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.

Istanbul: The Preface

Most of you probably didn't know it, but until Saturday night, most of your Islamic neighbors were fasting for Ramazan. At sundown in Turkey on Saturday night, the last night of Ramazan, all practicing Turks broke their Ramazan fast with the three-day Bayram holiday. Most cities closed up shop, restaurants closed, people left town to go home to be with their families and celebrate. Since I knew nothing would be going on here, I headed up to Istanbul to spend time with a friend of mine who was staying there.

I've decided to make my trip to Istanbul into separate posts by day, with separate slide shows. I took the overnight bus to get there, a ten-hour trip, broken by two stops where they forced us to wake up and walk around in a rest stop for a half hour. The rest stops are pretty cool though, I must say, because they have little cafes to eat at, lots of locally-crafted food like honey, preserves, and dried fruits, and people making fresh Turkish delight. They're also clean and very well-lit, which is always fun when you're stumbling out of a bus and your eyes haven't adjusted to light.

But I digress. I stayed in Istanbul with my friend Leanna, one of my American counterparts, who is based in a much more conservative city in the east called Ezurum. She decided to stay in Istanbul and study Turkish before she began her second year at her post, and so I came and crashed in her itty-bitty little apartment. Another counterpart, Patreshia from Denizli, came as well, and we all enjoyed the weekend together. Here's a picture of the three of us (Patreshia, Leanna, then me) at our first dinner in Istanbul, a very special meal I'll tell you about in the next post.

My office

Hey look! Here's my office. I know, I should have taken one with me in it. Alas. No one else was around. I will be getting more chairs soon, because I'll mostly be chatting with people in here, not getting work done.

Believe me.

Turkish breakfast

Hey there, all you foodies, it's time for some food posts. Let's start with Turkish breakfast, or kahvalti, which literally means "before coffee."

Every morning in my guest house I wake up and enjoy this tasty Mediterranean meal. A typical Turkish breakfast will have some variation, but here are some of the basic ingredients.

There's always some kind of tasty cheese, usually beyaz peynir, a salty white cheese made from unpasteurized sheep's milk that reminds me of feta, and/or kaşar (also: kasseri), a medium-hard yellow cheese also made from sheep's milk that reminds me a bit of provolone. It is also unpasteurized and needs to age for at least four months to develop a good flavor.

In addition to the cheese, you'll typically have olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, hard boiled eggs, then butter, honey, and fruit preserves for the heaps of bread you would normally eat if you weren't me (though I confess to eating a slice or two with breakfast just so I can eat the honey). All this is most commonly drank with Turkish çay (pronounced: chai) or Lipton tea.

But this isn't what everyone eats. One of my colleages just eats a packaged cupcake and a cup of tea for breakfast. Turks also eat soups and Turkish breads (one in particular, simit, is sold by vendors like jumbo pretzels all over Istanbul...they kind of taste like them too). Another common specialty is called menemen, a preparation of roasted tomatoes, olive oil, green peppers, and eggs, which I haven't tried.

For your viewing pleasure, see the kahvalti above (iStock photo, not mine), and a picture of simit (also iStock) to the right. And a word to the wise: I've been instructed not to eat the simit from vendors (not that you should each much vendor food anyway), because these guys don't use gloves, and a friend of mine once saw a vendor picking his nose and then serving simit with the same hand...hey, I'm just saying. You can buy them in the perfectly sanitary cafes that are everywhere, or eat them from a vendor at your own risk.

Cute puppies and big, mean dogs

The only problem with puppies is that they turn into adult dogs. And by adult dogs, I mean big, scary dogs that bark at you from once the sun goes down and keep you up at night. My friend in Denizli (a city a few hours from here) can't sleep because a group of dogs bark all night, without stopping, and no one does anything about it. In Istanbul, large dogs prowl the main city centers (especially in the metropolitan region of Taksim), and you kind of get the feeling that they're planning a coup. On another night, when Leanna and I left the Whirling Dervish performance in Istanbul, two dogs were on the rooftop above us, hidden, and began barking viciously as soon as we walked past. It was terrifying.

And the dogs here aren't scrawny and malnourished, like in the Philippines. They are big, German Shepherd types that want to eat you. They are not your best friend.

Here, however, we have a cute little puppy that I found outside my guesthouse the other day next to a fledgling rose. Could he be any more adorable? Enjoy him now, my instinct tells me, because in two months he'll be chasing you down the street after dark.

