As I've traveled overseas, I've marveled at the human brain's ability to adapt to new situations, at how we initially react with shock and confusion to unfamiliar things, but over time we learn to accept different realities. We can even grow so accustomed to these new situations that we eventually regard them as normal. Culture shock doesn't last forever, and you can even reach a point where you forget what things were like at home or how you felt when you first encountered the new culture and all its trappings.
The thing is, when you're completely immersed in the culture, you don't notice the gradual shifting of your mental schema. You might not even discover how much you've changed until someone points it out to you, or you find yourself in the company of someone who is still in the initial stage of coping with the new situation.
Why am I rambling about culture shock and adaptation? Because, dear friends, I feel that there is one aspect of life in Turkey about which I cannot adequately present an American viewpoint. Traveling in India and southeast Asia has forever changed my definition of "gross," and Taiwan has given me a new sense of normalcy. I am speaking of this:
The bane of American travelers in any country where it might appear: the Turkish toilet. The squatty potty. The hole in the ground. Nothing is quite so shocking as when you walk in expecting a toilet and find only this. It's like your worst travel nightmare.
And yes, they're everywhere in Turkey.
However, they're also everywhere in Taiwan. I've heard arguments that they're actually more sanitary because there's no contact with a gross seat and that squatting is a healthier position. (Take this with a grain of salt; these are the same people who tell me that hitting myself repeatedly in the arm is good for my skin and that drinking cold water is unhealthy.) At any rate, after numerous occasions where the only choices were the squatty or a bush, I've ceased to regard it as an issue. The Taiwanese toilet came from Japan, so it has an anti-splashing design and always has a flushing mechanism, as you would expect of the high-tech, germaphobe Japanese. In Cambodia, instead of a flush, there was a cistern full of grimy looking water next to the toilet, with a small pitcher for scooping out this murky water to wash everything down. And sometimes a bidet. I won't even tell you about India.
The point is, these things don't faze me anymore. I'm sorry, I should have blogged about this a few years ago when I could have offered a more entertaining perspective. My poor flatmates, on the other hand, could probably give you a nice rant on the squat toilets, as they're both still reeling from the initial revulsion. They're probably not comforted by my assurance that after a while, the question "Is it a squat or a sit?" won't even come up when using public restrooms. However, there is another aspect of culture shock in this story, one which I haven't worked through and adapted to.
If there's one principle that I stand by, it's that two things in life should be free: drinking water and toilets. In Turkey, they charge you for both.
The water at least makes sense. Local water is so full of minerals that you wouldn't want to drink it, and so we order large bottles of water that are delivered to our house every week or so. I don't like it, but I can accept it.
But I haven't yet found it in my heart to forgive the bus company for their stinginess. It's a twelve hour bus ride to Trabzon, and the buses, while equipped with wireless internet and several television channels, lack facilities. There are a couple of rest stops along the way, full of overpriced cafes and gift shops. However, as you walk into the ladies' room, you'll be greeted by a man sitting behind a window in the entrance, asking you for an entrance fee. It's only one lira (US $.65), but still. It's not fun when the smallest bill you have is 50 lira and your coins total .75 lira, in a country where people hate making change. So I have to confess that when faced with this circumstance, I did something morally reprehensible: I didn't pay for the toilet. I happened to be walking in amongst a crowd of women, and in a state of panic, I simply slipped through without the guy noticing. It's probably a form of shoplifting, but that's what happened. Yikes.
The worst part is, the bus ride is setting you up. During the first leg of the bus ride, we were served drinks twice. Don't tell me this isn't some sort of scheme: fill up the customers with tea, bring them water after that, and then drop them off at a pay toilet? Please.
Just don't tell airline companies; we don't want to give them any ideas. The ocean is too wide for that.
Trabzon is a very historical city, having been an important port on the Black Sea for millennia. It was part of the Silk Road, which means it was home to a myriad of merchants and traders from all over and had many cultural influences.
In antiquity, Trabzon was a Greek colony, and has always been heavily influenced by Greek culture. Later, from 1204 to1641, Trabzon was the capital of the Trebizond Empire, one of the successor states that rose as the Byzantine Empire collapsed. Trabzon is full of old Byzantine churches that have been converted into mosques, and a couple of these sites have been preserved as museums. Today the city has one functioning church, with about a dozen members.
