Guns and Sacrifice

Latest adventures from this corner of the globe: picnicking with my students, a village getaway, and a weeklong exploration of south-central Turkey (though whenever I use the adjective “south-central”, I can’t help but think of York, PA and interesting New Years Eve traditions).

Things in Bartın are getting back in swing after a nice fall vacation for kurban bayramı (Eid al-Adha in the Arab Muslim world), the Muslim sacrifice holiday that, in Turkey, consists of Turks getting together with family, slaughtering sheep, kissing the hands of family elders, being given money by said family elders, and the young children going out and buying fake guns with the money. This particular tradition resulted in my encountering a boy holding a (fake) gun to his brother’s head as if a prisoner while leading him down a winding back-alley of Şanlıurfa last Tuesday (picture to the left). I half-shrieked and then just cursed the fact that all the children across the city were yielding these unfortunately real-looking weapons the entire week.

But back to my main point: just as the States are gearing up for (or have probably been in the midst of for weeks) the “holiday season,” Turkey is swiftly moving past over-eating and familial indulgence, and students are preparing for midterms and bucking up for the rest of the semester. Though I’m not opposed to the lack of Christmas music, it feels strange that, as the weather cools down (and it is, unfortunately), there are no Bryden Road-like lights ornamenting the fronts of apartment buildings. Not much cheer, just a semi-permanent cloud of coal particles hanging over the city.

This is a map of where I went over Bayram. This was the only website I could find that worked fairly well, so even though it looks like I flew everywhere, I really took an inter-city minibus, or a dolmuş, everywhere. These buses tend to stop every few hundred meters to pick up and drop off customers at their will, often on the side of highways or in the middle of the desert.

Bayram vacation was quite an adventure. The south had a distinctively different flavor than the Black Sea region, and I started in Hatay, which, in retrospect, had the most unique feel. (Sidenote: Hatay is technically the name of the region in Turkey, but it also refers to Antakya, the capital of the region. Antakya was the ancient city of Antioch, but since the Turks use Hatay and Antakya fairly interchangeably, I'll stick to calling it the former because that's what I heard the most.) Because of its proximity to Syria (looking at the map it almost seems like Turkey dipped a spoon into Syria and scooped it out), Hatay is home to a sizable population of Arab Turks, and the city is filled with both Turkish and Arabic. (Brief history lesson: the region was part of Syria under the French after the Ottomans, and then was its own republic for about a year before being annexed by Turkey in 1939.)

To the right is a view of Hatay from my hotel window.

In addition to its linguistic pluralism uncommon in the rest of Turkey, Hatay seemed fairly religiously liberal. There are a number of churches (some of them beautifully kept and still used) and even a synagogue (though only after much searching did I find its inconspicuous entrance). I don’t usually have this reaction to museums, but Hatay’s Archaeology Museum was pretty mind-blowing. The way it is set up allows for plenty of natural light to stream into the rooms, which are covered on all walls and many floors by intricate mosaics from the first several centuries of AD.

Inside the museum

Hatay's most beautiful church

Inside - the church still holds services

My coworker, Volkan, is from Hatay and met up with me in the afternoon to tour me around the city a bit. He took me to Harbiye (the ancient city of Daphne) and then to kebap. And look - there's hummus in Hatay! Just another reason to love this region.

I could go on about Hatay but will resist myself, but not before mentioning the wonderfully local-filled winding streets of the bazaar and the downright mouth-watering food. It’s supposedly the place to get künefe, a dessert of shredded wheat and cheese deep friend and soaked in honey common in Turkey, but I had better in Urfa and Mersin… I might get yelled at for saying that, but it’s true!

Next stop was to Gaziantep. (Another quick sidenote about the name: used to be just Antep, added on the prefix Gazi that means “War Hero” after they won an important battle during the war of independence. I will use “Antep” to be succinct.) Here I met up with Kate, a fellow Fulbrighter living here who was gracious enough to let me crash at her apartment while she finished grad school apps and final preparations for her own Bayram hiking a part of the Lychian Way. Kate was really the best guide around this town, because in Antep, the so-called center of Turkish gastronomy, it’s all about what you eat. I was taken to İmam Çardaş, a semi-touristy restaurant where one orders two things: kebap and baklava. And it really was easily the best meal I’ve had in this country. Perfectly seasoned ground lamb, tasty eggplant, and baklava… I can’t even put it into words. It melted in my mouth. (A portion of baklava from İmam Çardaş to the left.)

Though Antep wasn’t quite as single-female-traveling-alone-friendly as Hatay, I managed a good time. While waiting for the Ethnography Museum (I swear, ever city is obligated to have one, scary mannequins and all) to open after lunch, an old, bearded man walked out of a door across the way, looked at me oddly and then engaged me in conversation. “Oh, so you’re American? And you’re waiting for the museum? Come into my home! Really, come in. Please, enter. Yes, my wife is upstairs.” I hesitantly walked in (he promptly left behind me) to a sunny courtyard and an elderly woman motioning to me to come, come, eat, drink. I spent the next hour with Hava and one of her 18 grandchildren, Hamza, drinking Fanta and chatting. (Pictured: Hava greeting me in her courtyard.)

After Antep, I met up with Dara (current Fulbrighter in Kirklareli, Thrace part of Turkey) and Emily (former Fulbrighter, Trabzon, last year) in Şanlıurfa. (Same story with the name – Şanlı means “glorious” – and I’ll stick to “Urfa” from here on out.) We stayed at a hostel owned by a Kurdish man, Aziz, and his wife, Farida (who cooked all our meals), and had a typical hostel experience meeting other fascinating travelers (an all-blond family living in Aleppo, Syria for the year coming from Quebec; parents speak five languages fluently and three children, all under the age of seven spoke at least three). We got there just as Bayram was beginning, and I had some time to explore the neighborhood while it was still packed in pre-Bayram hysteria.

