’t stand the man, and even friendly Patrick is starting to find him a little weird and annoying.

We decline the offer for beer and go back to our hotel. Abby insists that he was creepy, and I wonder if I’m so innocent as to perceive genuine creepiness as “odd sense of humor.” Patrick isn’t as sure as Abby, but he’s skeptical. We go for beers and talk all night about this problem of traveling—for me probably the greatest problem. How do you tell if someone is kind or manipulative? How do you keep yourself safe, but not miss out on meeting great people? When I was in Istanbul a couple years ago with my mom, we ended up being led around the entire week by a man we met at an ATM machine—Yunus was his name. It sounds sketchy, but he ended up being the most wonderful person, and our entire experience in Istanbul was defined by his kindness. I’m sure many people might have told us not to trust him, but we took a chance and in the end we were so happy we did. So how do you know?

Trabzon Diary 2: Last Vestiges of the Byzantine Empire

2007-09-30T02:22:00.000-07:00

Thursday Afternoon: After lunch, we head to the Hagia Sophia, one of the most famous examples of Byzantine architecture and art. The church was built in the 13th century, when the area around Trabzon remained one of the last vestiges of the Byzantine Empire in the face of the advancing Turks, who came from Central Asia. Byzantine churches are typically characterised by a high central dome and the four large column arches supporting the weight of the dome and ceiling. There are also 55 discernible frescoes, and the entrance is engraved with incredibly detailed stone reliefs depicting scenes from Genesis.

The back of the church looks out onto the Black Sea. The view is now interrupted by a highway and various power lines, but one can imagine the serenity the scene must have once inspired.

Inside the Hagia Sophia, Abby makes friends with an older Turkish gentlemen who speaks English well. He tells us to join him in a tea garden nearby after we’re done looking at the church so that he can give us advice on the city.

He turns out to be wonderfully helpful, going so far as to draw us a map of the city on a napkin and showing us the best way to get to all the different mosques. He is actually from Izmir, but he’s visiting Trabzon because his wife’s family is from there. He tells us to call him if we ever are in Izmir, and we intend to.
Eventually the conversation turns to politics, and he says something interesting. “Islam is sleeping,” he says. I don’t know what I think about this, but it’s interesting to hear his point of view. “I love my country,” he says, “but I worry about the Turks. Will they disappoint me?” Of the many political ideologies that exist in Turkey, this man seems to lean especially toward the West.

Trabzon Diary 1: Transport

2007-09-30T02:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a perhaps overly meticulous account of my time in Trabzon, a city near the Georgian border on the Black Sea coast. I actually took this trip a couple weeks ago but have been unable to find the cord to download pictures from my camera! It will be divided up into a few posts, since I can't fit more than a few photos into each.

Tuesday night: Abby, Patrick & I get a 9:00 pm bus to the Black Sea. Buses in Turkey are sort of like planes – you have assigned seats, and attendants come around with a drink cart and small packages of ‘fruit cake’ (disgusting) instead of pretzels. The ride is fine except for a few small disturbances – namely, a coughing five-year-old sitting behind me; a steward who both Abby and I awake at some point to find gently petting us; and the hour when Abby’s sleeping pills kick in but when she isn’t yet asleep (this involves Abby making paper airplanes out of candy wrappers and giving a dramatic representation of the London Blitzkrieg).

Below is a picture taken at dawn along the Black Sea coast, as we get closer to Trabzon.

Wednesday morning: We arrive at the Trabzon Otogar at 9 am, dirty and grumpy after our 12-hour ride. We take a dolmuş to the city center so we can find a place to stay.

I want to take this opportunity to explain what dolmuşes are. Dolmuşes are mini-vans that are essentially a hybrid of taxi and bus. You can flag one down, like a taxi, but like a bus there are other passengers, and like a bus, it’s cheap (1 lira per person). You climb in the back of the dolmuş, tap the shoulder of the person in front of you, and give them the appropriate fare along with the # of people for whom you’re paying. The money gets passed to the driver, who then passes your change (if you need it) back to you. This is minor-ly stressful for non-Turkish speakers because we have to remember and understand how to say “Iki kişi” or “Bir kişi” (two people, one person), etc. But really it’s a great transportation method, not only because you don’t need exact change, but also because the close quarters often inspire friendly conversations with other passengers. In the photo below, a woman and her daughter asked us where we were from, and we ended up having a lovely, if limited, conversation (our Turkish is still very, very elementary).
What’s also cool about dolmuşes is that if it’s empty – and if you pay the driver a bit extra – the dolmuş can become a taxi (transportation forms that morph!). This is rare, however, as the word dolmuş comes from the word for grape leaves or peppers filled with rice – meaning “stuffed.”

