I've been meaning to write this particular blog post for a couple of weeks now, but because this is Turkey, the resolution to my current adventure has been continually postponed to the point that I've adopted a theme song that I hum every time I visit the real estate agent:
Life is full of twists and turns, and one of the pitfalls of leaving your life open to whatever God throws at you is that He sometimes decides to throw you the unexpected and your plans can suddenly change. I'm not complaining about this; these curveballs have generally led to adventures grander than any I would've planned for myself, and while God has continually surprised and challenged me, He hasn't yet disappointed me and I am doing my utmost to remember this fact and trust Him with whatever the future may bring.
Anyway, thanks to these twists and turns my plan to move back to Taiwan at the end of June has been neatly terminated, a development which happened too late to join my flatmates in the adventure of applying for teaching jobs at a university here in Ankara. What this means is that I'll simply stay at my current school, but my flatmates are moving to the university, since they provide free housing for foreign teachers.
But like I said, God is faithful, and it so happened that about five minutes after I suddenly realized that I needed to find new flatmates, I fell into a conversation with one of the Spanish teachers at my school who happened to be looking for a third flatmate to go in on a new place, so we decided to join forces. ¡Que magnífico!
So finding new flatmates was the easy part, but then we jumped into the world of Turkish real estate, an adventure which has inspired me to describe our little Spanglish-speaking family using the initials of our first names: Team AAH!!!
Day 1: The beginning of the story sounds a lot like the introduction to a racist joke-- a Spaniard and a Cuban walk into a Turkish real estate agency. The American was at work and couldn't come--wait, is that the punchline?? Anyway, the goal is fairly straightforward: we'd like a 3-bedroom apartment in a particular area of town that's centrally located and near our workplaces. The real estate agent obligingly takes them to a number of places, highlighted by such attractive features as dead pigeons in the kitchen. But the agent gets excited about one place, which she says is lovely. "Wait," says the Spaniard. "This has only two bedrooms. We need three." The real estate agent is unfazed. "But the kitchen is really big. You can put a wall in the middle and use half of it as a bedroom!" Needless to say, the hunt continues.
Day 2: Team AAH!!! assembles in full for the first time and spends an entire day househunting. This is like culture shock all over again, because as much as I like to think I'm adaptable in new cultures, there's a part of my American brain that insists upon punctuality and efficiency. So when we arrive at our scheduled time only to be told that we must wait an hour, I'm already a little put out. But I'm trying to pray, and remember that life is not a race and sometimes the process and relationships built along the way are just as important as the end goal. This is the Turkish way.
The first place we see is absolutely beautiful- everything is brand new and clean, it's got three balconies plus a terrace large enough for some decent barbecue parties, the landlord plans to repaint, the price is far from exorbitant. The real estate agent encourages us to jump on this place now, because if we wait we might lose it. And by now, she means within the next five minutes. We look at each other, unnerved by the fact that we have little time to discuss the situation. But carpe diem is our motto, and so we decide to take it. The real estate agent excitedly dials the landlord, and comes back five minutes later telling us to forget the whole thing. The landlord wants to rent to a family, not a group of young single people, particularly foreigners, and will not accept us as tenants. This is to become a recurring theme in our endeavors. Foreigners have a reputation for destroying places and throwing wild parties, which causes landlords to eye us with suspicion.
The second place is a hipster pad straight out of a sitcom, located on the fourth floor of a building situated in the center of the urban nightlife scene. The view is spectacular and the place is gorgeous and artsy, but it's expensive, noisy, and has sun coming in from all sides. No go.
The third place is much nicer, and we all fancy it immediately. It's on a quieter street, has no spectacular features, but is large enough to be comfortable and small enough to be cozy. At the end of the day, this is the place our minds wander back to. The real estate agent is hesitant, partly because this place is being rented through a different agency and she won't collect a commission if we take it.
Back at the office, she gives us a piece of advice: "This is the end of June, so a lot of people are moving. If you wait a week, there will probably be a lot more apartments opening up, and you'll be able to find something nicer than the one you saw today." This is a risk, since apartments in this area tend to go quickly, so much so that if you hesitate for a day you're likely to lose the place to someone else. The Cuban has to move out of her current home by July 1st, so she's reluctant to wait, but for some reason we decide to do it.