Would you like a faggot with that?

So, there are many meanings for faggot/fagot around the world. In the U.S., it's known most commonly as an offensive slang word for homosexual men, but it can also mean several other things: a bundle of sticks or branches, slang for a cigarette in the U.K., a kind of stitch for fabric (as in "he fagotted a blouse for his wife"), or a method of tying together steel or iron rods for welding.

But did you also know that it means a kind of meatball (typically pork)?

Well, I didn't know that until I Googled it today, so imagine my surprise when I saw the bottom item on the menu in a restaurant in Istanbul! The only meanings I knew were a bundle of sticks, a homosexual man, or a cigarette, and none of them sounded too appealing.

Some pics of the area around my guesthouse.

Check out some pictures of the agricultural area near my campus, where my guesthouse is. All you have to do is click on the photos below to take you to the slideshow. Then make sure to click on "Full Screen" for the best effect.

The Gang

Here are three of my colleagues, at a faculty dinner. The four of us dominated our table with laughter, this evening, and we're pretty loud at school as well. I also impressed everyone with my memorization of the Turkish months and days of the week--let's see if I can retain it now.

I'm not sure if Mehmet is in my department or not, but his office is right near mine and we all hang out a lot. Usually after a teacher's name, you'll say "hoca" (pronounced hoja, because the c is like a J), so I'm Jennie hoca, Mehmet is Mehmet hoca, etc., especially if we're referring to a teacher in front of a student. If you were my student, then you would call me "Jennie hocam" (not sure about the spelling), which would mean "My teacher."

So, on the left is my supervisor, the head of the department, Ömer Şekerçi, whom I call crazy (to his face), because he's one of the most talkative, energetic, dramatic, and passionate people I've ever met. We get along unbelievably well, and tonight he invited me to continue working in Turkey on a private contract after my ELF contract finished up. "Let's take it one day at a time!" I said. Anyway, just seeing him walk into the room makes me laugh--he's hilarious. He speaks English well, since he lived in the U.K. as a bartender, then Switzerland studying at graduate school, and finally the U.S., where he received his doctorate. He makes the most memorable hand gestures, slapping the palm of his hand with the back of his, hand, smacking the table with his knuckles, etc. A total character, and a really good person too.

Clockwise there's Mehmet Uysal (there are many Mehmets in Turkey), who teaches comparative literature and German. He's also kind man, with a big, belly-shaking laugh. He is experienced at teaching Turkish, but not as experienced or confident in English, so we're going to do a language exchange for both of our language improvement. Watching him make the "W" sound is hilarious. Finally there's Vançin, then me, of course.

I particularly like this picture of Mehmet laughing, just looking it makes me smile.

Yogurt Shock

I've only been here about a week, and I find myself acutely aware of my habits and my American-ness already. The difference that's most frustrating to me is the fact that I have a much different diet than most Turks--than most people--really because I have some kind of allergy to wheat and because don't like red meat (with a few small exceptions, I haven't eaten it in 14 years). The wheat allergy hasn't been diagnosed or anything like that, but what I know is that when I eat wheat bread I usually feel awful. I can sometimes have little bits, or even a cookie or croissant from time to time. But if I have it every day, it really starts to wear me down (I'll spare you the details, gentle reader).

Unfortunately, Turks eat bread with EVERYTHING, much like Italians and many other Europeans. And it's really, really good bread. At first, I just grinned and didn't say anything about it, but since I don't have my own kitchen yet, I have to eat out almost every meal. As a result, when we're ordering meals, I have to state my preferences. And when my preferences are odd, people ask questions. When I don't eat bread at the table, for example, people wonder why because it's SO unusual. I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but I don't want to feel sick either.

Yesterday I met a student who was vegetarian. VEGETARIAN! I mean, wow. I gave up hopes of that possibility. And I don't need to be that extreme anyway. But just the fact that she was willing to stand up for her dietary preferences made me feel like it was okay to stand up for my own--even if that means that I can't immerse myself here as completely as I like. So I decided that if I don't have a choice, I'll suck it up and eat wheat or red meat, but if I do have a choice, then I'll choose what's healthier for me (this won't be as big of a deal once I have a kitchen either).