Balıklı Gölü is Urfa's main tourist drag

At night...

Urfa's great mosque

While in Urfa, Aziz took the three of us on a morning trip to Harran, a city just north of the Syrian border. It claims to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited spots on Earth (so says Lonely Planet). The remains of another claim – the first university in the world – sit in a large area that is fenced-in presumably to stop locals from using the stones to construct dwellings. It was a hot and dusty place, and mostly covered in an unfortunate layer of garbage. Here are a couple good photos I got.

At this point, I parted ways with Dara and Emily (Bayram was Dara’s birthday! And we celebrated with sweets – an excellent künefe experience), and, wanting as many travel buddies as possible, I enthusiastically got away from the beaten path and took a dolmuş to Akbez, a tiny city spitting distance from the Syrian border, and the biggest one in the vicinity of the village where my friend Lauren, another Fulbrighter, was staying with her friend Talip. I had been kindly invited to spend the night at his family’s house while I visited Lauren and met Talip’s enormous extended Kurdish family. We passed much of the evening being schlepped around the village kissing the hands and cheeks of aunts, uncles, and relatives whose relation to Talip was unclear. It was interesting to hear Kurdish being spoken, and much like the Arabic that was being lost through the generations in Arab Turkish families, the Kurdish language is not understood by Talip’s numerous nieces and nephews. Watching Kurdish satellite television from Denmark (or Belgium? Can’t quite remember), Talip cannot read his self-proclaimed “mother tongue” because education in the language has been forbidden by the national government for so long.

Talip took us to a beautiful lake made from a dam built in the area. The dam, part of the Southeast Revitalization project, basically turned a huge portion of the desert into arable land. Lauren, pictured, is obviously pumped to be so close to Syria. She is also sporting traditional "village" pants - şalvar. Super stylish.

One of aforementioned late-night family gatherings where Lauren and I sat on the floor of a relative's family room around a veritable feast. To Lauren's right is Talip, our host.

After sleeping in a living-room-turned-bedroom with Lauren and all the female members of the family, I woke up early to stand by the side of the road and flag down a bus to Mersin, my last leg of the trip. There, Onur (reluctantly) took me around to the touristy sites (the numerous and badly-treated Roman ruins that line the coastal highway) but ended up enjoying the views almost as much as I did. Mersin reminded me strongly of Algeciras with its huge port, visiting Arab population (many from Iran apparently (not all Arab I guess) – Onur’s father told me that women come to Mersin and throw off the head coverings they’re made to wear in “more conservative countries”), long stretches of beaches, and seaside feel. It was definitely not as shiny and tourist-friendly as I’m sure Antalya (Malaga, etc.) is, and a car was absolutely necessary to get around.

Above is Mersin's coastline and a view of the Kız Kalesi, Mersin's Maiden's Castle that was (supposedly) built by an ancient Cypriot king to imprison his daughter 200 meters into the sea.

Onur and the remains of the Cypriot king's original castle on shore. Oh, and the moon. It was 4:00 pm.

Beautiful Mersin sunset with Kız Kalesi to the left.

That night we met up with a couple of Onur's friends and took a stroll on the Mersin boardwalk - a stretch of 12 km alone the coast. Oh, what I would do to go for runs on that boardwalk every morning!

From the boardwalk to nargile (hookah) and çay. Onur, on the left, and his friend.

And at 12:30 am what more could one want (if one can't get Julia's Empanadas) than a portion of künefe with ground pistachios sprinkled on top? Nothing. Not even Jumbo Slice.

I arrived back in Bartın with a couple days to spare, enough time to catch up on sleep before classes started again. This upcoming weekend I’m headed to Ankara (an important throughway for my trip to and from the south, though omitted) for a Fulbrighter-filled Thanksgiving, a true Turkey Day in its homeland. Other exciting news: possible formal Turkish lessons in formation and an English-language movie night in the works for the students.

I enjoyed the pre-Bayram weather with my students a few weeks ago at a BBQ that went beyond my expectations. We ended up with a downright feast of grilled anchovies and handmade çiğ köfte – a dish I love in its vegetarian form and was half-terrified to see made etli (with meat), since it’s etli version uses raw ground beef. (Important note: I somehow didn’t get sick.)

Merve on the left and Erdinç on the right. In the middle: çiğ köfte.

Recep, Erdal, Harun and Volkan tending to the mangal hamsi - grilled anchovies.

And the girls get the task of making the salad. Cooking in this country is strangely segregated by gender. Elif, Gamze, and Emine from left to right.

Those who weren't cooking were playing games. Göktuğ (the troublemaker in my class), Gizem, Elçin, Merve, and İbrahim.

All of us post-meal and post-games.

And finally (though this whole post is out of order chronologically), a couple weeks ago I spent a lazy Sunday in Ilknur’s village just twenty minutes in a dolmuş outside of Bartın. We ate fresh produce from her family’s farm, walked through the village, and then ate some more, spending hours around the dinner table as her little sister taught me Turkish.

View of Derbent Köyü, Ilknur's village.

Ilknur's grandfather: the best mustache I've encountered to date.

Another lovely dinner with an adopted family. Delicious food and general goodhearted laughter at my attempts at Turkish.

