Bowling in Isparta

My students compose about eighty percent of my social life these days--I'm not embarassed to admit it. Recently, a small group of my freshman girls and I went bowling downtown. I have to say that Turks are not renowned for their bowling talents. I rolled a 105 and had a score that was about 20 points higher than anyone in the alley (there were seven other lanes). One of the other girls in my group rolled a 28, and that's only because one of our teammates accidentally bowled for her one round. It was almost amazing.

After we went bowling, we played air hockey and I screamed and yelled and made so many insane gestures during the game that my students and I were laughing so hard that we couldn't breathe. Finally, we went out for some fabulous hot chocolate, served with fresh whipped cream and nuts inside (yeah, nuts--it's great!).

It was the most fun I'd had in weeks (I don't get out much). I have to say, I really love my students.

Gluten-free Pasta

A couple weeks ago, something really special happened to me--one of my best friends, Melanie, sent me a gluten-free package in the mail full of pastas, baking mixes (brownies here I come!), and aluminum-free deodorant. Woo hoo!

Usually the Turkish post is quite good, but I have heard of some packages getting completely hijacked. For example, one of my colleagues sent himself a box of American paraphernalia to share with his students (magazines and the like) and ended up receiving a box of pots and pans, in the same box. Someone had literally opened his box, removed all the materials, and then refilled his box with pots and pans.

I mean, do they have a stock of these things for such situations? And what exactly was so contra band in that box that they had to empty it? And why not just keep the box--why send him kitchen ware as some kind of consolation? Or...is that the Godfather equivalent of the horse head in your bed here? This might be something to look into...

Anyway, I was getting nervous three weeks after she'd shipped it, but when it finally arrived I almost cried. (Actually, I think I wept a little. Seriously.) I ate the box of crumbly gluten-free cookies within one week (showing immense restraint), and I have been eating a small square of Swiss Dark Chocolate every day since (I still have 1/3 a bar left--even more immense restraint). I've made a yummy creamy mushroom pasta dish, and tonight I had a simple tomato and spinach topping for my fake fusilli.

But one of my favorites was something I would almost never have back home, but was oh-so-good here. And that's gluten-free mac and cheese, baby! Pictured here, in all its glory. I sat in front of my bedroom window on a cloudy day and enjoyed every bite.

Just goes to show you never know what you'll miss or crave when you're far from home. The best part of all though, I must admit, was the birthday card Melanie and her two-year old made for me. Thanks, Mel, for sending me a slice of home--I needed it. I have to admit it; I miss you all way more than gluten-free pizza--and that's saying something.

Earthquake in Turkey

An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.0 just hit the eastern part of Turkey, leveling several villages clustered around the epicenter in Karakoçan near the city center of Elazığ. According to recent updates, 57 were killed and 71 injured (changed from 41 dead earlier today and 100 injured).  My heart goes out to those affected by the quake.

To read more, check out an article here.

More on the Armenian Genocide

I've read a whole lot of articles lately about the Armenian Genocide decision that was narrowly passed yesterday by a House Panel, 23 to 22. I'm trying to figure out how best to distill everything for those of you who aren't as likely to read all the articles, but might like to know a little more about the situation. Now, I am no expert, mind you--so remember that as you read. But I do feel a little bit responsible to introduce you to some of these issues since I'm here, and you're...well, there. (Excepting my ELF counterparts, of course).

So, I am hoping I was pretty clear in my last post, but basically, here's the issue with the genocide decision. The problem is that historians do not completely agree on whether or not the enormous amount of Armenian deaths that took place during 1914 and 1922 (approx) were a genocide or not. Genocide requires a premeditated intention, wheras Turks argue that the deaths were casualties resulting from an internal civil war and the numbers of those who died were inflated by biased historians.