I have now experienced two moments of what happens when I assert my preferences. The first was when I had a low-blood sugar attack. It happens rarely, but lack of sleep, jet-lag, more caffeine than I'm used to, and not enough food, all combined to make me shakey, irritable, and in need of food in a real hurry the other day. One of my colleagues was walking me around (okay, it was Vançin, the colleague our department head assigned to me to be my guide for a few weeks). Anyway, I told him I needed to go to the canteen immediately. He kept dawdling, introducing me to people, etc., and I kept saying, no I need to eat NOW. So by the time we got there, I had all kinds of wierd needs. I didn't want wheat, I needed protein, and I wanted something fresh. So I ordered a hard-boiled egg, watermelon, and a can of juice. The staff at the canteen stared at me with wry smiles, and Vançin just shrugged his shoulders.

"What? What's the big deal?" I said.
"It's just so unusual, that's all!"
When the waiter brought out a plate of bread and I refused it, his jaw dropped open. "But, but...why?"
That's when I finally explained.

The next night, we went out to iftar (the meal where you break the Ramadan fast at sundown). Vançin was very kind to go somewhere where we could eat rice and where I wouldn't have to eat red meat (or waste the meat on my plate...which I only did once!). It was very kind of him. At every iftar, they have a small plate of dates, and then sometimes cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and apricots. But last night they had apricot preserves. Later, with the meal, they served a small bowl of yogurt (yogurt originated from Turkey, did you know that?). One of my favorite snacks back home is plain yogurt with preserves on top, especially apricot. As soon as they set the yogurt down with dinner (which was meant to be eaten with the white-bean stew and rice we had), I spooned a dollup of apricot preserves onto my yogurt and took a bite.

Vançin looked at me in horror. "What are you doing?!" he said.

I just laughed and told him it was something I had back home. "You've never tried it?" I said. "Aw come on, try it!"

He laughed and shook his head. "But it's totally surprising. Unthinkable. I would never combine these two things!"

Me: It's just apricot preserves and yogurt, what's the big deal?" (I taught him "what's the big deal the other day, so he knew what it meant). "Don't you ever have honey on your yogurt? Or sweetened yogurt in general?"

Vançin: "No! I have never heard of such a thing!"

I pointed to the preserves. "Come on...just try it. I try all of your food, so why can't you try one of mine?"

Vançin looked at me, then around the room and hesitated, then laughed. He carefully dipped his spoon into the preserves, drizzled them onto his yogurt, then took a careful spoonful. He closed his eyes and nodded his head. "I taste the preserves, and I taste the yogurt, and then there is a third taste created by the two..." He wouldn't tell me if it was good or bad.

"This is so unusual!" was all he said.

I just laughed, thinking of all the odd things I probably eat that he's never had before. But I was glad that I was authentically myself too, instead of just trying to fit in. I think it's important that I'm myself here--as much as is appropriate, anyway--so that there's a real cultural exchange. It's easy to forget our own roots when we travel, but I think the locals here are just as curious about me as I am about them.

Why not give them a good show?

I Wish Wishes Come True

Yesterday I met the department head of the school of foreign languages here at my university. I had a touching experience with her that I wanted to share, because it so symbolizes the Turkish spirit. Oya was familiar with me because she has a Fulbright teaching assistant coming soon (another American!) who will work in her department (remember: I work in the English Department). She and my department head worked on getting us both here (we're the first two to come to our university through our respective programs). Anyway, we were chatting for about ten minutes, when she mentioned that she had received her PHD in Columbus, Ohio. During her time there, she went on to say, she had a miscarriage and lost her first son just a week after his birth.

Suddenly we were talking about that first week, how she breastfed him for several days, and how she went on to donate her breast milk to a milk bank in Denver. She shared how hard it was to finish her dissertation, and how she could hardly make sense of her life after the loss. Her son was buried in Ohio, actually, and she longs to return there to visit his grave. I can't imagine losing a child like that, though I know many women do, and I can't fathom the loss. At the end of that part of the conversation, she handed me a poem she'd written, and signed it: To Jennie, with all my love.

I just wanted to share this moment--which is hard to express here--because it's so symbolic to me of the generosity that so many Turks have shown just in my first week here. They've been generous with their time, their money, their emotions, their hearts. It's an irresistable quality that draws me right in and makes me feel incredible welcome and loyal at the same time. It's one of the most wonderful and touching things about Turks, a reminder of how to embrace others into my own life more completely, a reminder of what's most important in life: people, relationships, and love.