Day 3, Tuesday of the next week: Team AAH! arrives at the real estate office hopeful and expectant. We learn that not much new has opened up since last week, but there is one new place nearby and if we come back tomorrow we can look at it. So we schedule an appointment for 5:00 Tuesday to check this place out.
Day 4, Wednesday: We come back and the real estate agent has forgotten that we were coming, so she doesn't have the keys, hasn't contacted the landlord, and asks us to come back tomorrow. We ask about the other place from last week, and she says that another family is looking at it, and we have to wait and see what they decide. This is Turkey...
Day 5, Thursday: Our afternoon appointment hasn't been forgotten this time, but the agent has a sad look in her eyes. "Çocuklar," she says (it means "children" in Turkish, and is what she always calls us), "The owner says he doesn't want to rent to foreigners, so we can forget that apartment. The other one is still not rented yet. This other couple is looking at it, but they want a home office and the owner would rather not have a business in the building, so you still have a chance. The landlord is coming tonight- can you come to meet with them?" Team AAH!!! is all working that evening, but I manage to call and cancel my class in order to meet and try to convince the landlord that we're nice people who deserve this apartment.
And it's the most bizarre meeting of my life. I come back in the evening and am told to wait, so I spend some time chatting with the real estate agents. I'm secretly irked at what seems like their incompetence in forgetting things and possibly losing us this apartment by giving us bad advice, but then on the other hand these ladies are so sweet it's impossible to feel angry with them. They're incredibly kind, and patient with my bad Turkish. They seem genuinely concerned for our well-being and want us to find a nice place to live. The annoyed part of me is quashed, and I make a conscious decision to not be in a hurry tonight, not to be quick to point fingers and criticize, and simply try to be patient.
This turns out to be the right decision, because in Turkey business is all about relationships. Relationships trump performance, which happens in the States too, but not to the extent that it does here. And as the evening progresses, I see that my chances of getting this apartment rest entirely on the landlady's impression of me as a human being.
And in true Turkish fashion, the first twenty minutes of the meeting are spent chit-chatting about things entirely unrelated to the apartment, and I'm all but ignored for a while so I just sit and try to see how much of the conversation I can pick up. Eventually the topic winds around to real estate, and the agents suddenly become my personal advocates, sticking up for me and my flatmates. I start to feel a little bit like an item for sale, with the real estate agents talking up my features to a half-interested customer. The landlady herself eyes me with a similar look, as if she's trying to picture how I would look in the living room next to a houseplant. All I can do is smile as sweetly as possible and answer any questions directed at me. Then, before I know it, she's saying she's 90% certain she likes us, but wants to discuss the matter with her husband first. She'll let us know in the morning.
Day 6, Friday: The Spaniard calls me in the afternoon to say that we have the place and we can come in the next day to sign the contract and pay the deposit. The other thing we have to bring is a guarantee from our school proving that we really have a job. The school readily provides this. I do a little dance in the teachers' lounge to celebrate.
Day 7, Saturday: We meet with the landlord, who speaks decent English. The one thing he impresses upon us is that there are families living in the building with us and that we shouldn't be too noisy or host crazy parties. Later we revisit the apartment, scope out everything that needs to be cleaned or changed, and then retreat to the Spaniard's house to make a list of things we have and things we need. My Turkish teacher had said she has a bunch of old furniture she wants to give away, and after a quick phone call, we are able to cross off everything on the "things we need" list. Life is good.
Day 8, Monday: Team AAH!!! is almost ready to move in and start cleaning. My students are excited about this, and have volunteered to come help clean or carry things this weekend. We might have a moving party.
And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. " Matthew 6:27-34
It's so easy to forget, but it's true. There were a few days in the midst of this when I didn't sleep because I was so stressed out about spacy real estate agents and fickle landlords. Or to be more honest, there were a few months where I didn't sleep because I was trying to find a way back to Taiwan, a plan which was frustrated at every step and hasn't come to fruition. But worrying is completely useless. It seems that when Jesus says God will take care of us, he means it. And he means it every single time, not only occasionally. Even when my plans fall through and I have to stay in Turkey instead of moving back to Taiwan, hope is not lost. God is here, he's providing, and whatever he has in store for the next few months is probably far beyond anything I can imagine for myself, in the best possible way.
