Christmas in Konya

I just got back on Sunday evening from a lovely weekend in Konya, the place where Rumi died and is entombed. I have friends who live in Konya: Franny, an ELF like me, and Aundreta, who is a Fulbright teaching assistant. Patreshia, another ELF, joined as well, and we all stayed at Franny's great apartment. On Friday, we had a really wonderful Christmas dinner. It was so special to spend the day and evening with them. The next day went to see a tile museum of local Selcuk era tiles, and then went on to the Mevlana (another name for Rumi) museum.

The museum was a powerful place for me as I've been reading Rumi's poetry for over ten years. Being near his tomb was incredibly moving in ways I can't quite express in this blog. After the museum we visited a beautiful ceramic shop, owned by a dervish. He was a wonderful and humble man and we chatted with his children for some time. We also visited a carpet shop and a felt shop, both of which I've pictured here.

Finally we went to the sema, the whirling dervish performance. It was very beautiful, though it felt a bit more like a spectator experience than an intimate ritual like the other performances I've seen. That said, it was still special and I got some lovely pictures. Anyway, check out the album below, especially for the sema pictures at the end.

Here is a short blog entry I wrote about sema, and click here for a much more informative web page about sema as well.

Hope your holidays were fantastic!

And the moral of the story is...

I recently had my students write dialogs for our speaking class. We created the two characters as a class: Jason and Natasha, married Russian immigrants in their mid-thirties, with two kids. Natasha, a truck driver in Istanbul, was frustrated with Jason for his irresponsible spending during his frequent poker games and his drinking problem.

Here is one of my favorites, thanks to the surprise moral ending and the omniscient newscaster. I put corrections in parentheses.

(N=Natasha, J=Jason)

N: Sweetheart, give me a cigarette please.

J: Okay, if you smoke in (the) truck, I'll drink vodka.

N: Why are you comparing yourself with me?

J: Remember, we are equal.

N: You always do this to me! I hate the way you (argue)! I can't stand your drinking. You are always dizzy. You are a different man from (the one) I fell in love (with).

J: You are the same woman whom I fell in love, you say? Ohhh...come on!

N: Things have changed so (much). You said that I was losing my beauty. It (hurt) me!

J: We have been arguing lately. I'm bored with this. If it goes on, I'll hate you!

N: Do you want to divorce?

J: I think it is better for us.

N: I don't want to cry, I don't want to cry!

J: LOOOOOK!

N: Oh my G....

Newscaster: There was an accident last night. A couple argued and had an accident. Unfortunately, both of them died. Please people, be careful when you decide to marry...

(HA!)

O Tannenbaum

This is about as Christmas as it gets here in Turkey: Our Christmas tree. One of Fielding's friends bought a potted tree and we decorated it with a hard-to-find strand of lights, some home made snow flakes, a wall hanging that we decided to use as an ornament, and some carefully crafted popcorn strands that I made (a close-up of the snow flakes and popcorn are below).

Nonetheless, I think he's super cute. His name is Charlie Brown, but I think he'd better than Charlie Brown's trees by far. It's the simple things like this that help you feel not so far away from home. But still--I miss the holiday; it's my favorite. And I miss the subtle signs of it everywhere...here it's nowhere to be found. It's funny too because all the Turks call New Year's Eve Christmas, so they keep asking about my Christmas plans and insisting that they celebrate Christmas too--until I ask them what day they celebrate it on (December 31st of course!) and I explain the difference.

Happy Holidays to you!

Riots in Turkey--The Kurdish Issue Strikes Again

For those not so aware of Turkey's inner political tensions, I'll fill you in a little bit on some recent events that, surprisingly, haven't made their way to mainstream news. A few days ago, when I was having dinner at my student's apartment (see post below), one of them walked in and shared some "very bad news." Apparently the Turkish government had decided to ban the main Kurdish party, the Democratic Kurdish Society Party (DTP), effectively shutting out the Kurdish voice out of parliament.

There were already protests and some minor riots because the Kurdish people were angry that their PKK leader, Aubdullah Öcalan, had been moved into a smaller prison cell. But with this news, suddenly the riots escalated, and suddenly masses of people were rioting, throwing rocks through windows and at riot police.

A little background: Turkey began serious negotions to join the EU, back in 2005. While that is an entirely separate topic to address, some of the EU's social concerns about Turkey joining (at least the outwardly spoken ones) are Turkey's human rights issues: women's equality (which Turkey has made large strides in addressing), and its treatment of Armenians and Kurds in the country. I'm going to gloss over Armenia right now and focus quickly on the Kurds, for obvious reasons.

The Kurdish issue is a complicated one. Kurds are a separate ethnicity with their own Indo-European language, and comprise about 18% of the population in Turkey. Kurdish people live all over Turkey, but primarily in the southeast and eastern regions. Since 1930, when Turkey was founded, the Turkish government has created a lot of policies aimed at forced assimilation and Turkification of local Kurdish populations. For example, in the 1980 coup d'etat, the government banned Kurds from speaking their language in public. The ban was lifted in 1991, when a president was elected of partial Kurdish descent. However, Turkish remains the official language, the only one spoken in politics and public services. In 2003, the Turkish Parliament eased restrictions on Kurdish language rights in Turkey, yet Kurds are still largely banned from giving their children Kurdish names.

As a colleague carefully explained to me yesterday, Kurds feel that being Turkish is an ethnic and cultural heritage, not a nationality. They want to be recognized as Kurds living in Turkey, but they don't want to label themselves Turkish (it is a bit like if Jews had to give up calling themselves Jewish, and could only call themselves American, because calling themselves Jewish and speaking Hebrew would be forbidden.)

During the 1970's, the Kurdish separatist movement gave rise to a Marxist-Leninist party called the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK). Between 1984 and 1999, Turkey was engaged in a continuous conflict with the PKK. Human Rights Watch documented many cases where the Turkish government completely wiped out villages of local Kurds in an attempt to quell the PKK movement. During that period, an estimated 3,000 Turkish villages in Turkey were wiped from the map, displacing over 378,000 people (1).

All of this inner tension has continually resulted in constant riots and instability. Much of this began to change, however, when the current prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, promised Kurds equal rights and planned to relax previous restrictions. Erdogan has been praised for his recent attempts to peacefully address both the Armenian and Kurdish issues that Turkey faces. As one article wrote: "Last September, tens of thousands flooded the streets, holding flowers and 'celebrating brotherhood' with the Turks. Not a single stone was thrown. Not one angry word spoken."

Then a recent turn of events changed everything. The Turkish constitutional court ruled that the DTP, a party that many believe funds PKK terrorism in Turkey, should be banned because of it's alleged connection with the PKK. This resulted in further rioting on the streets, and a sense among Kurds that their voices are not being heard. Another political party was established in May (The Party for Peace and Democracy), when the members of the DTP discovered that their party would likely be banned. I'm not sure how they will be integrated into the government.

The question is: What's the right thing to do as Turkey moves forward? If they shut out the Kurdish political party, it seems that they'll create more opposition and more violence. But if they accept them--despite possible connections with a terrorist group--then they are essentially allowing a possibly violent faction to have an equal voice in politics. What is the best answer to achieving inner stability in the long term, while also acknowledging the rights of 20% of the nation's population? This is the question Turkey must wrestle with now--and fast--before this issue gets increasingly out of hand.

For more reading on this topic, check out a TIME magazine article here.