But let's look at the history. During the end of the Ottoman Empire, various political groups formed a coalition called the Young Turks, which were working towards the reformation of the Ottoman Empire's administration, particularly in response to the authoritarian Sultan Abdul-Hamid. The term Young Turks generally referred to members of the society that were liberal progressives and opposed to the status quo, and many members of this coalition were not only politicians, but also artists, scientists, administrators, etc. The Young Turks were led by three men who were sometimes referred to as the Three Pashas (Pasha=a civil or miltary official).

The Young Turks envisioned a secularist, constitutionalist state (unlike their current Islamic empire, ruled by a Sultan), ruled by a select group of elite individuals (not necessarily elected democratically, though). Their political activism and intellectualism helped pave the way for the revolution eventually brought about by Mustufa Ataturk, the founder (and national hero) of present-day, secularist and democratic Turkey.

During this tumultuous time (around 1913), an umbrella organization, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, )operated at the center of several progressive groups, including the Young Turks. It is CUP's agenda that is under a lot of scrutiny today. At one point, over 20 Christians were a part of their organization. But later, some historians say that CUP began to distrust the Armenians, who were also Christian, accusing them of siding with the Russian cause.

It was the Young Turks who were in power when Turkey aligned itself with Germany in World War 1, in March of 1914. The Turks attempted to attack primarily in the East, hoping to capture what is now Baku, Azerbaijan, in an attempt to make a major blow against the Russians. They were defeated. Most historians agree that during this time, there were some Armenians who formed guerilla groups within Turkey and cooperated with the Russians, including the brief takeover in 1915 of Van, an eastern Turkish city near the present-day Iranian border.

And then the big event happened, in April 24, 1915, a day Armenians commemorate year after year. In response to these small pockets of Armenian rebellion, several hundred Armenian intellectuals were rounded up, arrested, and executed. This was the beginning of what the Armenians refer to as the Armenian genocide.

What happens next is where the debate starts. According to many historians, Armenian soldiers were rounded up and sent to labor camps or murdered. Armenians were forced to turn in their weapons and their material wealth, and most had to flee their Turkish homes. Many were driven into the mountains where they starved or froze to death.

But the question is this: Was this an intentional campaign ordered and executed by the Young Turk regime? Or was it the result of a nation in war-time chaos, disparate groups acting out against the Armenians without any specific "intention"? Remember that intention is required to qualify the deaths as genocide.

Turks do not deny that Armenians died during this period. What they fight against is that pre-meditated intention; or in legal terms that we're familiar with, they argue that it wasn't first degree murder. There is also debate about how many Armenians were actually killed, as the number would determine the label as well. If there were many less murdered than the Armenians claim (they say that about 1.5 million died as a result of a Turkish campaign), then it's much easier to argue that the deaths were not a systematic attempt to wipe out the Armenian population, but the results of the civil war.

The American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during that time had this to say about the situation: “When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these [Armenian] deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.”

Though the CUP party was eventually dismantled, some of their philosphies formed what remain the current Turkish approach towards Armenia. Kazim Karabekir told Russian peacemakers that Armenians would not be allowed back into Turkish lands as they had died of "a rebellion of their own making". Another disturbing quote comes from a Turkish historian who specializes in the Armenian conflict, Taner Akçam. Akçam identified four definitions of Turkey during Ataturk's rule, which he posits have been passed down through generations. The second of those rules is: "Turkey is a society without ethnic minorities or cultures." Akçam is one of the few Turkish historians who believe that the Armenian deaths should be labeled a genocide.

Part of the Turkish-Armenian reconciliation would involve both countries opening up their archives, really examining both country's records, and coming to an agreement about exactly what happened. Armenia will likely not be satisfied until this issue is fully settled, but it's quite possible that Turkey would never admit to genocide, no matter what the evidence. But while 20 European countries do refer to the deaths as a genocide, I still think that the House Panel was unwise to proceed with the vote at this moment. It's important to let Turkey and Armenia work through this process without too much American intervention. I personally think this is a task for Armenian and Turkish historians to sort through--not one for politicians to decide.

That said--I won't deny that Turkey's relationship with its minorities is disturbing at times. I will never forget the other day when I did a lesson on the civil war. I talked about slavery and the struggles African Americans went through to fight for their freedom.