If you’ve made it through this far, please email me with your address; I want to send you a postcard. You deserve something for staying with me so long. Really, email me. I want to send you something, because at least I know the post office is functioning in one direction. All my love and happy Thanksgiving wishes from across the globe, especially to Bexley, whose Thanksgiving dinners (and inevitable weekend-long meals/snacks/munches of leftovers) and everyone they involve I’m missing very much right now.

Sobalı Life

New development in Bartın this month: the sun has come out! While the forecast last month was a dreary day after day of rain, whether it be a full rainy day or intermittent showers, it seems like November is the time to be visiting Turkey... and there are still 25 days left. Any takers?

This weekend I did get my first visitor! One of my oldest friends from GW, Amanda Eller, came to Turkey from Dunkerque, France, and I met up with her in Istanbul before my first stint as Black Sea Tour Guide. In Istanbul I was very generously hosted by my oldest friend in Turkey, Amanda Pearson, who was my roommate at Boğaziçi University in 2007 and has stayed in Istanbul ever since. Amanda's apartment in Beşiktaş, a suburb of Istanbul, is quite stunning and amazingly located a 20-minute public bus ride away from Taksim, the debatable city center (depending on traffic). Amanda is working for an American lawyer and is the sole representative for him in Turkey. She is an incredible resource of information; not only has she dealt with her own struggles in finding an apartment and a reasonable job, but she's become fluent in Turkish and has a lot of priceless information for any American in Turkey. (To the left is Amanda's view of the Bosphorus from her apartment - breathtaking and a perfect place for breakfast and a book!)

Istanbul was a delight. It was fairly crowded because that Friday, Oct. 29 was a national holiday (the anniversary of the birth of the republic), but even walking around a bustling Istiklal Caddesi, the main drag downtown, bewildered me at how special the city really is. Over the next couple days, I explored the numerous streets jutting out in every direction from Istiklal, stopping in Ottoman antique stores, hole-in-the-wall-looking upscale clothing boutiques, and art galleries disguised as cafés. A. Peason accompanied me to the Pera Museum, whose permanent collection of art depicting Istanbul over the past three hundred years is a must-see if you are ever as lucky as I was to find yourself in the city. A. Eller and I had an interesting experience searching for and ultimately failing to find the clandestine Jewish museum that apparently exists around Galata Tower. In the process, we climbed up and down some of Istanbul's steepest hills on the first of (so far) six beautiful, clear days I've had.

My bus to Istanbul was unfortunately caught about a kilometer behind an accident and was at a standstill for almost two hours. People got of out their cars in a heavy downpour to play a real-life game of "Traffic Jam" in order to make room for emergency vehicles to get through. I was lucky to be sitting in front of nine-month-old twins from Bartın, Emre and Elif. Above is Emre, who would audibly giggle every time a made a face at him.

A. Pearson at a restaurant not far from where we had dinner; rooftop views of the city, delicious hot drinks, and excellent company. Nothing better.

View of Galata Tower (Kız Kulesi). One of many as we wandered through the city in search of the Jewish museum. Interesting, though, that there are many synagogues in the area, but the museum isn't located near any of them. Hm.

With A. Eller able to experience life in Bartın in only a few hours by sitting at a café and people-watching, the two of us headed to a more picturesque Amasra on a clear, glorious day. We spent a very relaxing couple days wandering around the empty tiny town, which adopts a sleepy village feeling during the weekday and off-season and then enjoyed a delicious fish dinner (the only kind of dinner you can possibly imagine having in Amasra). The next day we woke up early to catch all the sunlight before I had to return to Bartın for class. Here are some of the highlights...

Upon arrival at 3:00 pm. This past weekend we fell back for daylight savings, and the sun's so low all day anyway, the light was perfect for Amasra.

We hiked up the hill that you see on the right in the previous picture and got this incredible view of the city. A. Eller camouflages pretty well, don't you think?

I call this one "Shedding Amanda"

The next morning was pretty much just as beautiful as the day before. Turn your head to the right and look at the mountain in the background: I learned in 2007 when I was here that Turks believe it is the profile of Ataturk, the founder of the Republic.

As for my new living situation, Sebahat Teyze's is a fantastic new abode. She is an incredibly sweet woman who treats me as a daughter/boarder, and I already feel more at home in the apartment than I did for four months in Algeciras. Living with her has been incredible for my language skills, too; if my vocabulary hasn't expanded so much, I've increased my fluency a lot, and feel very comfortable doing basic conversing in Turkish. While the larger questions of "Why am I learning Turkish? When will this language be helpful in my future career? " often loom in the back of my head, I've gotten loads of positive feedback from Turks who don't expect foreigners to learn their language, and hearing that is reinforcement enough to continue to study and practice.

One of the aspects of Turkish life that I've been exposed to since moving into Sebahat Teyze's is the lack of central heating. In order to heat her apartment, she uses two wood/coal/old patent leather high heel-burning stoves called "sobas" - referred to in the the title of this post "Life with a Soba". The introduction of sobas into my life has increased my fear that I will lose my life to a fire in the middle of the night (but don't worry, Mom! Sobas are super safe, and I've not yet heard of a soba-induced house fire, even in these old wooden Ottoman houses). Using the stove as heating isn't very efficient, though; once it's lit, it heats the immediate area around it (in my case, a small living room) and leaves the rest of the house freezing. In addition, the heat lasts about three hours, so waking up in the morning (even in the past incredibly beautiful highs-in-the-60s-and-sunny days) has been a bit painful. I think a small bedside electric heater is in my future...

