The End

As I write this I am sitting in Florida but I have been receiving so many phone calls that it amazes me how many people noticed that I hadn't written in a month. Well, there is a reason for that. My tim in Turkey came to a premature end.

I tried not to sound too negative in my blog but the teaching situation was really bad and had no prospects of getting better. Living so far away from downtown meant I wasn't having the "urban experience" that I wanted either. Plus, the way the vacations ran, I wasn't going to get to see much outside of Istanbul either. So, I just decided that life is too short to be that unhappy and that I am in a position in my life now that I don't have to do that. So, I gave my notice at the end of October.

I was a little surprised that they chose, without warning, to exercise their contractual right to recoup some of their losses so it turned out that I didn't get paid for the previous month. This unpleasantness meant that there would be no leisurely traveling on the way home so I got a flight with Frequent Flyer Miles and came home for the holidays.

I have meanwhile secured a position in Fujian Province (across the strait from Taiwan) in China in a university so I will be going back to Asia in January. I am planning a new blog: kareninfujian2008.blogspot.com for anyone interested.

Happy Holidays all!

Seljuk

I am going to resist the temptation to do this post about what has happened most recently and revert to the more organized, chronological approach.

Two weekends ago we had a long weekend to mark the end of Ramadan. I seized the opportunity to get outta Dodge and went to Seljuk for the weekend. I postponed buying my bus tickets for too long and got the last seat! And it was still two weeks in advance. This is one of those "traveling holidays". I got to Seljuk and met up with my friend Lily the rug salesman (many of you have met her) and, almost immediately, she sold me two new ones!

Then I went exploring Seljuk, the museum, the Basilica of St. John, etc. I also went up to the really neat hill town of Sirince. I spent that night at Lily's house and met her folks. The next day was all set to visit Ephesus again, with the advice to be sure to visit the newly opened excavation of the terrace houses.

While packing up that morning, it suddenly became clear that I couldn't find my camera! I would love to say that I was mugged by 3 burly guys who stole it from me, but the truth is, I think I left it in a public restroom. We spent the morning searching but to no avail. So, I got to go to Ephesus, the most remarkable archaeological site ever, with no camera! (Only my son was rude enough to ask if this was a ploy to keep from putting pictures on my blog!)

Anyway, the site was fabulous. Six years better than before. The terrace house area is newly opened but has been a long time being excavated by a primarily Austrian team. After about five years of exposing the frescoes and mosaics, the deterioration was so bad, the Turkish government yanked their permits and demanded a good cover to protect the site. $7 million later, there is a very high tech covering and the best part is a series of see-through pathways that let you walk through the rooms without damaging anything. Some people gripe about the additional charge to get into the houses, but never has $10 been better spent. It is so fascinating and requires very little imagination to picture the rich and famous of Ephesus living during the 1st century.

Life Improves

For all you patient folks who have listened to me whine, it is only fair to list the major improvements that have occurred in my life. These sound silly, I know, but when you don't have them, it drives you wild.

1) Kitchen chairs. Now that Ramadan is over and we are home at night, it is nice to be able to sit down while eating. Standing was getting old.

2) A table for the television. Now that we can put it somewhere, we will have cable hooked up tomorrow night. Ah! CNN.

3) Heat. Over the weekend, fall came with a vengeance -- rainy, cold, miserable and we couldn't get our heat working. Now it is lovely and warm in our house.

4) Getaway. I went away for the weekend (this will be another blog) and just the getting away improved my outlook. I also bought several more things to hang on my walls so my room is starting to look like something.

At least before the bitter cold comes, this place seems more manageable. The final hurdles will be the internet connection and the work/residence visas which are not yet accomplished. Heck, if they don't get them done, I have to leave the ocuntry in 4 weeks anyway so either way is fine with me!

Bayram

Ramadan is drawing to a close. I will miss it actually, mostly for the wonderful dinners and time I got to spend with my students out of school. Also, I have just been told, when they are not fasting, they will be even wilder in school!

Ramadan comes to an end with a big holiday called Bayram (Eid in Arabic). This is marked by huge feasts, the giving of gifts, families gathering, sort of like Thanksgiving. Many people travel to distant relatives and I will be going to Seljuk to see my friend Lily and just to get out of town.

There has been some movement to solve our ongoing problems. We now have chairs so that we can eat sitting down and a table for our television so we can finally get it hooked up. There is also a rumor that they have at least applied for our phone line which is the first step in getting an internet connection. I even got paid! (Though not the right amount.) One gets the feeling that everything is going to be a struggle here but these little triumphs are quite nice.