One of my students mentioned the deaths of the Native Americans in our country, and then said: "Teacher, Americans sure have a lot of problems with their minorities."

I laughed, thinking about how simple the statement was for the complexity of our ethnic reality in the States. "Oh and Turkey doesn't have any problems with minorities?" I asked, thinking of Turkish tensions with Jews, gays, Kurds, Armenians, etc.

My students just shook their heads and said no.

"Oh really?" I said, then stopped, not sure what to say. "That's...interesting."

And they all laughed knowingly--as if they were all in the joke, but could never admit the truth out loud.

Speaking about the Unspeakable

They only bring it up in hushed voices, if at all. You're not really supposed to talk about it, and someone might say one thing in front of one group of people and then admit an entirely different opinion to you over tea in their office, behind a closed door. There's one word that you don't mention around here outloud, and that's the word "genocide." You don't talk about the fact that in 1914, many historians say that there were approximately two million Christian Armenians living in Turkey, and that by 1922 there were fewer than 400,000. Were 1.5 million Armenians murdered in Turkey  from World War 1 (1914-1918) through the early 1920s? Armenians want Turks to finally accept the blame.

A House panel is voting today on whether or not the death of those 1.5 million Armenians will be referred to as a genocide by the U.S. If the vote passes then it'll go to a full House vote, meaning it could be implemented into American foreign policy. Turkey has warned the U.S. that if this vote goes through, already weakened ties will be further strained with the U.S., a threat that has defeated the measure when it's gone to the House in the past. But Obama's silence on the issue (unlike Bush and Clinton who did not support the label) confuses Turks and Americans alike--will he support the measure or will he refute it? Is it possible that the U.S. would be willing to weaken its ties with Turkey over a simple word?

I'd understand if you thought as I did before I came to Turkey: What's the big deal? It's just a word. It was during an atrocious war and the dissolution of the Ottoman empire--it occurred even before Turkey, as we know it today, was an official nation. (Or maybe you don't know even that much, and your protests stop after "It's just a word.") But the fact is that Turks are very proud of their heritage and don't want such a horrifying historical act--a genocide--applied to them. Who wants to be compared to a Nazi?

What is genocide, exactly? According to Oxford (and it's all about semantics in this argument), genocide is the "deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular group or nation." So the question everyone is asking is, was the death of those 1.5 million Armenians deliberate or not? Was there a planned attempt to wipe Armenians off the Turkish map? Or was it the unfortunate, but accidental result of a devastating European war and the dissolution of an Empire?

A New York Times article says that it's considered a crime in Turkey to "even raise the issue of what happened to the Armenians" because it "insults Turkishness." I can't verify the legality for sure, but it is certainly an offense of the highest order here in Turkey, and an issue that (as a foreign teacher) you really don't want to bring up to anyone, unless you want all of your university to know.

What remains in question: Were there actually over two million Armenians in Turkey before WWI? Is that number correct? Some historians say there were many less Armenians in Turkey than that at the time. And how can one prove if it was systematic, or the fault of a destabilized country, the masses acting separately from  any premeditated dictate from above? And does Armenia deserve that moral high ground when they drove one million Azeris (residents of Azerbaijan) out of its disputed region Karabagh? Will the U.S. also pressure them to budge on that issue? Azeris are closely tied to Turkey (they call themselves a sister country) and the Azeris I know refuse to do anything but spit out the word genocide like a swig of bad tea.

But the facts are recorded in history, label or not: Women were raped and murdered. Armenians were driven into the mountains and left to starve. Dissenting Armenian intellectuals were rounded up and executed. Members of the army were disarmed and transferred into labor batallions where they were either killed or worked to death.

This is no easy deicsion. If the House of Reps votes yes on this bill, it severely threatens its relationship with an important ally, and bows down to a claim in a way that may be overtly politically motivated since historians are not all in agreement on this issue. I honestly think it would be a foolish decision, despite what I might think about whether or not it was a genocide. The event happened in the past, before Turkey was an established nation, and I'm not sure I see the point in the U.S. getting so intimately involved.