Here's the poem:

I Wish Wishes Come True

I cry day and night
Wishing to sail to you on the waves on my tears.
I dream day and night,
wishing to hug you with my thirst soul.
I want to get lost in my dreams,
wishing to wash your skin with my hungry kisses,
wishing to play with you among flowers through the summer breeze,
wishing to feed you on my milk you never tasted,
wishing to put you to bed with the softest lullabies you never heard,
wishing to chat with you through your unheard babbles,
wishing to watch your precious face while sleeping.
I smell babies,
wishing to inhale your priceless scent,
I go to your hospital, wishing to rekindle memories of joyful visits to your bed.
I try to be good to everybody,
wishing to deserve my place in Heaven next to you
I stand by your little grave,
wishing to here you whispering, "Mommy, I am not cold."
I hope my wishes come true,
Wait or me there and just pray.
I will come,
sooner or later,
it is just a breath away.

--November 1998, Columbus.

This post brought to you by the letter W

Yesterday, I was hanging out with my colleagues, experiencing the typical near-insanity that accompanies the faculty in my department whenever we hang out. It's like something out of a very loud Seinfeld episode. I have an office now (the coolest thing ever...pics to come soon, I promise), and Vançin and Mehmet were hanging out, just sitting on my chairs and talking. This is common, by the way, especially when there aren't any students. No one really has anything to do (well, I did, but whatever), and so they sit around and chat in someone's office for hours.

Anyway, like I mentioned before, everyone's really excited to have me here so I can help them improve their vocabulary and pronunciation. A common mistake Turks make in English pronunciation is pronouncing the letter "W" more like the letter "V," especially Mehmet, who also teaches German and is more of an upper beginner, wheras Vançin is very advanced.

So, I called the two guys on their pronunciation, and they were stunned. "You mean we've been pronouncing it wrong?" They said, incredulous. "No one ever told us this!"

I have this terrible habit of pidgeon-holing ESL speakers into the "adorable" category whenever they start pronouncing really basic words. It's so cute I can hardly stand it. Anyway, so both Mehmet and Vançin start saying "Where..." and "When..." and "Why..."really slowly, and it was adorable. They had a hard time figuring out how to form their lips, because they've been taught to have their lip touch their teeth (like to make a V sound). I told them they have to make a kissing face, which had them dying with laughter. So I tried a different tactic and told them that they had to make the "oo" sound, which is like the ü in über. That was a huge help. Then they sat there for about fifteen minutes, pronouncing the sounds again. It was a total riot, but they were SO grateful.

Soon we were joined by the head of our department, Sugarman (okay, his last name translates to Sugarman, so that's what we call him). The men all began chatting in Turkish in front of me, for several minutes.

"HEY!" I yelled, because you have to yell to get heard around these three (it was a good natured yell, of course). "This is MY office, so speak in English!"

They all looked at me, sheepishly. Mehmet and Vançin went back to pronouncing their W's quickly, and Sugarman, my department head, eyed me with a smile and said, "Ha ha! Good teacher, good teacher!"

Bow before me, my English slaves.

Turkish Coffee and Fortune Telling

Let's begin with a lovely quote from an anonymous poet (probably of Turkish origin): "Not the coffee, nor the coffeehouse is the longing of the soul. A friend is what the soul longs for, coffee is just the excuse."

I would add: "Yet sometimes, in yonder Turkish lands, not the friendship, nor the coffeehouse doth the body long for, but the sweet drug called caffeine, especially whilst the traveler is jet-lagged."

So yesterday, I had my first cup of Turkish coffee with one of my colleagues, Beture (pronounced Bet-oo-ray). Worry not, readers, I'll write more about her later. Let's stick to coffee for now.

Turkish coffee used to be a much bigger part of the Turkish gastronomical experience, until World War 1, when Turkey's economy made coffee an expensive and often unaffordable import. Ataturk, the nation's founder, encouraged tea as a local industry, and tea has since become the most common beverage of choice. Another popular beverage, I must add, is actually that old Filipino favorite, powdered Nescafe, but let's avoid commenting on that culinary blasphemy, shall we? (That said, I am kind of craving some Nescafe right now...)