Or a recent news article about the riots here. (I don't like the patronizing tone of this article, but it has some decent history and explanations). The photo in this blog was taken from this article, and is of Protesters running from tear gas fired by riot police during a clash between Kurds and Turkish police in Diyarbakir on December 14, 2009.


(1): ^ "Still critical". Human Rights Watch. March 2005. p. 3. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/turkey0305/3.htm#_Toc97005223. Retrieved 2007-09-12.

Students make me dinner!

Some of my favorite students made me dinner last weekend and it was so fun. Ferdi, the cook, and Ilker, the chief of affairs (Ferdi appointed him), and several other students gathered for a tasty meal of tarhani soup, a delicious chicken dish, and my favorite: Turkish rice.

Anyway, it was fantastic and I had such a great time. I felt really welcomed by my students--a nice break from a bunch of quiet (and often lonely) evenings at home. Here is one more picture below of Sevtap, me, and Fielding.

Special Birthday Party

Last weekend was really special for me for a number of reasons. One of them was a birthday party I was invited to. One of my colleagues, Beture, has taken me under her wing, introduced me to several of her friends, and invited me to several dinners and breakfasts. Anyway, it was her 60th party--by the way, I think she looks fantastic for 60!

Her best friend Diljin and I planned the party a few weeks before, and I was so touched to be one of the five women invited; the guest list included her daughter and her two children, her best friend Diljin, two other women who she's extremely close with, and another best friend who couldn't make it. Diljin said that Beture would only want people she loved there, and I can't tell you how much it meant to me to be included on that intimate list.

Beture had thought she was just meeting Diljin and I for an afternoon tea, so the whole event was a beautiful surprise. We had picked out an incredibly designed cake, written notes to her that we put into an envelope, Diljin had printed up special photos from her life, Beture's grandaughters prepared songs that they sung and performed on the saz or bağlama, a popular Middle Eastern instrument.

It was truly one of the most special days for me here--complete with incredible food, moving expressions of love and friendship from everyone, and a real feeling that I belonged and was loved here in Turkey. I know my students love me here, but to really connect on a deep level with friends...that was a great gift.

As part of my gift to Beture, I took over 240 photos for her to treasure the event. I've selected a few here to share with you. Just click on the album below.

A view of one's own

Pics taken from my room. First one is sunset, second two are sunrise. Glorious!

Edward Cullen is a big fat psycho

Note: The following is a rant about the Twilight series thinly disguised as a blog about Turkey. If you haven't read the series or don't know anything about it...skip to the next post if you like.

I'll admit it; I read all four of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight novels. I took the first one with me on a trip to California one weekend, got totally sucked in (don't forgive the pun) and then read the next two while stuck in the airport and on route back to Colorado a few days later. So there--I admit it. Am I ashamed? Not that I read them, so much, but that I too, fell briefly in love with Edward Cullen. Let's face it--he is girl-porn to the extreme. I got pulled in by his Byronic Hero-esque personality, his undying love and unending affection, and couldn't stop turning the pages to see if the vampire and his human love would eventually end up together, despite all the odds.

Today I watched the second Twilight film, New Moon, with some of my students. It was a bootleg copy (yeah, yeah, I know) and we only watched it because I was running my Shakespeare Club, and the Macbeth adaptation we began to watch was not only unbelievably horrible, but also dubbed over in Turkish. My students begged me to turn it off--and I wanted to as well (they had blood pulsing in spurts out of a guy's neck in the first three minutes--really, Hollywood?). Anyway, the technology was all hooked up and one of my students had the copy, so they unanimously decided to watch it.

Oh god, people, it was horrible. I actually somewhat enjoyed the first Twilight film. Maybe because it was an intriguing love story, a semi-new world, and it played to the part of me that secretly wanted a crazy-hot immortal being to fall madly in love with me and no one else. And being a vampire in Meyer's world seems pretty darn cool; you're invincible, gorgeous, rich...who wouldn't want that reality?

But the second book got really twisted. Suddenly this wasn't a love story at all (or a falling madly in love story). It became a weird, psycho tale about a girl with no hobbies, no real friends, and clearly no self esteem, who gets crazy co-dependent with some vampire who doesn't know how to communicate his real feelings and has to fight constant urges to kill her. He treats her like a baby by making a decision about their relationship without consulting her, and she acts like that pathetic girl/woman we probably all know or fear who completely breaks down and can't function when her man leaves her.

The months pass by and Bella just stares out the window, unable to exist without him. She only finds some respite by engaging in life-threatening activities so she can have psychotic episodes where she sees visions of Edward in her head. And when it comes down to it--when Edward's life is at stake--she'll gladly give her own because life just ain't worth living when the guy you've been dating for five months might not be around.

Yeah, it's just a story for teens; a story about teenage angst and loneliness. Okay, fine. If that's all it was, then I wouldn't be writing this post. But the fact is, people, it's not just teens who are into it, and the teens that are into it are going KUHRAZY! Girls cut themselves when they see actor Robert Pattinson (who plays Edward) and ask them if he wants to suck their blood. I have several friends (my age) who confessed that Edward made them question the man they were in relationship with. And I have students who tell me about romances like this that happen in the villages in Turkey where young people will kill themselves when they can't be with their seventeen year old boyfriend because their father won't allow it.

What does this say about our culture that we are so obsessed with a story about one girl's inability to be happy without her man? This clearly has tapped into many a woman's psyche, because I have several women friends and have heard of many other adult women who have gone nuts for this guy--myself included. We're all oohing and ahhing over dreamy Edward, when the reality is, the guy's a stalker. Edward Cullen is a big fat psycho.

I think this Edward phenomenon is dangerous, honestly, as it adds to the disturbing heaps of literature, film, and media that creates unrealistic men that women want to be with. Real men are not like Edward. And if they were, they'd be that super creepy guy you dated for a month before you found out he was staring in your window at night without your permission. I mean, really. Is that what you want?

But what disturbs me most is not Edward, but Bella, who is a lifeless, hopeless thing whose whole world revolves around one man. I wish young girls would go crazy over someone like Hermione Granger, the teenage heroine in Harry Potter. The girl was super smart, cute, caring, and tough. Or Lyra from the Golden Compass trilogy, or Sabriel from the Abhorsen Trilogy. I write young adult fiction; I know the genre. There are strong female characters out there that know how to respect themselves and love someone else at the same time. Why aren't these the role models young girls are going crazy over?

The truth is, I want young women (okay, all women) to fall in love with healthy, balanced men. There, I said it. I want them to ooh and ahh over men who can communicate. Men who don't stalk them. Men who don't keep secrets and hide their love. Men who don't want to suck their blood. Maybe it's because I recognize the sad, desparate part of me that went a bit crazy for unavailable guys when I was a teen (hell, in my twenties)--but I can now see all my insecurities, all the parts of me that wanted validation and suffered from a low sense of self-worth. And because I know what it stemmed from, because I know why I had those obsessive feelings, that's why I worry for girls today. I just want them to be loved in all the right ways. I want them to be strong, tough, and happy on their own.

This book will make you squirm

I'm not entirely sure how to write this blog post, because I'm uncomfortable with what people might say. But I'll be brave and write what I think anyway, because I think it's important, and because it's something I've been struggling to write about since I arrived here.

I just finished Ayaan Hirsi Ali's memoir, Infidel, a narrative about her time growing up in Somalia, moving to various Islamic and African countries such as Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Ali was also subjected to female genital mutilation (fgm). For much of her teenage years in Nairobi, Kenya, she was a devout Muslim, joining the Muslim Brotherhood and donning a back hijab (the full Muslim cover that only shows a woman's eyes).