Sebahat Teyze tends to the soba.

Peppers drying on our balcony.

And finally, I'm trying my best to get the hang of teaching. I've got a variety of classes that all present their own challenges and issues when it comes to lesson-planning; some classes are around 50 students, so playing games or developing activities that both engage the students and encourage participation from everyone is tough. Others are quite small - this past week especially, some of my smaller grammar classes range from 5 to 20 students depending on how well the weather permits pickup soccer games. My speaking classes are especially tough to plan for: students' levels range from total beginner to moderate, and the class is around 30 students. Though the students mostly seem motivated to speak, they're all fairly shy, so I work on listening as much as possible. In recent activities I've created, many of my friends have had cameos: to practice speaking, Allison Holliday (who can play the cello), Bill Smith (who can do math easily), and Gabi Pelican (who knows how to swim), have all been introduced to my students, to name a few. Seriously, if anyone has ideas that might work that make 30 students speak, please... I'm open to any suggestions.

Next week I'm heading to south-central Turkey for our November break (Kurban Bayram - a week-long Muslim sacrifice holiday that gives me a week off of school). I'm planning to visit the Hatay region of Turkey and make stops in three other cities before heading back to Bartın. Hope everyone had a fun Halloween and is enjoying the foliage of fall. Things are still green around here; I'm waiting to see if we get any seasonal coloring. Anyway, all my love to everyone out there. Oh! And here's my address if you're interested:

Kirtepe Mahalle
Eskikonak Cad. No. 36/Kat: 2
Bartın, Türkiye 74100

Letters to that address should get to me... You never know, but the people at the post office know my name now, so at least they'll probably keep the letters and call me if the address is incorrect. They've got my cell phone number.

Leaving you with my new desktop background. Stunning, isn't it?

Kuru Kuru Gitmez

"It's not good without tea."

In Turkey, tea is not just a staple of daily (hourly..?) life; it is also the grease in every imaginable social and bureaucratic situation one could possibly encounter. The above phrase is one of many expressions I have been dutifully compiling over the past few weeks thanks to some very gracious and patient Turkish colleagues. Kuru kuru gitmez was uttered by Ilknur, another English teacher at the university, a few weeks ago as the two of us sat in front of a plate of börek she had brought from home and waited for tea to be delivered to our office by the downstairs cafeteria. I, of course, thanked her for the delicious snack and took a bite, only noticing moments later she'd restrained herself. Once the tea arrived, however, an invisible but palpable balance was restored, and we both enjoyed our börek and çay together - the proper way to consume both. Our office has acquired the nickname the Girls' Club because of the distinct gender divide among the language teachers. The best part (besides spontaneous dancing to Fiddler on the Roof in Turkish ("Ah Bir Zengin Olsam" - "If I Were a Rich Man" - if you were wondering)): our incredible sunset view.

Though today marks the end of my third week of teaching (my aforementioned gracious colleagues offered me a 4-day work week), I will be heading back to the university tomorrow as an English language resource and hopefully for some informal Turkish classes. Monday through Thursday I teach four hours of speaking class in the preparatory year program (hazırlık). I should really preface all remarks concerning the education system here with the fact that I am still completely confused as to how it works nationally, and only partly clear on some aspects of my university's organization. Hazırlık, a year-long curriculum of English reading, grammar, and speaking courses, is optional at Bartın Üniversitesi and only available to certain departments, but is compulsory for students at many other universities in Turkey. For this reason, I have been blessed with students who have made a serious decision to delay the start of their studies to improve their English. Teaching my hazırlık class is great but extremely challenging because, even though they have theoretically had at least seven years of English in primary and secondary school, many of them don't have any speaking skills beyond what is rote memorization ("Hello, my name is," "Fine, thank you and you," etc). Because I'm the first native speaker many of them have met, the biggest problem I've encountered is getting them to recognize the words I say (like cucumber (ju-jum-bare?) or juice (joo-i-ee-jay?)), so I end up writing much of my script on the board. I should add that I do have another English teacher, either Nurcan or Pelin, who is able to translate whatever gets lost in translation (as you can imagine, a lot). My other responsibilities are as a native speaker resource to grammar classes in engineering and business departments where I play games and talk about the differences between Kurban Bayram (a Muslim holiday in November) and Thanksgiving.

Tea has been a key ingredient in some wonderful dinners I've been (again, graciously) a part of in the past couple weeks. The colleagues with whom I work directly are mostly my age, which proves incredibly convenient because 1) they are super friendly and inclusive and 2) I greatly appreciate social interaction and need both cultural and linguistic translators to help me navigate through life here. Maybe most importantly: they like to cook, and they seem like they aren't just trying to humor me when I ask if they will teach me how to cook Turkish food.

Last weekend, Sarah and I joined the other English teachers (and members of the Girls' Club) Ilknur, Pelin, and Nurcan at Pelin's lovely abode, to make a feast from scratch that ended in not just çay, but also Türk kahvesi (Turkish coffee), and thus also some fal bakmak (reading one's fortune) from the overturned coffee cups.

Nurcan, Ilknur, Sarah, and Pelin preparing tavuk ve pilav (chicken and rice)

After dinner: cookies, coffee, and fortunes. What do you see in my grinds?

Last week was a marathon of three incredible dinners. First, Ilknur invited me to her home where I met her amazing family and learned the proper way to cut chestnuts to be roasted.

Ilknur's sister Ceyda, Ilknur, and her parents

Ilknur's mother was far too patient with my knife skills. As I do with many things in my life, I blame this incapacity on my thumbs.