Anyway, Turkish coffee has a very special preparation that is too detailed for my little blog post here. In fact, I should clarify that the phrase "Turkish coffee" refers to the process, not the coffee, which is simply imported.  I really like this website's description of the process, because it has lots of pretty pictures: http://www.ineedcoffee.com/04/turkishcoffee/. I just have to laugh for a moment though, because that website recommends a coffee called "The Turkish Blend from Natasha's Cafe," which is funny, because in Turkey the word "Natasha" is a synonym for whore. Ah, the irony.

Turkish coffee is made using a special instrument known as an cezve; the Turkish coffee blend of choice; sugar if you like it (you can ask for bitter, medium sugar, or sweet--I like medium); and sometimes a bit of cardamom. You boil all of this using a process laid out on that website, Making sure that your concoction foams. Beture said that if there's no foam on the coffee, then they didn't do it right. You can choose to have the foam or not, of course, but it must foam during the process. If I haven't said "foam" enough times in this paragraph, I will say it once more: FOAM.

Turks serve the coffee with a glass of water, usually; Beture wasn't sure why. My hypothesis is that it might be because the coffee has lots of grinds at the bottom and throughout, really, and the water washes them down so you don't cough unceremoniously when the grinds stick in your throat, as I did till I drank my water. The result is a yummy, almost chocolaty demi-tasse of coffee goodness. You also get to feel very delicate and cultured as you sip it and talk about Virginia Woolfe, Sylvia Plath, and Turkish culture.

But the BEST part (or one of the best parts) is that you can tell your fortune with the finished grinds. Beture knows a little bit about Turkish fortune telling and also has a highly recommended Turkish coffee fortune teller (yes, I'm going to go and check her out.)

So, how's it done? I'm going to quote this website to save some time:

When the coffee is finished, the saucer is placed on top of the cup, and a wish is made. With the saucer still covering the top, the cup is held at chest level and turned counter-clockwise a few times. Following this, the cup is turned upside down onto the saucer, and left to cool. Sometimes a coin may be placed on top to make the cup cool faster and to dispel bad omens that could be read from it. When the coffee cup is cool enough, someone other that the person who drunk the coffee opens the cup, and starts interpreting the shapes for divination.

The coffee cup is divided into two halves. The upper half refers to the future, and the lower half refers to the past. Shapes on the right usually are seen as positive images, and shapes on the left as signs of bad events. Another tradition states that the coffee cup can only tell the future of the next forty days. Also, if the coffee cup and saucer are stuck together and it's hard to separate them, then it's a sign that the fortune shouldn't be read--it's a good sign actually, that indicates that you're lucky.

Once the shapes in the coffee cup are read, you then read the saucer. The saucer is generally interpreted as representing the home of the person whose fortune is being told, and tells about their domestic life.

Beture did a mini-reading for me. She said that a large, river looking symbol (basically a blank spot that looks like a little river in the cup) means travel (hey! It's true!) and that since there were no "lumps" of coffee at the bottom that all my concerns are melting away (which is also true!). Anyway, it wasn't much, but I'm going to go for a professional reading, and I'll report back.

All this talk about coffee is making me crave some Nescafe...(no coffee in the guesthouse! Only tea!)

p.s. Here's another website that talks about Turkish coffee but also describes what some of the symbols indicate. It's kind of like seeing shapes in clouds, except that you can tell fortunes with it.

p.s.s. The lovely picture at the beginning was taken from an intriguing website called Turkish men vs. Italian men. Not sure that it'll suit my interests entirely, since it's about Turkish vs. Italian fashion for men, and written for a gay readership, I assume, since the author is male and there's a post called "Some Sweeties in Turkey." That said, I'll have to read it sometime.

School begins...sort of.

Before I came to Turkey, a bunch of my American colleagues (people in the ELF program like me) asked when I was coming to Turkey. My Turkish supervisor (at the university) had specifically asked that I come for the first day of classes, September 14th. I chose to come a bit earlier so I could settle in before classes started.

Once I told my Americans colleagues I was coming on the 10th, they were baffled. "Why are you going so early?" they asked, "No one will be there!" I just shrugged. "The head of my department requested it," I replied--in fact, my embassy supervisor had specifically asked my department head again, just to be sure, that he indeed wanted me there. Everyone knows that it's Ramadan, and nothing happens during Ramadan. Usually students don't come to the university until after Bayram, the feast that celebrates the end of Ramadan.