Ali eventually moved to Holland, obtained Dutch citizenship, and began to question her Islamic teachings. But the harassment she encountered when she cut her hair and began wearing jeans was nothing compared to the death threats she received and the massive riots that broke out when she made a documentary called Submission, a film-short about the sufferings Islamic women must endure. Without giving away the ending, I'll simply say that Ali's main goal now is to try to wake Western cultures up about the violent messages inherent in Islamic doctrine, and to try to get them to be more conscious about how they integrate these cultures into their own. She's concerned about our fear of questioning other doctrines in order to avoid being racist, and feels that we're guilty of an over-tolerance that's allowing unhealthy and violent Islamic doctrine to flourish in Europe and throughout the world, in places where it directly counters the principles those Western nations are founded on. Ali thinks it's necessary for Islamic women and men to rethink the violent aspects of their religious doctrine and create a new, enlightened form of their tradition.

Infidel is a hard book to read, quite honestly. Partly because her stories about growing up in Africa during the tribal wars, her experience as a female who was often treated like property, her time living in Saudi Arabia, and the threats she got exercising her freedom of speech, are all quietly horrifying (not to mention the most horrifying story of all: her excision).

But it's also hard to read on another level. I grew up in California and have lived in mostly socially liberal communities, and to have a woman whose authority I respect (as someone who comes from the tradition in question) ask me to rethink the value of the extreme multiculturalism and tolerance that I've treasured all my life....well, it's shaking my foundation.

On the one hand, it's clearly so important to have religious and cultural tolerance. This is absolutely undeniable. And I recognize that this is ONE woman's experience in Saudi Arabia and Somalia--two very extreme versions of Islamic life.

But do we do when sects of a religion consistently teach that Jews are evil? What if it consistently teaches that gays are suffering from a disease or a psychological disorder? What if it forces women to have their genitals mutilated, or thinks it's acceptable for women to be locked away in their homes during the day, unable to work, and that they must completely cover themselves when walking outside, and only travel around in public accompanied by a man? Do I have to be tolerant of that?

This is a difficult thing for me to write, but it's a question I have to sit with. Just how valid is every voice at the table? When do you nullify your chance to sit and converse with everyone else with an equal say? I don't think this is just about Islam either--let me be clear. I think there are dangerous elements of these beliefs in other religions too.

That said, I've had students from Saudi Arabia who told me about men and women getting publicly stoned for adultery. They told me about men who were discovered to be gay who were thrown off tall buildings to their death as punishment. I'm here in "secular" Turkey now, where we experience one of the least radical forms of Islam, and I still have students from "liberal" Istanbul who tell me that Jews are awful, greedy people; I have students who will get ostracized for being friends with gays (they think it's a sickness here, and parents will disown their child if they're gay in many parts of the country). As far as women go, many women wear head scarves here (a very complex topic I don't want to go into here), and until recently, women had to get written permission from their husbands to get a job. One of my good friends, an American, constantly gets sexually harassed, even in Istanbul, just because she has pale blonde hair and blue eyes. Is this culture, or religion? Where do we draw the line?

Of course, I feel awful about saying any of these things because Turkish people can also be some of the most kind, most hospitable, and most friendly people I have ever met. I am so grateful for my colleagues and my students and I haven't experienced any of this negativity. But at the same time, I'm not blonde, I'm not gay, I'm not a Jew...I'm a Western woman, bound by different rules. 

I know that I have to be careful to project my Western worldview everything, to think that what I believe is best. And generalizations are very dangerous and I know there are many different expressions of Islam around the world. It also makes me nervous to feel intolerant of a religion, because they are intolerant of others--I know this may seem hypocritical.

But still, how do we address these radical, socially intolerant beliefs? It's one of the most important questions I think we need to struggle with during this day and age, and I think that the way we answer these questions will define us as a culture (because I don't think this is just an American question at all), and as a world.

You can see reviews of Ali's book on the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, or buy it on Amazon (where there are a bunch more reviews) by clicking on their names.

Christmas in Turkey!

Fielding and I had a Christmas/birthday party here in Isparta, Turkey last night...it was so special. I had my cheesy Frank Sinatra and Elvis Christmas music playing (those of you who know me well are certainly familiar with my Christmas addiction). Anyway, it was a real hit--they liked the sugar cookies, the decorations, the American-style food, and it helped Fielding and I both feel like we weren't quite so far away from home.

Enjoy the pics...sorry about the food pics--I feel like I am a bit obsessed with them these days. :)

The Sky was so beautiful today...

Need I say more?

Milano

I just got back from an incredible trip to Milan, Italy. I didn't go as a tourist, so I didn't do very many touristy things. I had vacation time here, so I was mostly going to see Guido, spend Thanksgiving with him, and meet his friends. It was really sweet. I loved being in Italy--Guido's community was incredibly loving and welcoming, and it was so fun to cook a very gourmet Thanksgiving feast for him and four of his friends. I was also surprised at how much English Italians know (it was a HUGE relief, even though I know some Italian), and loved eating the fantastic Italian food! But mostly I was just happy to spend quality time with Guido.

Anyway, here are some pictures. The weather was mostly overcast and cold, so I didn't take very many photos of Milan, but there was on day when the sun came out and I took the Metro to the city center and shot some pics. Enjoy!

Ah...the sweet joys of still not knowing enough Turkish

Just when I am proud of my Turkish knowledge, I have yet another situation that proves I know nothing.

I got back two days ago on Sunday night (LATE) from my 10 day trip to Milan. I tumbled off the bus around 11:30pm and somehow figured out that the guard on the West side of campus (where I live now) didn't want me to walk to my house by myself because of the packs of wild dogs that live near my house. Yeah...wild dogs. The conversation went something like this (the Turkish words that I understood are in English):

Security guard: "Blah blah blah," shakes his head and gestures for me to stop.

Me: "Why?" (In Turkish)

S.G.: "Blah blah blah dogs."

Me: "Problem yok!" (No problem.) I then proceed to make a symbol of my fingers walking. Then I say "I want!"

S.G. "Blah blah blah...they're coming...blah blah blah."

Me: (In Turkish) "How many minutes?"

S.G.: Twenty!

Me: I make the ever so helpful sign of me walking with my fingers again. "My house! Fifteen minutes!" (It takes about 15 minutes to get to my house). I then proceeded to show him how I could scare off the dogs by pretending to throw a rock at them. (It really works!)

He wouldn't let me go. We then stood there for another ten minutes or so making more awkward conversation. I did pretty good, considering I had Italian on the brain. Then the security guard drove me to my house (which was quite sweet, actually) and suddenly I was home.

I have GOT to study more.

I'm HOME!

I know, it seems silly, but I finally feel like I have a home after six months of being homeless. Yeah, six months. I had a homebase at one of my best friend's place (thank you Melanie and Vikram!), but still I haven't had my own place since I left Denver. Once I moved here I was living in a guesthouse (hotel) for two months. I haven't cooked my own meal since I moved here--and I LOVE to cook.

But now Fielding and I finally moved into our own home, made specially for us. It has working heating now, it's big and spacious, and it has a beautiful view of the city. I have to take photos still, but I wanted to share with you the part that I'm most excited about. I get to have my special breakfast again! Fruit, nuts, yogurt and granola...I'm so happy! I had to include a picture here to entice you. Okay, maybe you need several.