So now, I feel a bit more like this:
Anyway, thanks to these twists and turns my plan to move back to Taiwan at the end of June has been neatly terminated, a development which happened too late to join my flatmates in the adventure of applying for teaching jobs at a university here in Ankara. What this means is that I'll simply stay at my current school, but my flatmates are moving to the university, since they provide free housing for foreign teachers.
But like I said, God is faithful, and it so happened that about five minutes after I suddenly realized that I needed to find new flatmates, I fell into a conversation with one of the Spanish teachers at my school who happened to be looking for a third flatmate to go in on a new place, so we decided to join forces. ¡Que magnífico!
So finding new flatmates was the easy part, but then we jumped into the world of Turkish real estate, an adventure which has inspired me to describe our little Spanglish-speaking family using the initials of our first names: Team AAH!!!
Day 1: The beginning of the story sounds a lot like the introduction to a racist joke-- a Spaniard and a Cuban walk into a Turkish real estate agency. The American was at work and couldn't come--wait, is that the punchline?? Anyway, the goal is fairly straightforward: we'd like a 3-bedroom apartment in a particular area of town that's centrally located and near our workplaces. The real estate agent obligingly takes them to a number of places, highlighted by such attractive features as dead pigeons in the kitchen. But the agent gets excited about one place, which she says is lovely. "Wait," says the Spaniard. "This has only two bedrooms. We need three." The real estate agent is unfazed. "But the kitchen is really big. You can put a wall in the middle and use half of it as a bedroom!" Needless to say, the hunt continues.
Day 2: Team AAH!!! assembles in full for the first time and spends an entire day househunting. This is like culture shock all over again, because as much as I like to think I'm adaptable in new cultures, there's a part of my American brain that insists upon punctuality and efficiency. So when we arrive at our scheduled time only to be told that we must wait an hour, I'm already a little put out. But I'm trying to pray, and remember that life is not a race and sometimes the process and relationships built along the way are just as important as the end goal. This is the Turkish way.
The first place we see is absolutely beautiful- everything is brand new and clean, it's got three balconies plus a terrace large enough for some decent barbecue parties, the landlord plans to repaint, the price is far from exorbitant. The real estate agent encourages us to jump on this place now, because if we wait we might lose it. And by now, she means within the next five minutes. We look at each other, unnerved by the fact that we have little time to discuss the situation. But carpe diem is our motto, and so we decide to take it. The real estate agent excitedly dials the landlord, and comes back five minutes later telling us to forget the whole thing. The landlord wants to rent to a family, not a group of young single people, particularly foreigners, and will not accept us as tenants. This is to become a recurring theme in our endeavors. Foreigners have a reputation for destroying places and throwing wild parties, which causes landlords to eye us with suspicion.
The second place is a hipster pad straight out of a sitcom, located on the fourth floor of a building situated in the center of the urban nightlife scene. The view is spectacular and the place is gorgeous and artsy, but it's expensive, noisy, and has sun coming in from all sides. No go.
The third place is much nicer, and we all fancy it immediately. It's on a quieter street, has no spectacular features, but is large enough to be comfortable and small enough to be cozy. At the end of the day, this is the place our minds wander back to. The real estate agent is hesitant, partly because this place is being rented through a different agency and she won't collect a commission if we take it.
Back at the office, she gives us a piece of advice: "This is the end of June, so a lot of people are moving. If you wait a week, there will probably be a lot more apartments opening up, and you'll be able to find something nicer than the one you saw today." This is a risk, since apartments in this area tend to go quickly, so much so that if you hesitate for a day you're likely to lose the place to someone else. The Cuban has to move out of her current home by July 1st, so she's reluctant to wait, but for some reason we decide to do it.
Day 3, Tuesday of the next week: Team AAH! arrives at the real estate office hopeful and expectant. We learn that not much new has opened up since last week, but there is one new place nearby and if we come back tomorrow we can look at it. So we schedule an appointment for 5:00 Tuesday to check this place out.