Probably the most famous attraction in the region is the Sumela Monastery, located in the mountains about 45 kilometers inland from Trabzon.
This monastery sits on a cliff, surrounded by mountains. It's at least ten miles to the nearest town, and even from the nearest road you have another ten minute hike up to get to the entrance. It's about as remote and peaceful a location as hermits could dream of.
The monastery was first founded in the 4th century AD by two monks who had a vision of the Virgin Mary on this cliff. It grew and reached its present form in the 1200s, during the rise of the Empire of Trebizond.
Even during Ottoman times, this monastery received special protection and grew and flourished until it was seized by the Russians after World War I. It was finally abandoned in 1923.
Sumela is known for its beautiful frescoes of scenes from the Bible. Unfortunately most of the artwork in the monastery has been badly damaged from wear, tear, and vandalism.
The inside of the rock church has the least damage, because the vandals can't reach the ceilings as easily.
We spent close to an hour climbing around in the cells of the monastery. It's a pretty incredible place, especially when you think about people living there five hundred years ago. The rooms are very dark and cold, since they're all carved out of stone and the windows are quite small. The nearest village is at least a day's journey away by foot, all up and down steep cliffs and mountains. Those monks must have been pretty dedicated to live up there.
The other big thing to see in Trabzon is the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia) museum. This old Byzantine church overlooks the Black Sea, and was also built in the 1200s.
The church was converted into a mosque in 1461, and then was seized by the Russians and used as a hospital during World War I. Later the mosque received a grant for restoration and has been a museum since the 1950s.
The architecture is lovely, with lots of stonework on the outside and more Biblical frescoes on the inside. Unfortunately, as in the monastery, much of the artwork has been defaced and destroyed by centuries of people and conquerors. A painting in the narthex depicting the wedding at Cana.
The inside of the sanctuary has a lovely high vaulted ceiling. The acoustics are incredible. I'd love to bring a choir in and sing here. But that might be weird, since it's a museum.
On the front wall is inscribed this surah from the Qur'an, which reads, "True temples belong to God only and therefore shalt thou worship no other but God."
Walking around Trabzon, there are tons of other things to see. The castle wall from the old Trebizond days still stands, and runs through the middle of the city. For an American, it's pretty odd and awe-inspiring to meander around and see the ruins of a castle nestled between the pastry shops and houses.
But for me the best part of Trabzon was all the outdoor tea gardens. Throughout the city, in the plaza, at each tourist attraction, there are outdoor pavilions where people gather to sip a cup of afternoon tea and talk with their friends. As we wandered around, we noticed that this seems to be a favorite pastime for many people. I saw many people who parked at a table all afternoon, sometimes to play backgammon, but mostly just to talk and enjoy the weather with their friends.
What better way to spend an afternoon on vacation than in a tea garden high on a hill, overlooking the whole city and the sea, with good company and good tea?
Sheep in a truck last night, unaware that it was their last night on earth.
Happy bayram! Yesterday we spent the afternoon in Amasya, a town midway between Ankara and the Black Sea coast.
It's known for its classical Ottoman style architecture and the castle built into the mountain overlooking the city.
We had some friends to show us around the town and cook us a nice Turkish dinner. Then this morning we began the more exciting part of our travel.
Let me back up a moment. Last week we went to buy bus tickets in Ankara. We wanted to get to Amasya, spend the night there, and then go to Trabzon the next day. When we went to the bus company, they told us that they could get us to Amasya and no further. So when we left on this trip, we had three tickets to Amasya and simply prayed that we would be able to find tickets to get us the rest of the way.
When we arrived in Amasya last night we had no trouble getting tickets to Trabzon today. Our Turkish friend gave us a lift to the bus station this morning and showed us off. It was an eight hour bus ride along the coast, and we arrived around 8:30 with a vague idea of where our hotel was and no clue how we were getting back to Ankara. I was a little nervous as we pulled into the bus station, because I knew that although we could get a taxi, there were probably other shorter, cheaper ways to get to our hotel, but that we couldn't find them with our complete lack of knowledge of the city and minimal knowledge of Turkish.