Final product: roasted chestnuts, çay, and a Turkish soap series in the reflection.

The next afternoon I was chaperoned around the city and province by Onur, a French teacher, and Volkan, a history teacher (two members of the alluded-to Boys' Club). After setting up my bank account (seriously, thank you Onur if you are reading this), we stopped in İnkumu, a jaw-dropping stretch of Black Sea beach about 15 km west of Amasra, before making an incredible fish dinner chez eux.

Onur in a foggy İnkumu

Cleaning fresh hamsi (anchovies)! Purchased from the fish market hours before

There is just never enough baklava in my life. The perfect ending to any dinner

I was also invited to the house of Ayşe, a German teacher at the university and the final member of the girls club. At Ayşe's, I had what is probably the best soup I have tasted so far on this trip. The pictures unfortunately didn't come out so well, which just means I'll have to invite myself back to learn the name of the soup.

Tea also helped cushion the pains of planning a trip to Sinop, where I was able to meet the two Fulbrighters stationed there, Lucian and Amy, plus Emily, who did some serious schlepping to bus from Uşak (13 hours each way). Although Turkey's bus system is seemingly complete, with buses serving far-away cities all over the country from our small town, it somehow fails to have any convenient way for me to get just one city east along the coast. During this cup of tea, I learned the phrase sabahin körü (the blindness of morning) to describe times so early in the morning that it's pitch black. Times when I shouldn't be conscious. And, evidently, the only times when buses go to Sinop. Despite my colleagues' genuine pleading with me not to go ("It wasn't meant to be," etc.), I decided I needed an adventure and last Friday made the 10-hour trip.

It was worth every hour - Sinop is like a city-sized Amasra. Located on an egg-shaped peninsula, it has ruins of fortifications from the Pontic kings, reinforced by the Romans and Byzantines, and from a NATO base that existed there until the 1990s. The city is noticeably more liberal than Bartın - while I struggle to find cafes here that are not full of men smoking and playing cards (commonly called kahvehane), Sinop is sprinkled with adorable cafes, women walking alone around the streets, and a real port town atmosphere. Amy and Lucian were wonderful hosts, showing us the best cafes and mantı restaurants. I half-wish I could say that I saw the waterfalls outside of town we'd planned to get to, but really we spent most of our time talking about Irish politics and playing Bananagrams at various locations with sea-views.

First night: Emily and Lucian are excited for fish

OK, so we played some gin rummy, too

Overcast morning on the harbor

Photo credit to Amy for the last two! Sitting next to her most of the time precluded Amy from being in my Sinop pictures

To those still with me, congratulations! I've reached the most exciting news yet, progress that has also been orchestrated with the help of tea along the way. Tomorrow morning I will be moving in with the mother of one of my coworkers, Huseyin Bey, veteran member of the Boys' Club. Just when Saft Otel got hot water! Moving in with Sebahat Teyze (Aunt Sebahat is what I'm told I will call her - also learned her first name just this morning...) is amazing and exciting but I'm very cautious about the whole situation. Our meeting for the first and only time prior to my moving in with her was successfully smoothed over by the presence of çay, but given my host-family situations in the past (Juani la Loca from Algeciras, for example), I'm still a little worried due to the cultural and linguistic gaps present. Oh, did I mention Aunt Sebahat doesn't speak a word of English? Advantage? Certainly: improving my Turkish is priority number one after teaching. Also, I hear my new Turkish aunt is an excellent cook. I will keep you updated on my feats in Turkish cuisine.

Until then, here's my favorite cup-of-çay-and-view combination of the past couple weeks. From a ways up the hill in Sinop - a view of the city from a tea garden (çay bahçesi). All my best to Ohio, DC, Boston (Aunt Lisa, no Turkish aunt could ever replace you!), Togo (!), or wherever else you may be at this moment.

Getting Settled by the (Black) Sea

Greetings from Bartın, finally! Sarah and I arrived this past Saturday and are currently settling into an interesting limbo. We have very kindly been given temporary housing in a hotel next to the ötögar (bus station), approximately 10 km from the center of town. Though Saft Otel is perfectly nice, and our host, Emrullah Bey, a post-graduate student teaching English at Bartın Universitesi, promised us that the housing would be "for a week," Sarah and I have placed bets on the day that we will step into our permanent housing, and neither of us expects to leave Saft anytime before October 9. What are the many upsides to living out of a suitcase for another two weeks, you ask? For one, we are pretty sure we're the only guests at the entire hotel. The staff are incredibly friendly and generous (they even did our mountain of dirty laundry for, what we can only ascertain, no charge whatsoever). Secondly, itching for physical activity, Sarah and I very luckily discovered a back road that starts right next to our hotel and goes for miles into the lush Black Sea countryside. As many of you know, over the past few months, living in Washington really weighed on me. The wailing ambulances, hoards of obese tourists, and boiling pavement made leaving the city less heartbreaking than it would have been. Well, I feel that I have finally arrived in green, outdoor bliss. The two of us have encountered unexpected friendliness by the villagers we've seen along the way; rather than just greeting us a with a Good Evening ("Iyi akşamlar"), we get a friendly (and curious) "Hoş Geldiniz!" (Welcome!). Though it's quite obvious we're not from around there, I do believe they think we're still Turkish - any attempt to speak to them on my part is met with fast mumbles and then pauses in which it's assumed I've understood. They can't quite believe it when we tell them we're Americans teaching at the university for nine months. I've promised myself that I'll return once my Turkish is conversational (shooting for December...) so that the verbal exchange won't be totally for naught. (There was also an amazing interaction during last night's walk that I did not include in this description... but Sarah discusses in her blog. It involves a very nice stranger and corn on the cob.)