Yet to vote that the deaths were a genocide would also provide a vindication for millions of Armenians, who have a very strong lobby in the U.S., and who still feel pain over the suffering their ancestors went through.

It will be interesting to see what Washington decides...and how the results trickle down to my little university. Until then, I had better stop writing about the issue from my office...it makes me a little uncomfortable, if you know what I mean.

For more info, you can read a historical account (I'm not saying it's unbiased though) from the NY Times here.
Here's a more recent account of the decision in the Wall Street Journal.
And more articles in a Turkish online paper here and here.

My life in Orange--

I started teaching an English poetry course last term and taught my students Shakespeare and the British Romantics. My students were a little bit bored with the Romantics by the end of the term, though they kind of got into it at the end, when I had them choose their favorite poem and poet and research them for their final.

I decided I wanted them to really get into poetry in a new way. I'm doing a couple of different things this term and so far am really excited. We're working with the modernists--whose language play is interesting and exciting--and other contemporary poets whose poems they can get fairly easily, or with just a little explanation.

The students also present a poet each class, which helps them have a little more ownership. I also try to mix in an easy to understand contemporary poems with some of the less simple older poets, like Emily Dickinson. For example, we're reading "Taking off Emily Dickinson's clothes" by Billy Collins while reading Dickinson, an event that made my students giggle and blush like twelve year-olds. (One of my students said, "I can't keep reading teacher!" as he read the part where the narrator's hands part the fabric "like a swimmer's dividing water." I mean, read it here. It's SO tame.)

Anyway, at the end of my last class, I did an activity. I cut up a bunch of oranges--which got them really excited (free food!). Then I gave them each a wedge. They were so confused and curious. Then I had them look at the orange and describe it, and think of metaphors, i.e. "this orange is like a smile," "this orange is like the sun," or "this orange is sweet and juicy."

Then I had them eat it and do the same. The metaphors again were pretty weak, but they started to get the hang of it and what I was asking them to do. They started to take risks, which is what the poets we're reading were doing. I was asking them to go outside of themselves, to take leaps, to use their imaginations in ways no one has ever asked them to before.

Turkish students are often very poetic anyway (more than my American students ever were in general). They often surprise me with their metaphors. In response to Emily Dickinson's "Hope is a Thing with Feathers" my students had to write a poem with an opening line that was "_____ is a thing with ____" where they chose an abstract idea such as love, and compared it to an animal or insect. One of my students wrote: "Life is a hungry pig..." which blew me away. Have you ever heard such a comparison? I loved her poem.

Anyway, the exciting part was when we got to the orange peel. Suddenly--I don't know if it was the progression or just the emptiness and inherent melancholy of an empty peel--but their metaphors became fantastic. They were talking about how the orange peel was like a cradle for a baby...and then it was like a family without a baby because the peel was empty. The orange peel was like humanity, a shell we use to protect ourselves to hide our sweetness inside. They went on and on...I wish I could remember them all.

It was so beautiful to be in that room with them, talking about how small things can be breathtakingly beautiful, how the most mundane object can be a metaphor for the most complicated feelings or experiences. It was a new way of thinking for them, and so profound. So now their homework (besides the assigned reading) is to spend their free time looking around at the ordinary things--a lamp post, a piece of trash at the bus stop, a pencil on the floor--and make them extraordinary by looking at them deeply, by seeing what meaning they can give them, what the object can inspire in them.

I think that's going to be my new homework for life.

My trip to Egirdir

Franny (a colleague of mine that lives in Konya) and I went to Egirdir for the weekend, a sweet little lakeside town tucked into the mountains about 40 minutes from my house. We stayed at a pension at the farthest point on the peninsula and the water was a beautiful turquoise blue.