We were in for a surprise, though. When we got on the bus, our Turkish friend in Amasya had told the bus driver the name of the hotel we were staying at, so when we got off the bus in Trabzon, the bus driver, who spoke no English at all but was very patient with our awful Turkish, told us to wait and he would get us to our hotel. He called a guy with a mini-bus to take us there.
While we were waiting for the mini-bus, we went over to the ticket counter to see if we could get back to Ankara on Saturday. The bus driver followed us over there, and when we asked him about tickets, he looked at us with a raised eyebrow. "This Saturday?" he asked. He glanced at the ticketing agent, then he shook his head and clucked his tongue. "That will be very difficult." The other guy behind the counter, shook his head and told us that there were no tickets available. At this point the mini-bus driver had arrived and was waiting to take us to our hotel, so we resolved to give it up for tonight and try again in the morning.
However, our chauffeur had no intention of stranding us in Trabzon. Along the way, he suddenly pulled over and took us to another ticketing office for his bus company. The ticketing agent there also told us that it would be difficult to find tickets, but they worked and finagled things until they scrounged up three tickets to Ankara on Sunday night. Then he dropped us off at our hotel, where we're relaxing now.
It seems like everywhere we go in this country, we have been running into the nicest people. Everyone is so willing to help us out and take care of us. We have been really blessed so far in the people we've met.
I'm also really looking forward to exploring Trabzon now that we made it here and we know we won't be stuck forever. Check back for more pictures later!
Once we realized that we had a seven-day break for the bayram, and that everyone we know will be either feasting on roast lamb with their extended families or escaping from Ankara, it seemed pretty obvious that we should seize what may be one of our only opportunities to explore other regions of this beautiful country.
Therein lay the problem. Turkey is a huge country, filled with a range of historical marvels and natural beauty. If you only get a couple of vacations, where should you go?
Here was my list of top destinations when I arrived in Turkey:
1. Istanbul, because--well, duh.
2. Cappadocia, a region three or four hours' drive south of here. The rock formations here are insane, and the history of how people used these caves and underground cities throughout history is fascinating.
3. Izmir, a city on the west coast that is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in Turkey. It's also very near Efes (Ephesus) which has some of the best preserved Greek and Roman buildings in Turkey.
4. Çanakkale, a city in northwest Turkey where the British and Anzac troops stormed Gallipoli during World War I, and were demolished by the Ottomans. In many places the barracks and trenches have been preserved. It's also near Troy, the ancient city of literary and equine fame.
5. Antalya, the beach town on the Mediterranean that everyone recommends visiting. I like beaches.
Since I began teaching, my students have eagerly adopted the role of travel agent for their homeland. Everyone has been telling me the best places to visit, when to go, what to eat, etc. One class even sat down and made a list of fifteen places in Turkey that I must see before I leave.
A recurring theme through these travel discussions is the unparalleled beauty of the Black Sea. I keep hearing that this is absolutely the loveliest part of Turkey, especially in comparison to dry, brown Ankara. It's so beautiful that my pre-intermediate level students can't even put together sentences describing the scenery, but instead blurt out detached words like "green," and "hilly," and "green green green!" accompanied by dramatic hand gestures tracing the mountainous skyline.
This somehow sold us on the Black Sea. After a bit of research, we decided to head north and east for the bayram, to explore the towns of the northern coast. Our primary destination is Trabzon, a port city founded in the 7th century BC and, if my students are correct, home to some spectacular scenery.
Turkey is a huge country, much bigger than I seem to think it is. Trabzon didn't look that far on a map, but it's 462 miles away, about the equivalent of St. Louis to Jackson, Mississippi. It's a twelve hour bus ride from Ankara. Unfortunately my sense of distance has been compressed by a few years on Taiwan, where a three hour train ride to Taipei is "too far for just a weekend trip." In twelve hours you could drive around the island and end up back where you started. And that's counting stopping for the restroom and meals. So I'm not entirely certain what I'm going to do for twelve hours on a bus. Hopefully I'll think of something.