So we're actually quite comfortable in our temporary abode - looking to unpack and cook, but otherwise, no serious complaints. The dolmuş (small bus) stops across the street from the hotel and takes us into the center of town (çarşı) for less than one US dollar. Bartın is surprisingly bustling! A town of around 50,000, it is the capital of a Turkish province by the same name. Everyone we're met who is not from here is decidedly unhappy to be in Bartın, and does not have a problem telling us, but Sarah and I think we will like living here very much. We've had plenty of time to wander about in the commercial area and get ourselves all but lost in the charming residential neighborhood surrounding "downtown." We stumbled upon Bartın's ethnography museum that we're pretty sure not one local "Bartınian" is aware of. Once again we had the kind of lovely interaction with someone I can only presume is the owner that made me swear I'd return when I had a better grasp on the language.

When we tired of the city itself, we took another dolmuş (approx $2.15 and 30 minutes) to beautiful Amasra, a small coastal town that I visited three years ago. In a post in this very blog about my trip there three years ago, I wrote that Amasra made me contemplate potential career paths that would allow me to spend long periods of time on the Black Sea coast. Not that Fulbright is a career path (or could it be...?), but I've certainly been lucky to be placed in such a wonderful region. My return to Amasra was heavy with expectation: this was, in fact, the place where I exclaimed to my parents in a panorama post card that I would spend the rest of my life. Did it live up to my projections? Even on a cloudy and sometimes rainy day, the view was glorious. The small town, situated on small green cliffs dropping down to a stunning Black Sea, is full of fresh fish, small Turkish children, and views. Sarah and I began a list of activities that would fill all our free time in the coming months including, but not limited to, sunning on the beach and piknik-ing at the highest perches of the peninsula with fresh goods from the old ladies at the market below.

What, do you ask, is the progress with regards to why I'm really in Turkey? It's not all long walks alongside cows and dinners of fresh fish with a view of the sunset, I suppose. Emrullah Bey, as I mentioned before, is our incredibly kind contact person at the university. While many other Fulbrighters had some issues getting in contact with their uni (and even more have had communication issues regarding their responsibilities since arriving), Sarah and I have been truly lucky with our placement. We're told that we will begin speaking classes with "hazırlık" or preparatory classes for students who want to improve their language skills by taking only English classes for a year before they begin classes for their major. So far, most of our questions have been answered in the best possible way. Our classes should be around 25 students each, and it turns out the hazırlık is optional for students this year - we hope this guarantees that our students will be as motivated to learn conversational English as we are to teach them. Today, Emrullah Bey graciously allowed us to sit in on some of his English grammar classes with first-year students who chose to forgo hazırlık, and their spoken English was pretty disastrous given they've been studying the language for at least a few years. This observation has further fueled my motivation to teach English. Sarah and I are brainstorming, but if anyone reading this has any ideas about games to play with real English beginners... please share.

This week-long vacation between arriving and beginning classes has been a welcome hiatus. I admittedly didn't plan very well in the weeks leading up to arriving in Ankara, and it's been a mental struggle to keep everything in perspective without having the time I needed to reflect on my trip. These days off have given me time to read, explore, and prepare goals and expectations for the months ahead. I'm also just trying to enjoy my surroundings as much as possible. Here, I'll show you: here's this morning's breakfast...
See, Mom and Dad? Reading AND staying hydrated. Photo documentation to prove it.

Love to everyone from a tiny Turkish village. Hope this finds you happy and healthy.

Orienting in Ankara

I'm baaack! On this blog, and in Turkey. I haven't quite decided how to utilize this space other than for its main function - Hi Mom and Dad! Yes, I'm alive and staying hydrated - but I suppose we'll see how it evolves over the next 9 months. Thank you for following my journey!

My current location is Ankara, Turkey, specifically at the Ogretmenevi ("Teacher's House") hotel for the Fulbright English Teaching Assistant orientation that will be lasting almost two weeks. Upon arrival to the hotel on Monday, I was greeted by a panoramic view of the city from the balcony of my room, 13 stories up. The day was supposed to be rainy, but the wind that replaced the rain cleared Ankara's lower atmosphere of the layer of smog that usually blankets the city. After 24 hours of recycled air and 16-inch legroom, this view was refreshing and exciting.

Orientation has been generally a beneficial experience. Save the embassy security guards who scared the living daylight out of us (I may never again be able to walk on sidewalks here without imagining my impending gory doom), the lecturers and instructors have been informative and often entertaining. We've had a number of university professors who have spoken about the political and ethnic climate in contemporary Turkey and even had a pseudo-performance from Talat Halman, a Turkish poet, speaking to us about art and literature through the ages. Intermittently throughout, we've also had some Turkish lessons (much appreciated by many ETAs who have never had formal Turkish classes). One of the most helpful (and entertaining) sessions was one that explained the subtleties behind simple greetings and farewells, and few words in between. Very little Turkish can go a long way, our instructor assured us. Simple "please" and "thank you" can easily show yes/no, graciousness, and flattery. Apparently it is Turkish custom to offer house guests food/drink up to three times. We learned what to bring (and what not to bring) if invited into a Turkish household (one kilo of baklava, homemade, never store-bought), and how to greet the rectors of our university when we arrive.