Anyways, back to our story. We find a room for the 3 of us for 20 lira per person, including breakfast and, to our delight, air conditioning! This is a little piece of heaven as from the minute we’ve exited the bus we’ve essentially all been drenched in our own sweat (the Black Sea is quite humid in summer).

After lunch we wander around the city. Our ‘otel’ is right in the city center, near a lovely park filled with tables for drinking tea, plus of course a statue of Ataturk. We wander down to the sea and eat ice cream while Patrick and I argue about whether the water of the Black Sea is salty or fresh. I say it’s salty because it’s a sea. Patrick makes some argument that is of no consequence now because I ended up being right. People sit on benches that line the water, and children play on swingsets. Minus the headscarves (of which there are many, more than I've seen anywhere in Turkey so far) we could be at the Santa Monica pier.

Speaking of headscarves, Abby and I have tried to dress more conservatively but we realize it's not enough. I'm wearing a skirt to my knees but am going to have to do better than that tomorrow. It's just that it's so goddamn hot. I look at the women who are completely covered and wonder how they do it.

Thursday Morning: We spend the morning wandering around the winding streets of the Old City. It’s bazaar day, and the city is crowded with stalls selling head scarves, tacky knick knacks, cheap stretchy jeans for women, pointy leather shoes for men. I hate to say it, but the word ‘bazaar’ really used to inspire such romance for me – visions of piles of spices, old ottoman jewelry, maybe even a magic lamp? But from what I’ve seen, the bazaars in Ankara, Istanbul, and Trabzon sell mostly just cheap clothing, i.e. not too exotic. I think if you search, though, you can still find some cool things. I have found some Turkish movie posters for older French films like Last Tango in Paris that seemed pretty awesome and retro.

While traipsing around we stopped to try some fresh figs. May I say that figs are a most erotic fruit. I’ve been thinking about that oldest of questions—if you were a fruit, what kind of fruit would you be? I used to be a peach, but I think I’ve evolved into a fig.

On Water

2007-09-17T13:46:00.000-07:00

*Apologies for the delays in between posts. There have been internet problems, but for now they’ve been fixed.

The landscape around Ankara is very dry, as I think I’ve mentioned. It’s the Anatolian heartland, and it’s all rolling brown hills and scrub and the occasional dramatically solitary Cyprus tree on the horizon. In many ways it reminds me of southern California—but without the sea.

I’ve been reading Joan Didion’s The White Album and in her essay “Holy Water” she begins, “Some of us who live in arid parts of the world think about water with a reverence others might find excessive.” I read that line and ruminated about how everyone who runs here (myself not included) seems to end up looping around the university reservoir—though there are many other possible routes. Me, I find myself daydreaming about the beach, or swimming pools, or the way during Philadelphia summers my hair is always damp, even when it’s not raining.

Interestingly, the issue of water has become a large one in Ankara as of late. Some of us who read the news were worried upon arrival because we’d heard about a “water shortage” in Ankara. This was actually a big deal. On August 16th (the day I arrived), The Economist wrote:

“Ankara is experiencing one of the worst droughts in recent history. The city's 4m residents have suffered protracted water rationing: some have had no running water for ten days. Nerves are stretched, as temperatures hover around 40°C. “My wife stinks, my children stink, I stink,” complained Nezih Tatlici, an accountant who said he hadn't had a bath in over a week…In Gaziosmanpasa, an upper-class enclave, rows of grass lawns have been burnt dark brown after municipal bans on the watering of gardens. Stray dogs are dropping dead. Hygiene has become such a concern that hospitals are delaying non-critical surgery.”

This problem continues to plague the city a month later. I went to have tea at a coworker’s house on Saturday afternoon and she apologized profusely for serving us delicious pastries from the store as opposed to ones that she had made herself—unfortunately a water shutoff had hindered her.

The mayor has apparently been very understanding. He blamed the drought on “global warming” and encouraged the citizens to “take a holiday” and “wash your hair, not your bodies.” Not that I don’t believe in global warming (Daddy, don’t panic), but Istanbul has not been affected by such a draught, and, again according to The Economist (aka God), “Turkey is a mountainous country with lots of water.”