I'm supposed to teach tomorrow (Saturday) but as of right now I'm not sure how many of my students are going to show up. For many people, tomorrow is the beginning of a nine-day vacation from work and school, and so a lot of people are getting ready to skip town. Even tonight was a bit sparse at school, as many people cut out early.
What's the big deal? An Islamic religious holiday known in Arabic as Eid el-Adha, and in Turkish as Kurban Bayram. For many Muslims worldwide, this is the time of year to perform the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are required to make sometime in their life. In Turkey, it's treated almost like a Thanksgiving-type holiday.
What I was able to catch from students is that it's an important time for families to be together. On the day of the actual holiday, most families will purchase a live cow or sheep, and then sacrifice it. The animal is then cooked for a large family feast, some of which is set aside to distribute to the poor. I asked the students why they do this, and they replied that it is to thank God for all the blessings he gives to them and to remember everything God does for them.
A little more digging into the subject revealed that the holiday celebrates an event recorded in both the Bible and the Qur'an, God's test of Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice his son. Abraham, completely obedient to God, is prepared to do it, but of course God stops him and gives him a ram instead. The sacrifice performed on Kurban Bayram is a commemoration of God's provision.
This is also a big shopping time, as many people buy new clothes for the bayram. Why not? Any excuse for new clothes. I was told to avoid the malls next week, because they'll be crowded. Gifts of money are also commonly distributed to children, so young people in particular look forward to the holiday.
Our school is giving us a full week off for the holiday, so right now the plan is to head north and east to the Black Sea coast. I've been told that while the Black Sea is dangerous and too cold for swimming, the coast is lush and green and full of historical places. I'm looking forward to going and then coming back to share pictures!
One thing I greatly appreciate about the school I work for is its emphasis on communication. I've seen too many schools, including many in the United States, where foreign language classes spend more time teaching about the language than teaching the language. Raise your hand if you've sat through years of Spanish or German class memorizing verb conjugations and masculine/feminine endings but still can't carry on a decent conversation with a native speaker because you don't have enough experience putting all that grammar to use.
So I was thrilled when the director of our new school instructed us to get the students speaking as much as possible in class. Yes, we teach them grammar, but it's useless unless the students are able to understand it in a variety of contexts and use it to express themselves.
To that end, we spend a lot of time in class simply talking. Conversations are often inspired by the topics in our textbook, and I try to keep it somewhere in that realm just to be sure that target vocabulary has opportunity to come up. But you also learn a lot about people when you just sit and talk.
One of my classes is very pessimistic, as I tell them every day. We've been learning to express predictions about the future, which leads to conversations like this:
Me: "Do you think humans will be extinct someday?" Student: "I hope so."
or Me: "What might cause the birth rate to decrease?" Student: "Well, women get ugly after they have a baby."
At least they find their own cynicism hilarious, and people could easily mistake our classroom for a comedy club with as much as they crack each other up. However, they're still at a pre-intermediate level, which means their ability to express themselves is limited. This also induces snickers, when people utter such odd sentences as, "Next week I will cut a cow." (He meant that he will sacrifice a cow, as part of a religious festival which I'll write more about later.)
I'm also getting a more rounded view of the entire country, since many people in Ankara came from other places, and inevitably view their hometown as vastly superior to the humdrum business-oriented gloom of the capital city. But it means I'm getting lots of lessons in geography and what to do in various regions of the country if I ever get time to travel.
So basically, grammar is the necessary evil that allows us to get to the fun stuff of communicating and getting to know people. Work feels much less like work when it's simply facilitating conversation. In fact, I'd say that getting people to talk to each other is a pretty cool job.
As I've spent more time overseas, I've felt a bond of kinship with David Sedaris, a humorist who's spent a good portion of his adult life in France. Few writers can adequately describe the absurdity of being a foreigner like he can, and there's one story of his in particular that I feel completely captures the essence of what my life has been like the past three or so years. The essay is titled 'Jesus Shaves.' Here's the audio version, which is about ten minutes long, but well worth a listen. (FYI: There is one curse word at the end, but it's bleeped. Consider yourself warned.)