Eight to nine hours cooped up inside all day for the past week has been tough. After the first day of orientation, a few other ETAs and I decided to walk until we were hungry, making turns when we felt like it, and stopping to take pictures at every opportunity. Having been without a camera for so long, I'm still adjusting to having the ability to take a picture. I'm actively trying to reverse this habit... but for now, I've only got a couple images from Ankara. We wandered into the floral neighborhood of Bahçelievler, where Kokoreç (lamb intenstines) joints and fancy clothing stores lined the streets, and finally collapsed at an Iskender Kebap restaurant in Kızılay. On our way back, we noticed a hookah bar just below Maltepe mosque, so we stopped to play a little tavla (backgammon).

Next Saturday we will be heading all over the country to our placements. There are 54 Turkey ETAs, and many of us have been placed in what I call the "Peoria, Illinois" of Turkey. We tell Turks we meet where we'll be teaching, and they respond, "Why are you going there?" I will be with another Fulbrighter, Sarah Lipson, in Bartın, Turkey, a town of 30,000 in the northwest of the country, 18 km from the Black Sea. Sarah is from Arlington, MA. On Thursday, the two of us wandered in a different direction from the hotel and ended up at a tavukçu, a chicken restaurant. The food was... divine. Fresh, spiced, and tasty. Although we were both fairly full from our meals, we ordered the "special" tatlı, dessert. An amazing bed of shredded wheat and pistachios soaked in honey and garnished with peaches and grapes. Needless to say, I'm constantly looking forward to the next meal in this country. Is this enough of a commercial for why you should visit me? I'll take that as a challenge to do better.

Writing about this is making me hungry... which brings me to Yom Kippur a la Turkey. Admittedly, it wasn't the safest decision - not to try to be a Jew in Turkey, but to take a taxi period. A few words on the traffic "laws" in this country: they don't exist. Lanes are optional. Red lights are optional. I think many who have traveled at all can empathize, but each time I'm faced with foreign driving, I'm frightened all over again. Turkish drivers have an incredible spacial sense of their vehicles and are able to come within inches if each other with presumably few accidents. But the few of us who decided to venture to the synagogue made it unscathed - shocking to all of us. As we expected, Turkish police had a large presence in the neighborhood around the shul, prohibiting the taxi from getting within a block of the entrance. We were so warmly welcomed to Kol Nidre, and since we arrived early, we talked for a while with a local Jewish woman and many Israeli security who had been placed in Ankara with the embassy. The building was built in 1906 - amazing to me that Ankara, a city that grew only after 1923 when it became Turkey's capital, had enough Jews at the turn of the century to start a synagogue. Today, the shul only operates when it can find a rabbi - this weekend one from Istanbul came so that they could hold services. The Jewish community of 30 people can hardly form a minyan since women aren't counted - the community in Istanbul is nearly 20,000 - so Sean, the only male of the ETAs who went, had the honor of holding the Torah. Though I found the service itself horribly boring (a mix of being unaccustomed to Sephardic chants and being unable to follow along in meaning in neither the Hebrew nor Turkish), I was pleased that because of the small attendance, the women were able to sit just across the small shul from the men, not banished upstairs as would be customary. There was one moment in the service, around 8:30, when I could hear around us, just below the forceful recitations by the rabbi, the call to prayer, and only then did it hit me that I was observing Yom Kippur in a Muslim country.

We are planning on returning to the shul this afternoon - hoping as well to look hungry enough after the service that we'll be invited to a Turkish breakfast. Turns out the Israeli Ambassador to Turkey was one of the 12 men attending the service last night, and the security around the building was for him. Shul-goers alone would not have been able to afford the appropriate security needed without his presence. I'm also hoping to take some pictures when I go back so that I'll have something to show.

Until then, all my love to everyone at home and abroad. Hope all is well. Feel free to email me sasha.frankel@gmail.com - I don't yet have my address (or living arrangements...agh!), but I will post them as soon as I do. Please share your address if you would like a postcard!

I have two days left in my beloved Istanbul, and I'm getting melancholy. When Dana left, I went to the airport with her to try and extend my stay, change my flight to a week later, but I acted too late and apparently all flights through Lufthansa from Turkey/Germany to the States for the next three weeks are booked. Which is pretty hard to believe, disappointing, but apparently true.

So yes, the weekend after my Capadoccia adventure, Dana came to Istanbul! It was a momentous occasion, the first time we'd been together abroad without Mom and Dad, which, however much we love our parents, was nearly unbeatable. We walked the tourist path so well - I even stayed in Sultanahmet with her at a hostel which was tight and full of backpackers, but still a good experience. The view from the top of the hostel was one I'd never seen before - looking southeast over the Bosphorus as it opens up to the Marmara. We did Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia like I had done three weeks before, but we also got into the Basilica Cistern, which I had to refer to Wikipedia to explain:

The Basilica Cistern, also called the Yerebatan Sarayı or Yerebatan Sarnıcı, is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that still lie beneath the city of Istanbul, former Constantinople, Turkey. The cistern, located in the historical peninsula of Istanbul next to the Hagia Sophia, was built during the reign of emperor Justinian I in the 6th century, the age of glory of Eastern Rome, also called the Byzantine Empire.

There you go. Couldn't have even tried to do it myself. It's my roommate Sarah's favorite tourist attraction because it's a few floors below the city and 15 degrees cooler on any given boiling day in Istanbul. Oh, and it's incredible - the stone pillars are in such rows with such lighting. I'm not being very poetic today, but it's worth a visit. That was definitely a highlight of our sightseeing.