Lucky for me, Bilkent University, where I work and live, has its own reservoir! Bilkent where the showers are twenty minutes long and the sprinklers run all day…

Thoughts on traveling (long post--sorry)

2007-09-10T03:12:00.001-07:00

"Collecting memories, or experiences, was my primary goal when I first started traveling. I went about it in the same way as a stamp collector goes about collecting stamps, carrying around with me a mental list of all the things I had yet to see or do. Most of the list was pretty banal. I wanted to see the Taj Mahal, Borobudur, the Rice Terraces in Banave, Angkor Wat. Less banal, or maybe more so, was that I wanted to witness extreme poverty. I saw it as a necessary experience for anyone who wanted to appear worldly and interesting.
Of course witnessing poverty was the first to be ticked off the list. Then I had to graduate to the more obscure stuff. Being in a riot was something I pursued with with a truly obsessive zeal, along with being tear-gassed and hearing gunshots fired in anger.
Another list item was having a brush with my own death."
-from The Beach, by Alex Garland

On the bus back from Trabzon to Ankara I finished Alex Garland's The Beach, a book I highly recommend. The book was published 10 years ago but it reads like it was written today. I feel stupid summarizing it this way because it sounds like a blurb printed on the back cover, but it's about western twenty-somethings searching for something like 'authentic experience' in the third world, and in the face of all their global media/pop culture experience. In the end I think Garland is pessimistic--such authentic experience, at least for his generation (and I believe also for my own), cannot be achieved in the way that these travelers seek it. Feel free to disagree with me because I would love to be convinced otherwise.

Maybe I'm just way too cynical, but this is partly why I have a slight distaste for backpacker culture. Of course this is totally hypocritical of me--I am, in essence, a backpacker, and trust that I feel ambivalence even as I write about it now. I don't know--I feel like you have the same conversations with people over and over again. Everything is "amazing." As in, oh yeah, climbing that volcano was so amazing. Tripping on acid alone on the beach was so amazing. Staring at the Sistine Chanel while listening to Infected Mushroom on my ipod was so amazing. My dad thinks the word 'nice' should be eliminated from the English language. 'Nice' doesn't bother me so much because I feel like it says what it means. 'Amazing' bothers me.

I had a conversation with my friend Jesse a few months ago about these kinds of life-changing travel moments that people our age seem to have so often. Jesse was saying that he believed he had never had such a moment--you know, a moment where you come upon the thing you'd heard about (a mountain, a cathedral, a painting, etc.) and you're so stunned that you feel yourself changing as you look upon it. I don't know--isn't that what people mean when they talk about these moments? Anyways, Jesse said he believed he finally had experienced such when he walked in the mountains of Tibet. I said I thought I still hadn't felt such a thing.

The reason the above citation from Garland struck me so much was because it made me think about the time me and my darling Miss Maggie Campbell were tear-gassed in Paris--about how yes, for a few moments it was very intense, and it hurt like a bitch, and how I couldn't see and how snot was pouring out of my nose. But then--as soon it was over and the burning sensation had subsided--the experience became somehow instantly relegated to a file box. We took a photo immediately, before our eyes lost their redness, and so quickly it became like this thing that Garland is talking about...a checkmark next to an item on a list. As in, oh yeah, I've done that. Is there something I could have done to prevent such a checkmark? I don't know. I suppose if the experience were actually traumatic, then a checkmark wouldn't be so easy. And for that I'm grateful--I'm glad I wasn't traumatized. Truly.

I'm reading this over and I feel like I sound like such a grumpy old lady. I don't mean to say that traveling isn't valuable. It is so valuable. When I first walked into the circular white room in le Musee de l'Orangerie in Paris and saw Monet's "Les nympheas," I burst into tears, astonished by the beauty. And yeah, watching rivers of lava from the top of a volcano in Guatemala was pretty fucking awesome. But did either of these experiences really change my life? Probably not, and that's okay.

Perhaps what this all comes down to is just that I am doubting more and more the reality of, or at least the honesty of, 'moments.' I think maybe there's too much emphasis placed on the instantaneous, epiphanic metamorphosis of the self, and not enough emphasis on the evolution that takes place over the course of time. Maybe crying at les nympheas didn't change the way I looked at the world per se, but spending a year wandering amongst impressionist paintings in France certainly did.