The story is entertaining enough in itself, but I cannot tell you how many times I have had conversations like the one he describes here, in my EFL classes and in daily interactions with people I meet. For adults trying to communicate in a foreign language, especially in an educational setting where one person in the conversation is far from fluent in the target language, linguistic skills hinder the more complex philosophical and comparative cultural conversations we'd like to have.
Often enough I'm the teacher in the scenario, trying to be patient but completely confused as to what my students are trying to tell me about their personal philosophies. But I've certainly had my share of moments as the student, using a stilted ungrammatical mutant language to try and talk to a native speaker who is struggling just to figure out which words are coming out of my mouth, let alone comprehend the implications of what I'm saying. When you say something the other person doesn't expect, due to a cultural or theological difference, it's easy for them to assume that you simply made a language mistake. The temptation is to give up when communication isn't smooth, and that can cause all sorts of problems.
However, God can and does work through these moments. Later on you might look back and laugh at the miscommunication, or be inspired to go and research these questions further to get a better understanding of what your friend was trying to tell you in the first place. I've learned a lot from simple Google searches inspired by incoherent explanations, and had great conversations prompted by asking a more fluent English speaker for clarification on what Joe Six-Words-of-English tried telling me earlier. There is much to be gained from a foray into the wilderness of cross-cultural communication, if you look at it as an opportunity to learn and grow, rather than simply an awkward embarrassing encounter.
When our supervisor told us about this apartment he'd found for us, he was very excited. It's in a nice area of town, it's got three bedrooms, it's completely furnished- we couldn't find anything else better for our price range. We signed the contract Sunday, with a few stipulations: we wanted an oven, we needed another bed and wardrobe for the small room, and we wanted the former occupant to clear out her personal belongings.
Well, we got the bed, we got the oven, and she did clear out a number of things before we arrived.
Nice living room, isn't it? Furnished apartments are so convenient, freeing us of the hassle and expense of finding our own furniture and decorating. However, I do feel that there is a threshold of how much furniture is useful, and once that threshold is reached, additional furniture becomes simply clutter. Our apartment definitely falls into the category of "you can't walk two steps without running into a cabinet or wardrobe." Every room is filled to the brim with more storage space than I would ever hope to need.
The master bedroom not only has a wardrobe spanning the length of one entire wall, but also two nightstands, a dresser, and a separate cabinet. You can only open the door halfway because there's furniture in the way. So far half the wardrobe is being used to store extra chairs, the ironing board, an extra fan, etc.
This is my bedroom, which came with a bed, table, nightstand, wardrobe, and this tall bookshelf. It's not bad furniture in itself, but it did take about an hour of playing around to get everything to a point where you could access more than one corner and open all the drawers while still having room to walk. There's simply too much for the small space.
The smallest bedroom is blessed with a balcony, and the presence of whoever that creepy picture is. What you can see in this picture is the entire width of the room, and yet the owner decided to buy a double bed for it. It's interesting, to say the least.
It was a full day's work to get furniture rearranged into a pleasing and useful configuration, including the exile of a few pieces, such as a giant wicker and glass bookcase, into the tiny storage closet that used to be a guest bathroom.
We were also dismayed to walk into the apartment and find that personal belongings had not all been moved out. Nor had she cleaned. As we poked around, it became apparent that the dirty dishes in the sink were not the only gifts she had left for us. Believe it or not, this selection in the refrigerator is a significant improvement over what we had seen last time we were in this place. Thankfully the eggs were out of the refrigerator, but she did leave us some beer, mayonnaise, and other various goodies. We did actually try the halva, a dessert substance with the taste and texture of the inside of a Butterfinger bar. In other cabinets we found a good supply of coffee, curry mixes, tea, etc.
And then there's the alcohol collection. The Baileys is all gone, but there is still a healthy supply of assorted whiskeys, rum, rakı (a Turkish liquor that tastes like black licorice), and several other libations.
I mentioned that there was coffee, but as we further investigated the jars of Nescafe, we discovered some little friends:
Yes, there is some sort of larvae living in this bottle of French vanilla Nescafe. Please wish these little friends a pleasant journey and safe travels into the garbage.