Another enormous highlight, not just of Dana's visit, but of my entire trip and definitely my life thus far, was that Saturday, which consisted of a boat trip on the Bosphorus supported by ARIT (American Research Institute in Turkey), the program based here that is basically the sister-program to CAORC, the people who sent me here. Whoo, that was complicated. Anyway, the short of it was that this day-trip, which consisted of two small, chartered boats that took us up from Bebek (already about a third of the way up the Bosphorus) to the mouth of the Black Sea. Along the way, we stopped at a Genoese Castle that was originally used to control the entrance of boats from the Black Sea to the Bosphorus and has been used by the military until about 20 years ago when the Soviet Union stopped being a threat to Turkey. The view was incredible, definitely worth the climb up. In one direction was the very top of the Bosphorus and the Black Sea and in the other you could almost see to our university campus several miles away.

Once we got back down to the boats, my time came. The director of the program, a 60-something ex-pat who swims daily, invited anyone who wanted (but warned us of the long distance) to swim with him for his annual cross-Bosphorus triumphant journey. And I did! About 15 of us jumped off the boats swimming from about 100 meters away from Asia to a closer distance to Europe. It took us just around 30 minutes to cross, and we did so after the last tanker passed us going south towards the Marmara. How was it? Incredible, beautiful, not chilly at all, full of huge waves. For the first ten minutes I was completely freaked out - the waves were much bigger and the current much stronger than I could even try to compete with, but it turned out I was just struggling against what in the end helped me get by. We ended up being caught so much by the current that the boats picked us up by the European side probably half a mile farther south than when we started. But it was incredible.

After the swim we took the ferries up to what on the map I'm seeing as Anadolu Feneri (but I'm not sure if that was the place), probably the very last town on the Bosphorus on the Asian side. Dana was lucky to experience probably the very best Turkish meal I've ever eaten (though closely followed by the meal at Cumhuriyet last Saturday that you may have seen in my most recent video): first, and most importantly, the meze, which I like to think of as Turkish tapas. A variety of stewed vegetables (onions, tomatoes, eggplant), stewed/fried eggplant, salad, hummus, yogurt, white cheese, canned fish, and probably more things I don't even remember. All in little plates for each to take a couple bites from and pass along. Then came the fish and meat: a plate of fried calamari, anchovies, and mussels and another plate of the Turkish food börek, which can come in different forms but is usually baked filo dough stuffed with meat, cheese, spinach, or a combination of the three. Delicious. (On Saturday came another course - the real main course - some of which I think was shown on the video. After all those "appetizers" they brought us the main dishes: whole grilled fish or basically a separate plate of sausage meatballs. Way too much, but incredible nonetheless.) Finally, and this is after an hour, hour and a half of eating, drinking, talking, gazing at the beach/Bosphorus, we had dessert. A large piece of homemade baklava, the bottom layer soaked in honey, and a large plate of colorful fresh fruit. After all the food was cleared, we washed down the meal with either a glass of çay or a cup of Türk khavesi, Turkish coffee. The only disruption was that we were sheparded back into the boats before our over-turned coffee cups could cool down enough to have our fortunes read.

From the very top of the Bosphorus, the boats took us about halfway back while we sunbathed on the deck, trying to sustain ourselves from the waves rocking the boat and attempting to digest before we swam again. This time the boats stopped in what I assume was a boat-free zone. Other boats were teathered to the same spot, and most of the students and adults on the trip (all of us made 30, I think?) jumped in, even those who didn't cross the Bosphorus the first time. The fun generated into a diving competition off the side of the boat, which ended in the trip's visitor, the supposed "daddy" of our program here, Tom Farrell, the State Department "Deputy Assistant Secretary for Academic Programs" dove from 20 feet up into the Bosphorus. Wonderful. The boat took us all the way back to Bebek at the foot of Bogaziçi University, where Dana and I caught a bus back to our hostel. Phew.

There is more that has to do with Dana's visit, a trip to the castle right next to the university's campus and the biggest Starbucks I've ever seen (with a deck that literally SITS on the Bosphorus), but I've got to move on.

What else?
I leave in about 30 hours for the airport, and something feels so wrong. When I was in Spain (which begins so many different sentences...), I felt some kind of accomplishment, completion of what I'd come to do. I knew Spanish so well, I felt comfortable in the country, speaking the language, being with my friends. I felt so home, though I knew I was ready to come home for real, but here that entire feeling has hardly begun to develop in me. In fact, I'm only understanding 20-30% of what I hear in full-on Turkish conversation. Now coming from nothing, I do feel accomplished, but there is still such a long way to go. Earlier today I was checking out Turkish classes taught by the director of this program at Georgetown and unfortunately they majorly conflict with not only my current class schedule but also with crew... I'm going to try to continue with Turkish, but I know I just want to stay here, in Istanbul, and really FINALLY just get inside the language. This program was a wonderful stepping stone and I made incredible, amazing friends, but we're almost all Americans if not all English-speakers, and that was the one disappointment. I wish I had been more immersed in the language than I was, but that certainly doesn't mean I didn't have the most incredible summer of my life, because I did. I know I sound so sappy right now, but I feel really incomplete leaving Turkey in a day and a half and knowing that if only I stayed, I could learn the langauge. For me, that's the hardest part.

Swimming the Bosphorus:


Basilica Cistern:


View from Genoese castle:

For your enjoyment (and until I actually sit down to fill in the gaps of the last two weeks), a very pleasant night at Cumhuriyet, an extremely old meyhane (men's coffee house) transformed into a restaurant on Nevizade Street in Istanbul last Saturday night.