Hey, sometimes it's the small things that make you feel at home. For me, it's my morning fruit salad and a cup of tea.

Lovely hike

It's been chilly here, but Fielding and I decided to go on a hike with her friend Onur. This small mountain/large hill is just near our home, so here are a couple of pics from our journey, plus some pics from moving into our new home!

It's really cold in here

I'm really, really cold. It's 65 degrees in my new house (18 degrees Celsius) and I'm writing this while sitting on a yoga mat on top of a plastic trash bag, leaning against a pillow because we don't have any couches to sit on in our living room (and the living room is the only place with internet).

On Thursday afternoon, one of our department heads insisted the house was ready to go. Fielding and I moved in that evening, finally, after two months of living in the "guest house" which was basically a hotel...a nice, warm hotel (I miss you, sweet guest house!).

Since our colleagues knew we were getting really, really frustrated with our housing situation, they were all very excited for us. You're house is ready to go! It's okay for you to move in now! They all said with huge grins on their faces. I was in the middle of prepping for mid-term exams and totally exhausted from a long day of teaching, but I rallied a student and his friend and a car, and they helped me move my things.

At first, it was exciting to have our own home, even it was barren (there is little furniture here). My student noticed it was a bit chilly, but I figured that the temperature was right and the heaters were off. Then it started to feel cold, really cold. The temperature sunk down to about 60 degrees F, or 17 degrees C. It kept plummeting. Fielding and I shivered under our wool blankets, wearing wool sweaters and two pairs of pants...and we were still cold.

Then the shower didn't work. The toilet broke. We couldn't turn the stove on to heat water for tea to warm ourselves. We are still missing lots of furniture. I walked to work on Friday without having showered and with no idea how I looked because I didn't have a mirror. I had to use our Turkish squat toilet in the morning. The squat toilet hadn't been used in years and I could see a spider in it...

The next day, they "fixed" everything. It was all working, and we bought groceries to stock the house with. So exciting! (See our happy pic above!) But now, I'm writing this blog and freezing again. The heater's off again and the methods they taught us to fix it aren't working. The toilet's broken again, so we're using a bucket of water to flush it. I think the shower works though...

It's like the Turkish version of The Money Pit without the love story...

It's one of those moments where I have to count my blessings again, remember what I'm grateful for to keep myself from going nuts. But I think I'll make some tea, get under the covers, and grade papers first...

Sagalassos!

No, it's not a battle cry...it's the name of the ancient city (or antique city, as they call it here) that Fielding and I visited today. (Yes, Franny, it was çok, çok eski!) Here are some pics (and an explanation). Enjoy!



p.s. Entire cost of the entire 8 hour trip, including a fish dinner: $15 USD!

Under Six Minutes

I am getting ready to launch my short-film club, and was looking for examples of what can be done in a short film, and how. I found this sweet short that I wanted to share that moved me deeply. I can't wait to share the films my students make with you all! Keep an eye out next spring...

Anyway, here's the film, The Story of a Sign. A great example of how much you can say in under six minutes.



If you would like to see more great short films, see this website (scroll down past the ad at the top, I promise the films are there).

Things I'm Grateful For

One of my favorite nonfiction writers, Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) suggests that people make a list of at least three things they're grateful for before they go to bed.

To handle my lonely moments, or the times I'm feeling frustrated or homesick, I've developed a new habit of gratitude, inspired a bit by Gilbert's idea. Whenever I'm in a bad space, I try to think of as many positive things as possible that I'm grateful for to change my state of mind. I'll just sit there now--while I'm waiting for the bus in the rain, when I'm at home and feeling sad---and list the things I'm grateful for. I try to do it every night before bed as well, in my journal. Even if it doesn't always change my mood, it definitely changes my perspective.

Since this is a part of my life here in Turkey, I wanted to share today's list. So, here you go. I'm grateful for:

• My dad and my brothers, whom I feel so much love for and admire and adore so much.
• My friends and family (both in Turkey and all over the world) who have been such a huge support for me, helping me feel strong while I'm out here taking risks and experiencing the world.
• Guido, who has been a huge emotional support, friend, spiritual guide, and joy.
• The incredible community of my colleagues who look out for me, invite me to dinner, push their English skills to the max to converse with me, and treat me with such immense hospitality.
• My students--I could go on and on about them. They're the most incredible students ever--so loving, so respectful, so funny, so intelligent, so strong.
• My novel--I started what I hope is my final revision of it, and I am so happy with the changes I'm making and that I'm following through on my commitment to completing it. It's such a nice creative outlet for me as well.
• The short-film club I'll be starting tomorrow (kick-off meeting at 4pm)! I am nervous and so excited at the same time. My students will be writing scripts, filming short films, editing them, and then having a fim festival in the spring. Woo hoo!
• The Shakespeare Film club I started where we watch his plays on film--I have just fallen in love with Shakespeare and his timeless, moving stories all over again. So brilliant. So powerful. What a writer.
• This opportunity to be here in Turkey and do things as an college instructor that I never would have been able to do back home. It pays well, and I love my organization. I'm so blessed.
• Little things like the scent of orange peels and of fall, pumpkins, warm soup, drinking tea on a cloudy day, reading a great novel, dried apricots, dark chocolate, dried autumn leaves, awesome six-year-olds that teach me Turkish and draw me pictures... (specifically Aras, my new friend pictured above).
  
• The challenges I face that make me stronger every day--they humble me, teach me, and make me full of gratitude that my challenges are so small compared to so many people in the world.

What are you grateful for? I'd love to know. Hugs to all!

Domes and Beaches

Here are some photos from my trip to Istanbul with Guido, as well as my trip to Antalya with my colleague Franny--enjoy seeing two very different sides of Turkey, the two most popular tourist destinations in the country.

Romeo and Juliet

I started a Shakespeare Club on campus, because I have forty students graduating from an English Literature department having only read Hamlet. We covered a few sonnets in class, but the main focus of our course is the British Romantic poets--this term, anyway--so I felt like my students needed more exposure to Shakespeare before they graduated. Many of them didn't even know how Romeo and Juliet ended. Can you imagine?

So in the Shakespeare Club we watch Shakespeare's plays on film (in English with English subtitles), then discuss them. The first one we watched was Romeo and Juliet. It was fantastic. We watched the Franco Zeffirelli version (1968), and I loved watching it and remembering the beautiful quotes, the impossible, passionate teenage love, and even the horrifying end. When I'd read it the first time, I don't think I'd had enough perspective to realize what a statement it was about young love, and the dangerous foolishness that can result from its lack of perspective. (Yeah, I know, I'm such a downer, belittling Romeo and Juliet's love...)

We chatted about it for a bit afterwards, and we talked about teenage love, and how dramatic it can be.  It actually reminded me quite a bit of the Twilight series, a love story that both sucked me in (forgive the pun) and also totally disturbed me with its emphasis on the perfect love that creates the obsessive, co-dependent love affairs so common in our teens and twenties.

I've been told that boys in Turkey will commonly tell girls that they'll die for them, but I thought it was just talk, not something any of them would actually do. (Really, the methods of courting women here would horrify most American/Western guys.) Anyway, after we finished Romeo and Juliet, one of my students opened my eyes about the lengths men will actually go to here.