This post became something I wasn't expecting, and I wish I could have ended on a note of finality, instead of fizzling out like this...

Everything there is made of gold

2007-09-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze upon Istanbul. -Alphonse de LaMartine

Drove into Istanbul Friday night and the Bosphorus was glittering like a jewel. I felt I was suddenly in the midst of something.

Wonder if it's possible to love a city the way one loves a person...

more later, off to the Black Sea-

heart to all

Americans in Turkey

2007-09-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

*Note: This should have been posted a week ago, but it was lost in a diary, its author too lazy to transcribe it.

A guy from Brown University, Paul, arrived today, later than the rest of our group because he had had trouble getting his visa. The first thing he did when he arrived - literally, within the first two hours, - was buy a small grill from the monstrosity of a grocery store near campus, henceforth to be known as Turkish Wal-Mart.

The next evening I found Paul diligently putting together this bar-b-q in the front lawn of the building where we live. My plan had only been to linger a moment and smoke a cigarette, but before long I found myself plopped in the wet grass in my proper teacher clothes, my hands full bar-b-q parts while I studied a set of Turkish instructions worse than ikea's. The security guards poked their heads out the front door and looked at us curiously. They called Kera, our supervisor who speaks Turkish.

"You know there's a guy setting up a bar-b-q on the front lawn?" they said to her.

"I know," she answered.

"He can't do that," they said. "It is forbidden."

Having finally put the damn thing together, Paul and I were working hard to get the grill going, burning multiple kinds of paper, blowing diligently on the coals, etc. Upon the security guards' warning we appeared to pack up, but instead just moved the bar-b-q to a less candid location behind the building, rather than in front.

Other members of our group started wandering by, most of them coming back from the gym (silly Americans). Most of them became very excited at the prospect of bar-b-quing, and before long we were joined by more and more people carrying trays of meat and vegetables.

But still the coals didn't seem to be catching (Turkish wal-mart doesn't carry any of those wonderful pre-soaked ones). All of our paper kept burning out before the coals had a chance to light!

"Retarded ivy-leaguers who know how to do nothing," we kept muttering to ourselves.

Suddenly 3 security guards appeared out of the trees and approached us, speaking to us in Turkish. They didn't look stern as much as puzzled. "Come with me," one said to Paul, and Paul followed him. Damn, we're in trouble now, we thought.

A few minutes later Paul re-appeared with Zeti Bey, the head security officer of all the buildings on campus, and the kindest-looking man I have ever seen. He walked up to our grill and examined it. "You have a problem," he said quietly. We waited tensely, expecting to be reprimanded.

"Why don't you try fanning the coals?" he said.

We looked at each other and did as he said. Within a few moments the coals seemed to be going. "Congratulations!" said Zeti Bey happily.

"Do you need us to move it?" we asked.

"No, stay right where you are," he answered. "And enjoy your time in Turkey."

And so our group of Americans spent the rest of the night drinking beer and happily chewing kebabs and grilled pear around a bar-b-q on a small patch of dry grass, surrounded by asphalt, about 100 ft from our building. We talked about 'American culture'--about how there is such a thing. The Turks who noticed what we were doing seemed again, mostly puzzled.

And I went to bed smiling that night, feeling at home where I was.

Images from Cappadocia

2007-09-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

Quickly, an elementary geological explanation for Cappadocia (means "land of beautiful horses" in, gasp, Greek): Starting 60 million years ago, recurrent volcanic eruptions blanketed this terrain with boulders, ash, and lava, over time creating layers of "tuff", with the layers underneath more solid than the newer, softer levels of sediment.

The formation of the fairy chimneys, as they call them, is an extreme example of wind and water erosion. As the elements carve away at the layers of tuff, the softer volcanic rock is torn away, exposing the harder varieties.

To be honest though I wasn't paying so much attention to the science of it. I was happy just to be outside in the sun and the wind.

Humans have inhabited the region since prehistoric times, as evidenced by multiple cave paintings. The photo above was taken at the Goreme Open Air Museum, where in around 900 A.D., Christian monks lived, worked, prayed. You can crawl inside and see the frescoed chapels, dining rooms, and kitchens--where the walls are still black from cooking fires.

The rocks reminded me of something...can't quite put my finger on what...