Two days before I was scheduled to leave, I got an email from my department head recommending that I change my ticket so that I would arrive on September 28th. "I have a good idea for you!" He said in the email. "Don't come till the 28th!" I was surprised and not surprised at the same time. The only certain thing, it seems, is that nothing is certain in Turkey (which, to be honest, I sort of love).

So, anyway, I came early anyway, to be here for the first day of class. As my colleagues had predicted it was nearly empty. A handful of freshman (freshes, as they call them sometimes) wandered through the halls, and the professors (of which there were also only a handful) simply told the students to come back after Bayram. But it was fun to meet the few that showed up anyway. They were so kind, and their English wasn't too bad, actually.

But what was wonderful was the enthusiasm with which everyone greeted me. The head of my department (my supervisor) and my other four colleagues are so excited to have me here, which feels wonderful. Why are they so excited? Because I'm a native speaker. Seriously--that's it! Many of the staff and students here are really lacking in strong speaking skills, so having a native speaker here to correct their pronunciation and vocabulary mistakes is such a gift. It's nice to arrive and feel so appreciated already. "Our students are so lucky to have you," they'll say repeatedly as they parade me around the campus and introduce me to other faculty. "And so are we!"

I cannot emphasize enough how generous, welcoming, genuine, and kind my colleagues are.

As for what I'll be doing...I'm teaching a couple of speaking courses in the English department, one writing course, and then...(and this is what I'm really thrilled about)...a poetry course! You have no idea how excited I am...this will be my first time teaching a university literature course as a post-grad. One of my colleagues is from Azerbaijan (but speaks Turkish, a very similar language, apparently, and fluent English). She used to teach the poetry classes, and she talks about teaching Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson to her students...it's so nice to sit around and talk about literature with my colleagues! This is the teaching experience I always longed for...but had to travel abroad to finally experience.

Finally, I'll also be leading one or two faculty discussion hours for faculty to practice their English speaking. I don't have to prep anything for it, just get a discussion rolling (which for Turkish people is no problem, believe me). The purpose is to have someone there to correct their mistakes and also teach American expressions, etc. I'm so excited! I feel like I'm finally starting the teaching career I've always dreamed of!

Eğirdir is BEAUTIFUL!

I discovered the special characters function on my computer, so now I can properly punctuate my words. Fabulous! Anyway, I just had to follow up with my actual visit to Eğirdir. I went with my colleague Vançin, and we traveled about 40 minutes to the city and then up a windy road to a small village. We went to a little cafe/home where we had the delicious meal I described in the previous post. Anyway, here are some pictures. It was so beautiful.

Really quickly: Eğrdir is actually a fairly popular tourist destination, and also a popular place for Ispartans to go visit for dinner. It's famous for its fish--though we didn't have any this time--and also, of course for this gorgeous view. Supposedly the water is so fresh you can drink it out of the lake (don't worry, I'm not testing that theory any time soon).

But the most interesting thing is that the peninsula is actually man-made. The thin strip of land that you can see much better in my previous post is actually a man-made causeway meant to link two small islands. There are a bunch of little pensions and cute restaurants on the farthest island, and I bet that during the day there is quite an amazing view. I only got to see it by car in the dark, as we headed up to these two points for what was left of daytime. So lovely.

Let's see YOU try to be wheat free in Turkey. Seriously.

To my left, witness the fabulous women making gözleme in a village just outside of Eğirdir (or maybe it's in Eğirdir province? I don't know how this all works).  Whats gözleme,  you ask? It's a handmade fresh pastry--made from wheat, of course--that's made by rolling out wheat dough really thin, then putting yummy ingredients inside (like potatoes, onions, spinach, mushrooms, feta cheese, or some combination of the two) and then heating it on a griddle. You get a large, crepe-like flat pastry that tastes unbelievable. This is what I ate tonight, along with a cucumber, tomato, cabbage, lettuce salad; bulgur pilaf; yogurt soup; and ayran, a yogurt drink made from yogurt and water. Oh and grapes fresh from the vine in the back yard, watermelon, the most delicious honeydew I've ever tasted (it actually tasted like honey!), and did I mention several cups of tea?