Day 4, Wednesday: We come back and the real estate agent has forgotten that we were coming, so she doesn't have the keys, hasn't contacted the landlord, and asks us to come back tomorrow. We ask about the other place from last week, and she says that another family is looking at it, and we have to wait and see what they decide. This is Turkey...
Day 5, Thursday: Our afternoon appointment hasn't been forgotten this time, but the agent has a sad look in her eyes. "Çocuklar," she says (it means "children" in Turkish, and is what she always calls us), "The owner says he doesn't want to rent to foreigners, so we can forget that apartment. The other one is still not rented yet. This other couple is looking at it, but they want a home office and the owner would rather not have a business in the building, so you still have a chance. The landlord is coming tonight- can you come to meet with them?" Team AAH!!! is all working that evening, but I manage to call and cancel my class in order to meet and try to convince the landlord that we're nice people who deserve this apartment.
And it's the most bizarre meeting of my life. I come back in the evening and am told to wait, so I spend some time chatting with the real estate agents. I'm secretly irked at what seems like their incompetence in forgetting things and possibly losing us this apartment by giving us bad advice, but then on the other hand these ladies are so sweet it's impossible to feel angry with them. They're incredibly kind, and patient with my bad Turkish. They seem genuinely concerned for our well-being and want us to find a nice place to live. The annoyed part of me is quashed, and I make a conscious decision to not be in a hurry tonight, not to be quick to point fingers and criticize, and simply try to be patient.
This turns out to be the right decision, because in Turkey business is all about relationships. Relationships trump performance, which happens in the States too, but not to the extent that it does here. And as the evening progresses, I see that my chances of getting this apartment rest entirely on the landlady's impression of me as a human being.
And in true Turkish fashion, the first twenty minutes of the meeting are spent chit-chatting about things entirely unrelated to the apartment, and I'm all but ignored for a while so I just sit and try to see how much of the conversation I can pick up. Eventually the topic winds around to real estate, and the agents suddenly become my personal advocates, sticking up for me and my flatmates. I start to feel a little bit like an item for sale, with the real estate agents talking up my features to a half-interested customer. The landlady herself eyes me with a similar look, as if she's trying to picture how I would look in the living room next to a houseplant. All I can do is smile as sweetly as possible and answer any questions directed at me. Then, before I know it, she's saying she's 90% certain she likes us, but wants to discuss the matter with her husband first. She'll let us know in the morning.
Day 6, Friday: The Spaniard calls me in the afternoon to say that we have the place and we can come in the next day to sign the contract and pay the deposit. The other thing we have to bring is a guarantee from our school proving that we really have a job. The school readily provides this. I do a little dance in the teachers' lounge to celebrate.
Day 7, Saturday: We meet with the landlord, who speaks decent English. The one thing he impresses upon us is that there are families living in the building with us and that we shouldn't be too noisy or host crazy parties. Later we revisit the apartment, scope out everything that needs to be cleaned or changed, and then retreat to the Spaniard's house to make a list of things we have and things we need. My Turkish teacher had said she has a bunch of old furniture she wants to give away, and after a quick phone call, we are able to cross off everything on the "things we need" list. Life is good.
Day 8, Monday: Team AAH!!! is almost ready to move in and start cleaning. My students are excited about this, and have volunteered to come help clean or carry things this weekend. We might have a moving party.
And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. " Matthew 6:27-34
It's so easy to forget, but it's true. There were a few days in the midst of this when I didn't sleep because I was so stressed out about spacy real estate agents and fickle landlords. Or to be more honest, there were a few months where I didn't sleep because I was trying to find a way back to Taiwan, a plan which was frustrated at every step and hasn't come to fruition. But worrying is completely useless. It seems that when Jesus says God will take care of us, he means it. And he means it every single time, not only occasionally. Even when my plans fall through and I have to stay in Turkey instead of moving back to Taiwan, hope is not lost. God is here, he's providing, and whatever he has in store for the next few months is probably far beyond anything I can imagine for myself, in the best possible way.
So now, I feel a bit more like this:
I LOVE YOU. And thank you for reminding me of this crucial truth, because that is an attitude and a faith that I need to have in the coming months re: jobs.
ReplyDeletePS this is Toni and my very old now nonexistent blogger account
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