The weather was cold, rainy, and snowy, but we stayed warm by wrapping ourselves in blankets ar our hotel, and gorging ourselves on delicious rock lobster, trout, and sea bass, cooked to perfection. It was nice to get away from my little town and appreciate Turkey's incredible beauty, as well as the beauty of my wonderful friend who just turned 33. It was so nice to chat (and chat and chat--I think we probably frightened the locals with our loud and boisterous talking). We also got to meet the father of one of her students--a restaurant owner who gave us a meal on the house, plus some local fresh apple cider!

Anyway, enjoy the pics...and once again, Happy Birthday, Franny!



You can check out an old post I wrote about Egirdir (plus a nice pic from a distance) here.

Social Entrepreneurship in Egypt

This video from PBS is an awesome story about some change happening in Egypt as a result of social entrepreneurship--something I'm a big fan of. Anyway, the video is about seven and a half minutes, but absolutely fascinating and wonderful. I really encourage you to watch. Enjoy!

Photos of Egypt

Egypt

Like the three sides of the face of a pyramid, I discovered that there were also three sides to Egypt--three distinct experiences that moved me and affected me in distinctly different ways.

There was the ancient monument facet, where I constantly encountered things that are three to five THOUSAND years old (I'm still not sure how to comprehend that). That part of Egypt included seeing and touching the ancient pyramids, viewing the mummies of the pharaohs sealed at constant temperatures under glass coffins, and staring open-jawed at things like the treasures from King Tut's tomb--as well as King Tut himself in Luxor. There's something incomprehensible about viewing the mask of King Tut in person--an icon I grew up with and have seen in photos since I was a little girl. And seeing his mummy--indescribable. This part of Egypt was silent to me--a reverent place that smelled like a musty ancient library, an experience that made me feel like a cross between a nerdy professor and Indiana Jones.

Then there was the Egypt that real Egyptians experience, which was quite hard to see or enter on such a short trip where I was clearly a tourist. There were the slums, that came alive with fire and shouting when Egypt won the African Cup our second night there. There were the women walking home with baskets of food on their heads, slabs of bread stacked high as they walked in perfect balance down chaotic streets. There were children playing near the railroad where the sugar cane stalks bump heads in the wind, flushing the cheeks of Egypt a vibrant green. There were the skinned camel heads swaying in the breeze outside the butcher's shop, and donkeys flicking their tails as they stood on the side of the dusty road, looking bored. There were old men who squatted on their haunches squinting into the sun and staring at us as we walked or drove by.

And then there was that place in between both worlds--the place I dwelled most of the time, even though I hated it. That was the intersection between ancient Egypt and modern Egypt, the place where tourism swelled. That's where the merchants yell at you to buy their scarves, their plastic camels, their glass pyramids, anything! It's so cheap! Come on! Just 5 Egyptian pounds! This shirt is not from Taiwan, and I look like Danny DeVito, don't you think? Just come into my shop! Hassle free! I promise! That's the Egypt where you're staring at a painted wall in Queen Titi's tomb, and a guide comes up to you and wants to tell you what you're looking at so you'll pay him a little baksheesh (tips). You tell him you're not interested and walk away, annoyed that he ruined your sacred moment. You hope another tourist will come along and distract him so he'll leave you alone.

That part of Egypt is intense--you are constantly on guard, learning that you can't trust that anyone is generally interested in having a conversation with you. You may think they are for a second, but soon that friendly greeting is followed by, "Wanna buy...?" That's the part of Egypt where you have to negotiate the price of a water bottle that you purchased the night before. It's overwhelming, and ultimately I couldn't wait to leave that part of Egypt, despite the other two parts that were so beautiful.

I wish I could have gotten beyond that intersection, that middle ground that created a gap wider than the Nile, with me on one side and the people I wanted to connect on the other. I constantly found myself looking longingly into the real Egypt where the day to day life occurs, but knew I was an outsider and that they wanted it that way, really. So instead I explored the little space they cordoned off for me, standing on tip-top to catch what glimpses I could of a world I'll probably never know.