What's funny is that most men have no idea what ingredients go into their favorite dishes. My colleague and local guide, Vançin (pronounced Vahnchin), didn't know that bulgur was wheat (he called it rice, which I ate heartily until I asked him what it was, suspiciously, and then slowed waaay down). He also didn't know (and neither did the other four men we asked) that one of Turkey's favorite treats, helveh (not the tahini version, which is also served here) is made from glutinous semolina flour. Hours later, when my stomach was feeling super fabulous, I googled the ingredients and told him what they were. Surprise!

But the thing is, it's all so darn tasty! (And I love that word, despite those who might hate it--you know who you are.) YOU try not eating this yummy dish, helva...oh my gosh, it's like sweet honeyed heaven! Once I get my flat and a kitchen, things will probably change, but for now, I'm eating up some serious Turkey goodness and lovin' it. It may not be good for my stomach, but sometimes you have to indulge, you know?


Photo on the right of Turkish helvasi taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halva

This post brought to you by the letter T

Okay, so my friend Melanie told me that I should learn to have boundaries with my gastronical experience here, like I can learn to say no to foods with wheat in them (gives me major digestive issues) and that third cup of tea offered after dinner (I am such a caffeine lightweight, it's ridiculous). But the fact is, I haven't gotten there yet. In fact, tonight's dinner consisted of mostly wheat and tea. But let's focus on the Turkish tea, the reason why I'm up right now (okay, that combined with jet lag, my four hour nap this afternoon, and overall "I'm in a new place" giddiness.)

Witness, friends, the ambrosial tea served in the tulip-shaped glass. You may be familiar with Turkish coffee, but actually Turkish tea has recently become the beverage of choice. After World War 1, when the Ottoman Empire lost much of its territories, coffee became an expensive import. Ataturk, the Nation's founder, encouraged tea growth as a more sustainable domestic product. (More on Ataturk later, btw. The man was AMAZING.) Interestingly, Turkey is now the world's fifth highest producer of tea, right after (for you foodies out there): India, China, Kenya, and Sri Lanka (in order, starting with the greatest producer).

Turks serve the tea in the tulip shape glass to avoid burning their hands, as the tea is served boiling hot. You drop two sugar cubes in the cup, give a stir, then hold the tea by the rim, sip it, and scald the hell out of your tongue. Or, if you're a bit more practical, you actually wait a little bit and let it cool down. No one adds milk.

Turks evolved their own way of making and producing the black tea, called Çay in Turkish. The tea is largely produced in a province near the Black Sea called Rize, an area with a mild climate, high precipitation, and fertile soil. But what really makes it stand out is how they make it: the tea is made with two stacked kettles; water is brought to a boil in the larger, lower kettle, and then some of the water is used to fill the kettle on top with hot water and several scoops of tea leaves. The drinker can choose to have the tea strong, koyu; (literally "dark") or weak, açık; (literally "light"). To make it weak, they dilute the tea with the remaining hot water.

I think I need to memorize the word açık, because it's 1:40am right now and I'm ready to write another blog post. Yikes.

First photo shamelessly stolen from this great website: http://www.allaboutturkey.com/tea.htm. Check them out for tips on how to make Turkish tea.

I told you it looked like Denver

Exhibit A: Photograph taken from a moving car (not too shabby, my little point-and-shoot) of one of the mountain ranges (foothills, really) surrounding Isparta. Note the brown hillside, granite landscape, low green shrubbery, and all around dryness. It could also pass for certain regions of the California valley, I suppose...but I'm still thinking Colorado. More pictures to come.

A bit about Isparta, for those of you who are curious. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Isparta is about an hour and half north (2 hours by car) of Antalya, a Mediterranean paradise. A local described Isparta to me as a transition zone between the Mediterranean and the dry, mountainous region of Anatolia, where places like the capitol, Ankara (not Isatanbul, people!), are located.

Some quick facts: The population ranges from 175,000 (posted on the sign coming into the city) to 250,000 (posted on Wikipedia). The student population at my university is around 40,000 alone (!!) and so the population really fluctuates in the fall and spring. The elevation is about 1035m/3395 feet, but since it's so close to the sea, it doesn't get as cold as some of the inland cities, though it may snow occasionally. My colleague, for example, has to deal with -40 ºF temperatures in her city, the name of which I can't remember at the moment (Leanna? I know you're reading this! Why don't you comment and tell us the city and verify the temperature? :)

What do people do here? Well, it's a college town, so a lot of commerce revolves around the students: shopping and cafes, which makes the city much more cultured and interesting, because there's actually a decent downtown area with some great eats. Then there's a lot of carpet making in the region. But what the city is really famous for is rosewater production. Another name for the city is actually the "City of Roses." There is a big rose festival in May, and there are lots of shops with rose lotions and products, as well as rose bushes lining the streets. Lovely.