Besides the treasures in the kitchen, we found a whole host of other decorations and knick knacks which have now been safely stowed away in closets. Here are some highlights:
Cute night light with a bear sitting in a crescent moon. Sure to give you pleasant dreams.
A collection of dolls on shelves in the bedrooms. For some reason we decided not to keep them.
She also left us her collection of stuffed animals, probably to give the place a homier look.
Chewing gum on one of the night stands. If memory serves correctly, the official playground term for this is ABC gum: already been chewed. Or perhaps, like Violet Beauregarde, she was saving it for later so she could continue working on her world record in chewing.
The bathroom was well-stocked with her pink floral bath mats. We're also fully equipped if we ever decide to have friends over for a girls' night: nail polish, facial masks, skin creams, potpourri...
And in case we're not feeling so well, there is a basket overflowing with medications, presumably for any affliction that might come up.
This woman has an interesting sense of decor. She has candles like this one, full of gel and dotted with evil eyes. We also filled a box with pictures of Egyptian pharaohs, small bronze lamps, tiny Chinese folk god figurines, cat-shaped candles, cutesy Japanese cats, and several other things that seem to have been acquired through either travel or friends who travel.
The cleaning and moving in process is far from over. But we've at least made a good start on clearing out most of her junk and hiding it in storage spaces to make room for our few things, or at least to open up some space. And we're going shopping today to stock up on other things like bedding and supplies for the kitchen so we can actually start living.
Despite the setbacks, it does feel oh so nice to be sleeping on a bed and to have a wardrobe for my clothes. No more living out of a suitcase!
Rule number one of teaching at a dershane (cram school) in Turkey: flexibility is the only way to survive.
We started teaching at our school in downtown Ankara on Saturday morning. We found out what we were teaching Friday afternoon. I found out about my evening class tonight only when I called this morning to ask about weekday schedules. Needless to say, the first lesson was a little shaky, as I had very little time to familiarize myself with the material or figure out how to pace the three hour lesson.
For the next four weeks, I'm teaching three different groups of pre-intermediate learners, and my schedule looks like this:
Group 1: Saturday/Sunday 10:00 am-1:00 pm Group 2: Saturday/Sunday 1:30 pm-4:30 pm Group 3: Monday/Wednesday/Friday 7:20-9:20 pm
And that's it. Look a little weird to you? It certainly feels weird. My heaviest working days are the weekends, which means church is out of the question. On the other hand, I have nothing during the day on weekdays, and only work every other evening.
The school is a little chaotic. We received books and minimal instruction on teaching policies, course structures, assessment, or, well, anything that teachers want to know on the first day. This sort of information we gleaned from coworkers we chanced to meet in the teachers' room or in the hallway. Paperwork is underway for work permits, but I have yet to get registered in the accounting office so who knows the real status of what's going on. All I know is that I show up and teach and so far there's no record of me being there. TIA.
What I do know is that my students have put me at ease. My weekend groups are comprised of senior high and university students, all girls. This is an age group I'm comfortable with, and I really like all the students. The senior high group in particular doesn't run away during breaks, but uses that time to bring up conversation topics that interest them more than our current unit on environmental protection. They've already chatted with me about everything from their hopes and aspirations for the future to their favorite pop star, Tarkan.
My weeknight group is a little more sedate and not quite so bubbly, but they're mostly men in their early thirties, so that's to be expected. They're in English classes hoping it will improve their job opportunities, so they take it pretty seriously. Not bad, just different having students who are concentrating intently on the grammar instead of checking Facebook on their cell phones and giggling.
Overall I'm feeling good about the students, less than excited about the school, and overall still missing Taiwan so much it hurts. Transitions are hard, and I think the culture shock that bypassed me the first ten months in Taiwan has already hit me hard here. Hopefully the homesickness will start to pass as work fills up more of my time and I get to know people here. I'm confident that being here in Turkey is no accident, and I'm hoping to find ways that I can be used here.
The bane of American travelers in any country where it might appear: the Turkish toilet. The squatty potty. The hole in the ground. Nothing is quite so shocking as when you walk in expecting a toilet and find only this. It's like your worst travel nightmare.