"Hojam," she said (which means "my teacher"), "I got really emotional when I watched the end of the movie. It really made me start to cry." She grabbed my arm and pulled me near her. "You know it's like that in Turkey sometimes. It even happened in the village near where I live. There was a girl who fell in love with a boy. Her father refused to let them get married, so she hung herself." She paused, emotional and enraptured at the same time. "And then the boy went to her grave, and he shot himself as he lay on her grave." She paused again. "So it's like Romeo and Juliet, hojam. Just the same."

Twilight's really huge here too, by the way. I don't wonder why.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

So, one of my colleagues, Vancin, came into my room today to ask me about yet another idiomatic expression I had never heard of (he discovers the most interesting phrases in his translation class). This time Vancin came in and wrote this: "_____ peasy lemon squeezy" on a piece of paper. He turned to me and said, "Please, tell me what is the missing word. The expression means 'easy.'" I just looked at him, perplexed. But somehow, from the back of my brain...I don't know how...but I knew. The word popped out from my subconscious like a soap bubble escaping from a bath.

"Easy," I said. "The word is 'easy,' as in 'Easy peasy lemon squeezy."

He looked at me, scratched his chin, and nodded. I love the way my colleagues take American expressions so seriously, as if contemplating worm holes or some other quantum physics theory.

"But where does it come from?" he finally said.

So we looked it up--heck, I didn't know. We found the answer in urbandictionary.com, a great resource for (often times vulgar) American expressions. Turns out it comes from a 1970's commercial. A little girl was washing greasy dishes with an adult. The adult produces Lemon Squeezy, a dish detergent, and they clean the dishes quickly. At the end of the commercial, the girl smiles and says: "Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!"

Vancin then went on to say that he had learned it when he had said something was "jammy." He explained that it was slang for "easy," and a student had said the above expression as another example. So we decided to look up "jammy." Besides being a slang for pajamas or to describe someone as being lucky, it can also be slang for "gun," or even better..."penis."

I told Vancin he might want to avoid using that one next time.

One of the most uncomfortable conversations I've ever had

I teach two speaking classes, and as part of their speaking practice, my students give five mminute presentations on any topic of their choice. The purpose is to get them comfortable speaking English, but also to help them learn some teaching skills to make them better teachers. So far my students have presented on their favorite cities, tango dancing, countries they've been to...one guy even tried to give a presentation on Women's History in five minutes...that was interesting.

Today one of my students wanted to present on "the gay." I was terrified, to be quite honest. Homosexuality is a very, very, very touchy topic here, and most people really shun homosexuals and homosexuality, especially gay men. Anyway, this student had a friend who found out that her friend of five years was gay. So my student was going to call her friend during her presentation and ask her what her friend knew about gay people as a result of this revelation. She would then relay this information to the class as her friend spoke on her cell phone. Or maybe her friend was going to come to the class...it was hard to make out the scenario in her broken English. I listened carefully, trying to hide my mounting horror at her presentation.

"I don't think you should call your friend," I said carefully. "This is your presentation. Your chance to practice your English. And what exactly will your presentation be about?"

"About the gay and how they become homosezuals!" she said, very excited. (That x sound is really tough for them.)

I wasn't sure what to do about it, but I asked my department head during break. He said that as long as it was general, why not? I decided to give it a go.

The hardest part about the presentation (besides the conversation afterward) was keeping my mouth shut. The presentation started off my by student asking people to raise their hands if they'd met someone who was gay (can you imagine?). It was hard to not get in an impassioned argument with my student when she pronounced that 26% of American males are gay...but that there are also MANY latent homosexuals (imagine explaining THAT one to your speaking class), so that number is probably higher. I told them that the numbers were WAY off, and that in fact ALL men in the U.S. were gay, which was why I came to Turkey. The laughter was much needed by all of us.

She also stated that there are 7 million homosezuals out there--because someone's doing a census, I'm sure--and that most homosezuals are men, not women. But the kicker was discovering how people become homosezual: by violence in the household, by not having a father figure (because remember, they're mostly all male), or because they preferred it, because most people prefer being part of a social group that has less rights and experiences such intense social hatred that they can't live openly. Hey, I'd choose that any day.

I couldn't resist. I had to comment back. I had to talk about research, and being careful where you get your facts from. I had to say that there isn't conclusive evidence about why people are gay, and that we should be careful about stating these things as facts. I had to correct some of her information, which she wasn't totally thrilled about, and to be honest, neither was I.

Then I backed off and let the students speak. For a while they just stared at me, terrified. Then finally some students explained that it's very hard for them to talk about this issue because if you defend gay people, people will gossip about you and call you gay. Parents will tell their gay children they have an illness if they're lucky, or disown them if they're not. Lesbians are much more acceptable, apparently, whereas gay men are completely unacceptable. Some of my students thought these beliefs were appropriate, others did not.

It's so hard to know what to do during these discussions. I remember how I said during my training that when I had these conversations, I would just listen and facilitate. Partly because anything I say will be spread all over campus and could really damage my reputation, and partly because I don't want them to just listen to me. I want them to feel heard. I want to help them think critically. And mostly, that's what I did. I let the students disagree with each other, and with me. I asked questions and asked for their thoughts. I told them that they went to university in order to expand their minds and develop their own thoughts and ideas. I told them I wasn't going to give my opinion because I wanted them to develop their own.

It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

Two sides of the table

I went out to eat with some of my second year speaking class students. I have a really nice chemistry with this class; in fact two of the students who are sisters had me over for a lavish meal cooked by their mom the day before. We decided to get some students together to see some live Turkish folk music at a local bar/cafe. We had to invite everyone in the class, of course, so no one would feel left out.

Before we went to the club, the twelve of us (out of a class of forty) went out to a meal at a local restaurant. Half the students who came were very modern, and half the students...well, I didn't know until they arrived, but they came from more conservative families, as you can see to the left.

In Turkey, the scarf is banned in government, including national universities like mine, which has caused some real social problems here. I'll get into it in another blog post. I had no idea which students some of these were because it was difficult to recognize them after only two times in class (without scarves on at the time). What was even more interesting was the stark difference between the two groups. One half sat on one side of the table and chatted quietly among themselves, the other group (pictured in the cafe we went to later) was loud, constantly making jokes, and the males and females were openly physically affectionate with each other.

They got along just fine, of course, and were very kind to each other. But there was a clear difference between the two; it was palpable. I sat in between the two groups and conversed with both of them, bridging the middle somehow, interacting as much as possible with the awkwardly shy girls. The girls in scarves didn't come out with us to the bar after dinner either. When one of my more liberal female students told me that group wouldn't be joining us, she whispered, "So conservative! It's because they serve alcohol at the bar and they don't want to be seen there!"

What interests me most is how the two different sides of Turkey, the very Western and the more conservative and religious, manage to co-exist. Between young people, this existence is more harmonious. But this dichotomy between the West and Turkey's Islamic heritage is a mounting tension that constantly dictates her growth, her identity, her future, and sometimes threatens to pull her apart at the seams. It will be interesting to see how she moves ahead.

The Film Project

So...you're probably wondering why I haven't updated in a while (and why I'm holding a fig). It's because good things are afoot. I was in training for a few days in Ankara with my colleagues and the English Teaching Assistant Fulbrights who are here. There are 9 of us English Language Fellows (ELFs) all over Turkey, and a bunch of ETA's as well. It was a great training. Then I came home and had my first week of class--it was great! I love my students! I'm teaching two speaking classes, a first year writing class, and an English poetry class which I'm super thrilled about.