That's the quick overview. One last thing--there's no airport here, though there used to be. There's an overnight bus connection that'll get you to Istanbul in 11 hours (yeah, I know: Ouch), or you can catch a plane from the Antalya airport. But as for the airport, Wikipedia had this and only this to say: On November 30, 2007, an Atlasjet McDonnell-Douglas passenger jet with 57 people on board crashed on approach to Isparta airport. All aboard were killed."

I'll take the Antalya airport, thank you!

Okay, NOW you should be jealous

I'm having a hard time containing all my giddy energy even though it's 11pm my time and I should probably start winding down. Why, you ask? It's partly because I still haven't slept more than 5 hours in about three days, and I'm a bit delirious. It's also partly because I am hopped up on the caffeinated tea I had this afternoon and after dinner (Turks drink tons of tea in lovely little cups...more later). It's also partly because I spent the day with my colleagues and feel like I just landed the sweetest teaching job ever (more on THAT later too)...but mostly you should be jealous of me because of where I'm going to dinner tomorrow night: Egirdir.

I dare you to pronounce it.

It's a cross between Eardear and Eyurdear (the g's are pronounced more like a y here, and that r at the end is rolled a bit, but don't even GET me started on the many delights of the Turkish language. That's coming sometime this weekend). But isn't it incredibly beautiful?

My colleague Mehmet, one of the most generous and wonderful people I've met in a long while, is from this region, which is particularly known for its fish. This town is about a 45 minute bus ride/30 min car ride from my house. So, we're going there for a fish dinner tomorrow night. Then I'll be around this weekend studying Turkish and checking out my city (which I toured a bit today with my colleagues). I work on Monday, then at some point I'll head to Istanbul for a few days in an overnight bus (where they serve tea and cupcakes and watch movies--on the bus, that is). Then I'll hopefully come back for Bayram, the end of Ramadan. I'm hoping to ingratiate myself to a local family (maybe Mehmet?) and enjoy some local food. Anyway, I'll keep you posted on tomorrow's dinner. Life is so, so sweet.

The Guesthouse

Here's a picture of my room, for those of you who like pictures of rooms.

You're not jealous of me yet

So...it appears I got on the wrong plane and ended up in Denver. Yes, I'm technically in Isparta, Turkey, which you can see in the map to the left if you squint really hard (look just to the left of Turkey--you can also click on it and make it bigger). It's about a 1.5 hour drive by car from Antalya, an incredibly beautiful tourist destination on the Mediterranean coastline. I, however, am surrounded by evergreens and low, scrubby mountains (and a patch of corn outside the front of my temporary guesthouse). It looks, much to my slight disappointment, quite a bit like a city in Colorado (no offense, Colorado, I just like a bit more lush greenery). I'm operating on five hours of real sleep in the last 48 hours. My room smells a bit like cigarettes, especially in the evening. No one who works here speaks English (which is a bit fun, actually, you should have seen the conversation the guesthouse clerk and I had when my internet wasn't working. Somehow we managed to change my room and figure out the problem all while talking in our own languages, which neither of us understood).

(I love parentheses.)

But hey, maybe you are jealous of me. You probably should be. I'm in Turkey, for pete's sake, and I'm on an adventure. I get to actually have a blog-worthy life again, which actually makes me super happy, because I love to share other cultures with people. I flew into Istanbul yesterday, which looked incredible, and I can't wait to visit. Plus, there are some incredible spots to visit within a half hour to two hours, and even more within three to four. I am really in the heart of European and Middle Eastern history and culture here--I mean, the site of ancient Troy is in Turkey! Such a great return to my classical education roots. I have great colleagues, both the local and American ones in my program. I get to learn a new, super relevant language (okay, slight exaggeration there...). Finally, I feel much more grounded about this experience than I did about the Philippines, partly because my time will be structured with teaching, learning Turkish, and writing, (oh, and travel), and partly because I'm older and I've done this before.

That said, if you're reading this, I probably already miss you.