Seljuk is the place with the wonderful Ephesus ruins which I will visit again, this time with a camera!

School

I teach in a private school which is part of a big organization of "Fatih schools. Turns out they are all over the world, though not always with "Fatih" (Conqueror" in the name. Teachers and especially administrators, can expect to be moved every 2-3 years at the whim of the organization. Preferences are requested but not often consulted. They particularly like the people who say they will go to a foreign country.

The schools have a good reputation but in a sort of underhanded way. The tuition is pretty high so we have all of these horrible, spoiled rich kids that have no interest in school. They take some of that money and recruit poor, deserving kids. They do very well and get into good universities and become walking advertisers for the school. This sounds a little sleazy but I guess it's good for the poor kids.

The majority of the kids are very rich and spoiled and atrociously behaved. They also have absolutely NO interest in learning English which makes one wonder why they are here. This is a big time language school. We teach English from Kindergarden and by 5th grade they have 6 hours of English a week -- two with a native speaker. At 5th grade they also start a 3rd language, usually German.

When they announced that I would be more worthwhile in the primary school, I was horrified but agreed to give it a try. I did that mostly because I was assured that their English level was quite high. This was a lie. It is appallingly low. Now that they have been streamed, the upper two classes of each grade are fair while the lower two are abysmal.

The other immediately noticeable differences between here and Taiwan are the attendance level which is pretty sporadic here as opposed to my Taiwanese students who had an excellent record (whether I wanted them to or not! The classes were so big there that we frequently dreamed of plague or pestilence). The other difference is the casualness about the uniform. A class with less than 3 out of uniform is unusual here whereas in Taiwan they even wore theirs to school on weekends if they went in.

The uniforms are pretty good looking: boys wear gray pants and navy polo shirts with maroon collars and cuffs. The girls wear blue and gray plaid pleated skirts with a shot of maroon in the plaid with maroon polo shirts with navy trim. Most of the girls wear tights either black or gray and the "uniform" shoes are anything black --- high top sneakers are the most popular

Are you getting tired of Ramadan?

Ramazan is impacting me more and more -- generally in favorable ways.

Last night I went to an "iftar" at one of my student's homes. First, the house was gorgeous. This to remind us of how rich our students are. Besides that, though, her mother has a real sense of style and the place was beautifully decorated. She also proudly showed off her her lovely needlework and wowed us with her cooking. She and her husband are from the southeast of Turkey which has a different style of food and it was great. Also plentiful. We ate like the starvelings we were.

As they have 2 children in the school, there were three teachers invited, plus the students each brought friends and some of them brought parents. Altogether there were about 20 eating and there was plenty left over.

And she gave us each a necklace! I am liking this part of the season more and more.

Downsides:

Our school has a beautiful swimming pool. It is currently closed because a swimmer might get water in their mouth and break their fast! They did say that I could use it but then pointed out that they has turned the heater off for the month. It was cold enough with it on!

They have also stopped refilling the bottled water and have turned off the water fountains.

As my "infidels fast" does not include liquids, this leaves me with tap water to drink. Tap is safe to drink here but doesn't taste very good. It also doesn't get cold.

Food

Food is wonderful here. I have yet to have anything I don't like. Except that some of the sweets are a big "over the top" sweetness -wise, I could blissfully eat Turkish food forever. When this honeymoon period wears off, there are also lots of restaurants serving foreign food.

So far the best thing is the soup. Always the first course, always wonderful. Generally it's like a vegetable puree, bean, or pea or tomato. Usually served with the excellent bread for dipping, it is a meal in itself. In the school cafeteria (back when we were eating) they knew to give me two ladles full.

Vegetables are good. Very available and reasonable. I have already talked about the tomatoes, but others are also good. The cabbages are enormous -- like small pumpkins. Potatoes are good, onions, the lot. The only thing I haven't seen yet is celery.

Olives are very popular in Turkey, eaten at every meal and look marvelous. I wish I could acquire a taste for them.

The other thing they eat a lot of that I have never been wild about is cucumbers. I will say, though that they taste better here.

Meat and bread are what Turks eat the most of, oh, and cheese. Cheese is great, thousands of varieties but all white. No cheddar here. The bread is marvelous and meat is great. Heavy on lamb, beef and chicken. It's a long search for pork-based products!

Meat and cheese are both expensive, though, to buy. It is almost better to eat in a neighborhood restaurant than to try to buy meat and cook it yourself.

Diet Coke is available, the beer is okay. No wine that a poor teacher could afford but that's okay because they mostly only have red anyway.

Fruit is very good. Currently peaches, pears, watermelon and grapes are in season.

I will clearly not starve!