But the stuff I'm really excited about is extra-curricular. I found out that my students will have graduated from an English Literature department having on read Hamlet. ONLY HAMLET!! I mean, yeah, Hamlet's one of the greatest plays of all time, but there are some other pretty awesome ones too. Like Romeo and Juliet--you may have heard of it--or The Merchant of Venice, just to name two. So, since time is limited and my students are super busy, I decided to offer a Shakespeare Film Club, so students could come watch his most famous plays on film, then discuss them and familiarize themselves with them. It's only an introduction, yes, but that's okay. At least they'll be familiar with the stories and be able to connect other literature to these stories, should they go on to get Master's Degrees or P.H.D.'s. And if nothing else, it's a chance to keep working on improving their Old English speaking abilities.

But the project I am MOST excited about is this: I'm going to start a short-film production club! (Yes, I am so excited I made the font larger...it's not a trick of the imagination). Anyway, I'm ordering video cameras using some programming money I get with my job. My students will learn how to write film scripts for five to fifteen minute films, we'll shoot them in the early spring (or this winter if there's time, but I doubt we'll get the cameras by then). We'll edit for a month in the spring as well, then have a film festival and awards ceremony just before summer! I can't wait!

And the coolest part is that my students are going to team up with local under-priveledged high school students. These are students who have qualified for an after-school English language education to help give them opportunities they might not have otherwise. Not only will they have the chance to practice writing and speaking in English (all the films must be in English) they also will get to develop relationships with college students that will hopefully inspire them to do well in school and get excited for university. Plus, they'll learn how to use our film editing program and get more familiar with technology. It's such a cool program! I'm in the middle of putting it together right now--contacting the high school and getting student interest generated--so I'll keep you posted as it develops.

I do have to mention, though, that this wasn't my idea. My colleague and friend Dustin Schwindt came up with the idea and invited others to do it with him. Go Dustin!

By the way, if you're at all interested in donating a film camera to our project, let me know. We'd super appreciate it! I can only afford a few, and there will be a lot of students that will have to coordinate to use the cameras. We'd really appreciate a donation, if you're interested.

Hope you're well! And remember, if you're feeling sad, just eat a yummy fig like the one above (you have no idea how good the fruit is here) and it'll brighten up your day.

The delights of red pepper

So I was sitting around two weeks ago with some of the other people at my guesthouse (I still haven't moved into my home). Two of them hardly spoke any English, and then there was Fielding--the American Fulbright teaching assistant--and me. Because we lacked any real ability to converse, the game we decided to play was something like: What do you call this in your language?

We pointed to the onions on our plate, and the guys said what they were called in Turkish: soğan, and then we told them what it was in English. We did tomatoes: domates, and so on. Yeah, I know, exciting, right? Finally, we got to the bowl of red peppers on the table. Biber. Ah, biber! I could remember that! It sounded familair enough to me.

Then one of the men, a doctor named Umit, said: kırmızı biber, meaning: red pepper. Then he said another word to further clarify: pul. He seemed to explain that there were two kinds of biber, the powder (like cayenne pepper) and then red pepper flakes like the one on the table. I tried to ask him if the word he was saying meant "flakes." He and his friend seemed confused by my question.

You see, I had learned that very day that pul meant stamp. Did it also mean flake? The dictionary came out. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. My insistence on understanding this word, pul, only lead to further frustration. I tried to make some charades-worthy gestures to indicate that pul also meant stamp. These gestures only drove the two men crazy. Finally, Umit pulled out his cell phone and called someone. He spoke rapidly and then handed me the phone.

"Uh, hello, um...yes, I believe my brother is wanting you to know about this biber from our region. It sometimes comes in a powder form, but it can also come in a bigger form, about one millimeter across and very flat."

"You mean a flake? It also comes as a flake? Does pul mean flake?"

"Um...I don't know what you are talking about...I'm sorry...it's from our region...it's only found in the east..."

I quickly ended the conversation, pretending I knew exactly what he was talking about. I stopped asking questions. Everyone was happy. The conversation moved onto other topics.

Now, two weeks later, I finally remembered to look it up. Pul does indeed mean flakes. And I found this happy little picture to prove it to you. Hooray!

I saw a hedgehog!

And he was so cute! He is known as an Eastern European Hedgehog, and he was rooting around in a grove/hedge of trees inhabited by hundreds of chirping birds. I watched him nose around for a bit.

I think it's the first hedgehog I have ever seen.

My first day at school

So, I've been in school a few weeks now, but I have to tell you about my first day.

Though school technically begins on September 14th, I was told that I didn't need to come to school until the 28th of September because students would be gone for Bayram, the celebration marking the end of Ramazan. So on Thursday, September 24th, I wasn't planning on going into the office, I was just planning on spending my time preparing for the following week.

Of course, that was MY plan. Turkey had other plans for me. At 11:00am, I got a phone call in my room. It was one of my colleagues, Mehmet Uysal.

"Jennie!" he said, "I am here!"

"Uh...where is here?"

"Here at the office! I will come over now [to my guest house] and take you to lunch!" He teaches German and has a robust Turkish/German accent and pronunciation when he talks. You should pronounce each "w" word with as if it began with a "v" to get the full effect.

What could I say? I asked him to come at 11:30, so I actually had a few minutes to get ready, and so he picked me up then. I walked out into my guesthouse waiting room and he stood there, dressed in a nice black button-up shirt and pants.

"You have class today," he said with a nod. "At 1:20."

"WHAT?"

I shook my head and denied it, but he insisted. "Some students came by my office today, and they vere looking for you. I told them you vould be there at 1:20."

1:20pm! That was in two hours and we were going to a lunch I knew would take forever because I'd be introduced to ten million people and we'd walk at a snail's pace to and from the department building. I knew I needed a bit of time to prep in my office and look through some books I had there. Mehmet said I shouldn't worry, of course (one should never worry in Turkey). All I had to do was just chat a little, introduce myself, etc...but I wanted to be more professional, you know? I wanted to make a good impression.

So, we ate lunch, slowly, slowly...then walked back to the department...slowly, slowly...I met a few people, slowly, slowly...and then suddenly it was almost 1pm. I ran in a panic to my office, only to discover that my things were EVERYWHERE. My office had been opened up and shoved out into the courtyard. There was a man inside the empty white room holding a bucket, wiping down the walls without a care in the world.

"Uh...what happened?" I asked my supervisor as he sipped tea in his office.

"Oh, they're just painting your office. Should only take a few minutes."

I laughed. Nothing takes a few minutes in Turkey. I ran around, trying to find my desk (they were painting a couple people's offices, so the courtyard was full of desks and shelves and chairs). I finally found my book and leafed through a couple pages in a hurry. Then I ran to my class room and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

One student showed up. He sat across from me in a desk. I smiled. We made small talk. I dismissed him after ten minutes and told him I'd see him in two weeks, because I'd be gone the next week for an orientation in Ankara. I sat and stared at my empty classroom and sighed.

And that was my first day of class.

Cognac and Cake

This is a typical night for me. I have some kind of plan, say to finish prepping for my 9am Monday class before 10pm on Sunday night, when there's a knock on the door. It's Fielding, the American Fulbright teaching assistant who's staying in my guesthouse and will be my roommate when we move into our new home.

"So, that guy that always talks to us at breakfast..." she begins, "I can't remember his name...but it's his birthday and he wants us to come have some cognac with him."