This picture was taken while crawling around in one of the multiple underground cities within the region (signs warn not to go if you're claustrophobic). Christians fleeing the Romans built extensive structures, in which they could hide and block the entrances. Some of them could fit 15,000 people at once, though to be fair, I think people were shorter back then.

Capadocia is incredible. I only wish I could somehow have experienced it in a more solitary manner. We were traveling in large group, with a tour guide.

I'll have to go back sometime, except this time at dawn...and maybe on a pony, if I'm lucky...

Images of Ankara

2007-08-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

The oldest part of Ankara is marked by a citadel, called Hisar, believed to have been built by the Galatians--though no one really knows for sure. This makes it at least 1,000 years old.

Ankara is shaped like a bowl, with the citadel in the middle. Standing on the top of the citadel you can turn in a circle and see the mountains that surround. You can also see the faint haze of pollution that hovers over all the red roofs.

The yellow-ish high rises that you see in the second image seem to be all over Ankara. More evidence of the city's fast growth--they need housing, and they need it fast.

Here!

2007-08-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

Merhaba!

I've been in Ankara, Turkey for a week now, which is not long enough to say I've adjusted, but perhaps is long enough to say I'm starting to?

I was warned upon coming here that Ankara would disappoint--especially compared to the delight that is Istanbul. So far it's true that the city seems fairly sterile. Soulless, even. This is not to say that there aren't some cool things - Ataturk's mausoleum, the Museum of Anatolian Civilization, which is supposed to be great. There are also several universities in the area, Bilkent being one of them, and we have indeed discovered a lively area for students with lots of shops, restaurants, nargile bars, open-air terraces and the like. This is especially lovely now, in the summertime, when you can sit outside at night. The winter--rumoured to be torturously cold and windy--may rock a different vibe.

Part of the lack of culture may stem from the fact that the city is so new. Up until the foundation of the republic in 1923, Ankara was but a village. Ataturk moved the capital from Istanbul to Ankara, I believe, because Ankara is located in the very center of Turkey. He wanted a symbol of sorts. Since then the city has grown at a fast rate--population of 35,000 in 1924 to 287,000 in 1950 to over 4 million today.

This may be why so much of the city seems to look like a construction site. It's located on a plateau, surrounded by mountains, with the outer reaches of the city mostly barren, marked by sparse, sudden high rises and bulldozed land.

There was a perfect frame of a moment when Ankara's newness became especially clear. Our first weekend here, as part of our orientation, the university took us on a tour of the city. We were driving through the center of Ankara, along wide boulevards and past shopping malls, when Hande - our adorable supervisor who often wears lavender and reminds me vaguely of My Little Pony - pointed out the window at a large, dusty pink building (not dusty and pink, dusty pink--see image above).

"And over here," she said, "We have a very old building, the Ankara Opera House. A very old building, very old."

"How old?" I asked her.

"About 80-90 years," she responded.

How interesting that in a country containing ruins 10,000 years old, that this fairly forgettable 80-year-old building could be considered so noteworthy!

Anyways, more later...

heart to all

For visual learners...

2007-08-20T13:34:00.001-07:00

PRELUDE

2007-08-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

An exciting preview of things to come…

Besides soccer, two of Turkey’s favorite sports include camel wrestling and olive oil wrestling. Camel wrestling is unfortunately not man vs. camel, but rather camel vs. camel, in which two bulls wrestle in response to a female camel in heat being led before them. Apparently the most exciting part of the tournament is the danger afforded to spectators, who must beware of both flying saliva and flying urine (camels are retromingent). Onlookers are often also required to flee when the defeated camel comes galloping toward them, retreating from its opponent.

Olive oil wrestling, or yağlı güreş in Turkish, is as it sounds--wrestling drenched in olive oil. Matches are held all over Turkey throughout the year, but in early summer the wrestlers gather in Kırkpınar for the annual three-day wrestling tournament to determine who will be the baspehlivan (chief hero) of Turkey. Ottoman chroniclers and writers attest that the Kırkpınar Games have been held every year since 1362, making them the world's oldest continually sanctioned sporting competition. Rules for the matches have changed only slightly over the years. In olden times, some bouts went on for hours or even days, since the only way to win was to pin one's opponent to the ground. Some contestants died on the field. Now it is also possible to win on points, and matches are stopped after 45 minutes. About 3 tons of olive oil are consumed in each tournament.