I'm in the middle of prepping for class, and it's 8pm on a Sunday night, but of course I can't miss celebrating a birthday with one of the other residents at our guesthouse. Stefan (whose name I conveniently remember right before we head into the dining room) is a Moldovan professor who guest-teaches in the agricultural department. He and I shared several breakfasts together since his English is pretty good and he's very kind. He's lived in Turkey off and on for years, and he misses the wife and family he had to leave behind to take advantage of the financial opportunity teaching in Turkey brought for his family.

Five of us gather around one of the many tables in the dining room: me, Fielding, Stefan, Ramazan the hotel clerk, Umit, a doctor, and one of the security guards who stopped in to visit while roaming the campus grounds. There's a small plate of Turkish peynir (cheese), some cherry tomatoes, and olives and olives to pick at, as well as a towering stack of bread in front of Stefan. Typical Turkish fare.

"Is this your cake?" I ask Stefan as I point to his bread stack. He laughs.

"I'm sorry I didn't plan this better..." he says in his thick, near-Russian accent, "Usually we plan our birthdays..."

"Hey," I say, "You're not allowed to apologize for anything on your birthday."

Stefan smiles and pours us the cognac (I had to switch glasses with him when he poured me too much) and we toast in Turkish: şerefe!

We sip our cognac. Someone brings out a container of chocolate paste that looks like nutella. After Stefan mentions that cognac goes well with chocolate, I go grab the half-bar of dark chocolate I have in my room, then pass it around. Ramazan, the hotel clerk, runs out into the lobby, then comes back with a cake he'd had delivered at the last minute. He goes into the kitchen and lights a candle, and we sing him "Happy Birthday," American style, before we dig into the cake.

As the group of us foreigners and locals sit around and chat about English, about how we celebrate birthdays in our native countries, and about traveling around the region (Stefan acting as the primary translator between us), I remind myself that I'm not just here for teaching and lesson plans. In fact, it's the small, random moments that often enlighten me the most.

Oh, my Philippines.

I am so saddened to hear about the floods in the Philippines. As many of you know, I have been there four times and lived there two years ago while on a Fulbright scholarship. In many ways, it feels like a second home. They have found dozens dead in the flooding there recently, when a month's worth of rain fell in about six hours.

I can't imagine the struggle those people are facing right now, many of whom live hand to mouth, barely surviving off their daily earnings--if they make any earnings at all. At the same time, I've been moved by photos of young street children jumping off make-shift boats and laughing as the rain pours down on their faces. If there's one thing I know, it's that Filipinos are survivors, able to smile and help a neighbor in the midst of any disaster. It's one of the things that inspires me about them the most.

See a news report by the BBC here, and keep them in your hearts.

Photo taken from this website: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6851191.ece by (Reuters/Erik de Castro)

I found an incredible cappuccino!

I don't drink coffee very often, but every once in a while, I like a good cappuccino. Anyway, I tried all kinds of coffee shops in Istanbul, looking for a good cappuccino without any luck, and then today, randomly tried a little coffeehouse in our downtown student area, and voila!

An amazing, cappuccino that's not a latte! (You know what I mean, coffee drinkers! There's a difference!

Anyway, I had to document the moment.

I know how it feels now

I was on the bus today with Fielding, the Fulbright teaching assistant with me in Isparta. She just arrived two days ago and you have no idea how excited I am to have another American here, let alone a female, let alone a woman who's been here before and speaks better Turkish, and is, to top it all off, a really wonderful person.

Anyway, today we were on the bus, on the way back from exploring the city for the first time by ourselves. I was so proud of us--we didn't get lost, we did everything we wanted to do, scoped out the town, and even bought bus tickets to Ankara (the capitol) for Tuesday morning.

On the bus back to campus, I noticed a girl with long, red hair and very pale skin. Fielding and I launched into a conversation about her. Was she local? Was she a foreign exchange student? There was no way she could be Turkish, right? I mean, her hair was so red! It was impossible, right? I told her that I'd sat on the bus next to a redhead on my bus trip back from Istanbul, and we both were quite surprised. "I could tell she dyed it," I told her. We were baffled by this girl. Who was she? Where was she from?

Suddenly, I realized something. "Oh god," I said, "We're acting like Turks. This must be how they talk about us!"

She laughed and nodded, and told me about times when she had overheard gossip about her. Then I said, "I wonder if they're all talking about us right now?"

We had our answer when we got off the bus at campus. I turned around for just a moment, to see a full bus of students watching our every move as we walked away, talking, nudging each other, smiling, wondering the same things we had wondered about the unusual pale girl with the beautiful red hair.

Istanbul Day 4: Dervish delight

One of the most profound moments I had in Istanbul was seeing the Whirling Dervishes perform. It wasn't the first time I'd seen them, though the performance was more intimate than the one I saw years ago. It was more intimate because I've been reading Sufi poetry for over ten years now (Whirling Dervishes are Sufis), and so seeing the Dervishes after years of reading my favorite poets: Rumi and Hafiz, made the experience unbelievably special. In fact, Rumi died in Konya, the town where one of my colleagues lives, and I plan to make a pilgrimage out there this winter.

It's difficult to summarize the Sufi tradition, or any religion really, so I'll do my best here. Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam, though some Sufis argue that they came before the Prophet Mohammed, while others find that offensive. As one website said, Sufism "has its roots in the Qu’ran and the Islamic tradition, but at the same times encompasses the universal mysticism that we see in other spiritual traditions. The essence of Sufism is the simple path of loving God. The Sufi Masters sing of the all pervading love which inundates their being when they become one with their “beloved”. If there is just one goal of Sufism; it is to overcome the attachment to the binding ego and attain liberation through realising one’s identity with God."

Reading Hafiz and Rumi, I am always so moved by the simple, divine love they express for God, which always make God seem so close and intimate, like a best friend or lover. In fact, in Sufi poetry we often find God referred to as Friend, Beloved, Father, Mother, the Wine seller, the Problem giver, and the Problem solver. As the website states: "This ambiguity in describing God served a dual purpose. Firstly it made it difficult for his poetry to be censored for its unorthodox mystical ideas. It also illustrates the inherent difficulty a poet has in describing the nature of God. The infinite is beyond all name and form, how can the poet describe that which is beyond words?"

The website goes on to say: "The Sufi masters believed that outer religious forms were useless, unless they inspired the inner devotion. Poetry was their tool to poke fun at the pompous and arrogant. They took great delight in exposing hypocrisy, pride and vanity."

Finally, here is a quote from the Sufi commentator Quashayri:

Sufism is entry into exemplary behavior and departure from unworthy behavior. Sufism means that God makes you die to yourself and makes you live in him. The Sufi is single in essence; nothing changes him, nor does he change anything. The sign of the sincere Sufi is that he feels poor when he has wealth, is humble when he has power, and is hidden when he has fame. Sufism means that you own nothing and are owned by nothing.

Sufism means entrusting the soul to God most high for whatever he wishes. Sufism means seizing spiritual realities and giving up on what creatures possess. Sufism means kneeling at the door of the Beloved, even if he turns you away. Sufism is a state in which the conditions of humanity disappear. Sufism is a blazing lightning bolt.

--Quoted in Sufism: An essential introduction to the philosophy and practice of the mystical tradition of Islam, by Carl W. Ernst, PhD)

Enjoy a short clip of Whirling Dervishes dancing the sema below. A quick note about the sema, or Dervish dance. The Dervishes (or semazens) and begin twirling. This represents the birth of humanity. The sikke is the slender earth-colored headdress which symbolises the tombstone of the ego. The hırka is the long black cloak representing the tomb. The tennure is the full skirted long gown depicting the shroud. As the dervishes enter the circle their arms are crossed across their chest. In this position they signify the oneness of God. During the sema their arms are extended with the right hand opened upward, receiving from God, and the left hand turned downward, giving to humanity and keeping nothing for themselves.

And now, I close with a little quote from Hafiz:

"A poet is someone
Who can pour Light into a spoon,
Then raise it to nourish
Your beautiful parched, holy mouth."

Be sure to check out the video below for a small glimpse into the sema ritual.


Or an even better one here (which I couldn't embed).

Istanbul Day 4 (part 1): Hamam heaven

I didn't take any pictures on Day 4, because cameras weren't allowed in either of the two places we went. The first place Leanna, Patreshia, and I went to was a hamam, or Turkish bath. We headed to Çemberlitaş Hamam, the second most famous hamam in Istanbul (also in the Sultanahmet region). According to the website, the bath was established by Nurbanu Sultan (I haven't heard of her either), wife of Selim II and mother of Murat III, for the purpose of bringing in revenue to support a local charity. The bath was built in 1584, and has sides for both men and women.

Patreshia and Leanna were both REALLY hesitant to go. They'd both gone to hamams either in their home town or some other smaller, less professional/touristic facility. Leanna, with her pale skin, blue eyes, and light blonde hair, had been stared at so much she couldn't handle the intense attention again. Both had also been scrubbed as if they were being punished for something, and niether had been impressed with the overall hygiene as well (the towels smelled "used" for example).

Well, I was determined. So, I dragged them there and we had a great time. We entered the entry room of the women's section (which had been recently restored) and were surrounded by marble columns and wooden benches. After changing into our towels, we then went into the bathing area, technically, the hamam. The entire surface of the hamam was warm marble that could almost burn your feet if you didn't wear the slippers they handed out to you. There were several fountains along the smooth, marble walls where you could bathe yourself with metal bowls; there were two hot pools in a back room, and then a large, flat circular stone in the middle of the room, known as the göbek tasi (navel stone). The göbek tasi was built over a wood or coal furnace that then heated the rest of the hamam.

Women laid on the göbek tasi and waited until the attendant called them over. Turkish women in their bras and panties, their hair tied up in messy bundles, scrubbed our bodies down with the loofah scrubs we'd been given at the entrance. They had this amazing technique where they could create a pillow-sized mass of bubbles and then scrub you down (yes, we're either naked or in underwear). As I usually do in saunas, I got totally overheated, so I couldn't last long, but it was lovely and cleansing, and felt like an official baptism into my life in Turkey.

You can check out images from the actual hamam on their website, here.

Istanbul Day 3: Ferry Fun

Pictures of our ferry trip down the Boshporus. A lovely adventure.

Istanbul: The Second Day--Sultanahmet sweetness

Here are pictures of my second day in Istanbul. We went to the Sultanahmet region and toured around that section of the peninsula. While I didn't go inside Tokapi or Hagia Sophia (because I'll be here again in October), I did go inside the Blue Mosque, and had some good exploring with my friends.

The pictures weren't as great as I hoped they'd be because the light was terrible: overcast and cloudy all day, which muted everything. But hopefully they capture at least a piece of the beauty.

Enjoy!

Istanbul: The First Night--Meyhane Meyhem

I first read about the meyhane tradition in a book on Turkish history and culture called Crescent and Star. (Side note: Is the title devoid of articles (as in "the" or "a") because Turkish doesn't have articles either? Who knows?). Anyway, the writer, Stephen Kinzer, wrote about the meyhane experience with such poetic rapture, that I found myself reading it to my dad (a chef) in a near frenzy, unable to contain my excitement at the culinary experience I hoped to have once I arrived in Turkey.

In what I'm finding to be a common experience here, I ended up having this incredible meal simply by following a bunch of people around on some unknown adventure. Leanna, the colleague I stayed with in Istanbul, took me to meet some Turkish friends of hers who were graduating from a CELTA program. The twenty-or-so of them were having a graduation dinner and invited us to join. The cost was 50 lira (about $36) for unlimited food and alcohol. It was a bit pricey, but we decided to join.

It wasn't until a half an hour later, after winding our way through the loud, crushing crowds of the Taksim area of Istanbul, after climbing seven flights of stairs and ending up on a roof-top terrace, that I found myself getting served plate after plate of meze (like Turkish tapas) and realized I was living out my little dream.

An evening at the meyhane is centered around the Turkish drink, rakı, a kind of anise-based drink that is a mix between sambuca and diesel fuel. I don't drink much at all, but a lot of people find it quite intense (not just me!), with a heavy burn on the way down. At the same time, this is what people also love about the drink as well. For my first foray in the world of rakı, the waiter filled my glass with a third full of the potent alcohol, then added water to the rest to make the drink suddenly milky and opalescent. You can see me having my virgin sip of rakı the picture above, shortly followed by only a few more sips, then a request for white wine. Sorry, Turks, I guess I side more with the Italians when it comes to my preferred alcohol with food.

To describe the meal that followed, I have to include the passage from Crescent and Star that originally worked me into such a frenzy. Forgive the lengthy post.

"Meze usually comes in waves. The first will include salad, thick slabs of white cheese, smoked eggplant purée and honeydew melon. What comes next depends on the chef's whim. There might be a selection of cooked, cooled vegetables, or small dolma, which are peppers stuffed with rice, currants and pine nuts, and their close cousins, sarma, made from grape or cabbage leaves. After the next pause might come spicy red lentil balls, mussels on the half shell, mashed beans with lemon sauce, puréed fish roe, yogurt seasoned with garlic and dill, raw tuna fillets, poached mackerel with hazelnut paste or an explosively flavorful dish made of baby eggplants stuffed with garlic cloves, tomatoes, sliced onion and parsley. The last is called Imam Bayıldı, meaning 'the Imam fainted.'" (Jennie: I had this and it was AMAZING.)

"After this comes piping-hot börek, delicate pastries filled with feta cheese and sometimes also spinach, diced chicken, ground lamb or veal, pistachios, walnuts or whatever else is lying around the kitchen...Turkey's ethnic vitality shines through as the evening proceeds. Kebabs and other meze made from meat recall the Central Asian steppes from which nomadic Turkic tribes migrated to Asia Minor, now called Anatolia, a thousand years ago. With them come hummus from Arabia, shredded chicken with walnuts from Caucasus, diced liver from Albania (Jennie: YUCK) and cooked cheese thickened with corn flour from coastal villages along the Black Sea. Then comes the crowning glory, the seafood, a gift from the Greeks, who for millennia did all the cooking along what is now Turkey's Aegean coast. Rakı sharpens the taste of all food, but its magic works best with fish. An old proverb calls rakı the pimp that brings fish and men together for acts of love.

"...Such a meal is a microcosm of Turkey. It is an astonishingly rich experience, but yields its secrets slowly. Patrons at the meyhane, like all Turks, confront an ever-changing mosaic, endless variations on a theme. Each meze tastes different, has its oen color, aroma, texture, and character. The full effect is comparable to that of a symphony, complete with melodies, different rhythms, pacing and flashes of virtuosity, all contained within an overarching structure."

See a short clip of our meyhane meyhem here, accompanied by local musicians, and later, lots of dancing.