Hindiler, falan filan...

Tonight we are taking a sleeper car to İstanbul (my favorite way to travel!).

Now I don't have time to write a longer post (especially because my host sister keeps on storming into the room every few minutes, wanting to play barbie games online), so here's another quick compilation of randomness:

--Saying no: Before I came here, my grandfather told me that Turks say no by shaking their head up and down (how we say yes), instead of from side to side. Not quite. But close. The informal way of saying "no" (hayır) here is to lift your chin up and click your tongue. I love doing it: quick, easy, and a definite refusal. It is especially amusing to see my seven-year-old host sister, Melis, respond to questions in the same way.

In general, much of the juiciness of Turkish is about gesture and facial expression, whether slapping palms or rolling eyes. Somehow, it makes every conversation feel more vital, more passionate.

--Tespih beads: Often on the subway I see people playing with a string of what looks like rosary beads, rolling them over their fingers and swinging them from side to side. I asked my teacher about it, and turns out they actually are like rosary beads. They're called tespih and are supposed to have either 33 or 99 beads, to symbolize the 99 names of God in Islam. However, for many of the people I spoke to the beads lack any religious meaning and are just a simple way to pass time, a habit and tactile fixation. It is always interesting to see the way religion finds its way into daily life here, while subtly morphing into something different...

(Another thing: my host family calls itself Muslim, but never goes to the mosque. But the daughter recites prayers from the Koran every night under her mother's guidance...)

--Conservation: In this area of the world, unlike in the United States, water and electricity are precious and expensive commodities. I am reminded of their scarcity here almost every day, whether from the toilets with two flush buttons (so you don't waste unneccessary water), to the computers in the computer lab getting turned off after every use (which is horrible for the computer, but probably does save some precious kilowatts...)

Just yesterday the electricity in the school kept going off every ten minutes because of so many air conditioners (it was another 100 degree day), and everyone took it for granted. And the government recently announced that, because of the drought and the inordinately high temperatures, water will be turned off completely every other day starting in August...

Conservation really happens when people feel the necessity and it becomes part of the culture, rather than just a campaign slogan...

--Deodorants and turkeys: In many places here, there are little room deodorizers hanging on the wall. Every couple minutes they release a puff of scent with a loud tuff (I originally thought it was a cat sneezing.) Maybe it's because everyone smokes inside, maybe because people take less showers... :) Dunno, but it was very strange at first.

Finally, although I still haven't seen any turkeys here :) (they are definitely only in zoos), I did learn that a turkey here is actually a hindi, which is similar to the word for India: Hindustan. I wonder what they're called in India?

And a preview of future posts:

--Going to the grocery store and other stories of "Green Capital"

--Visit to the shrine of Atatürk (long overdue)

--What the AK Party (the one that got an overwhelming majority recently) may mean for Turkey.

--My first trip to İstanbul!


p.s. I just realized that there are only two weeks left of my time here... Crazy. So if there's anything burning you wanted to know about Turkey and want me to find out and write about, let me know!

p.p.s. The title of this post means "Turkeys, etc." :)

Turkish Tea

I should have called this blog Turkish çay ("chai"). Because while Turkish coffee (türk kahvesi) is reserved for special occasions -- restaurants, guests, lazy Sunday mornings -- tea is as ubiquitous as water (and sometimes cheaper). While bargaining in a store or visiting the neighbors; in front of the TV; before, during, and after lunch: you drink tea. Moustached men gather in male-only tea houses all over the country to drink tea, play backgammon (tavla), and gossip... Friends relax in cafes over tea and baklava... Most grocery stores have at least half an aisle devoted solely to loose-leaf tea.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, coffee became an expensive import. Tea, however, was home-grown, dotting the slopes of the eastern Black Sea region. Now it has become the national drink, the standardized ritual (no matter the region or the weather), the prerequisite for any social gathering.

Turkish tea preparation comes in a series of measured steps:

First you put loose-leaf tea into the teapot (or a traditional samovar) and pour hot water over it.

Then you wait. After collecting extensive polling data from nearby Turks, :) I have concluded that the ideal brew time is about 15 minutes. This is exactly enough time for the tea to turn the color of tavşan kanı (literally: rabbit's blood) -- a deep brownish red.

You set out the cups on a wooden tray with a bowl of sugar cubes (you can ask for milk or lemon, but only foreigners do). Because Turkish tea is so strong, it is usually served in a small ince belli bardak (literally: tight waist; see picture). You can also get an ajda bardak* (a larger hour-glass shape) or a fincan çay (usually a regular glass cup).

Then you pour a bit of boiling water in each cup, and pour it out again. (My host father says it's so the glass cups can get used to the hot water... ? I guess it's just part of the ritual...)

Then add the steeped tea (about 1/4 to 1/3 full) and some hot water (to taste), place a small teaspoon on top. And serve.

Sitting in a cafe on a cool morning, balancing the scalding cup by the rim, hearing the soft ringing of metal spoons against glass cups... Pressing my finger against the glass, seeing my fingerprint magnified and luminous... Finally I take a sip and the day begins...



*This size of cup is actually named for the waist of Ajda Pekkan, the most commercially successful music artist in Turkey. She had her peak as a singer and actress in the 1970s and 80s but is still popular, releasing another Cool Kadın, her 20th CD, just last year. She's still on TV all the time and looks nothing like her 61 years (my host mother calls her "well-kept.")...

Can you imagine a new flavor of Coca-Cola being named after a Hollywood diva?

The House of Baklava (or an Interlude on Turkish Politics)

Yesterday the Turkish people cast their votes. In a few days, new representatives will be inaugurated into the Parliament -- the Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi (Turkey's Grand National Assembly). Of course, as always, I should have written more earlier, but let me catch you up a bit...

A few weeks ago, a friend and I went on a party propaganda photo shoot. We scoured the city for pictures of flags and posters. For the last few weeks, the city has been bedecked in lines of multicolored flags across every intersection and major avenue. Sometimes the territory was staked out by a single party, sometimes the flags competed for attention, trying to be the highest and the biggest.

Unlike in the United States, where much of campaigning happens on TV or in booths, here the whole capital city was a playground for political party canvassing. Besides flags, there were clever slogans at every bus stop, stickers plastered on the escalator, billboards, graffiti...

But the most visible campaigns happened live on the city streets. Every few hours, a convoy of buses and cars would drive by, blaring nationalistic songs and waving Turkish and party flags. At least twice a day, our Turkish class on the 6th floor of Atatürk Bulvarı would be interrupted by megaphoned slogans. The largest group I saw had about 4 buses and at least 20 cars (I counted), driving slowly across all three lanes of traffic...

Sometimes the bigger political parties -- the AK Party, the CHP, the MHP (more on these later) -- blared by. But often, it was the smaller parties, those parties not expected to garner a single seat in the new assembly.* They were just making noise, it seemed, just trying to get their voices heard (if not listened to)...


The day was hot. The kind of hot where holding my camera in the sun burned my fingers, where flies sweated, where the sun seemed lost in the shimmering glare of the sky... We wandered into a shady side street and suddenly came across Kocatepe Mosque, the biggest mosque in Ankara, its four white minnarets gleaming.

And on the same street, right across from the mosque, were the AK Party's headquarters. The AKP (the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or Justice and Development Party) has been in Parliament since 2002. Its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is Turkey's current prime minister.

Yesterday, the AKP was the overwhelming leader, getting about 47% of the popular vote. Of the Parliament's 550 seats, its representatives will now hold at least 340.

We walked past the headquarters, the party's flags cascading from top to bottom. The next buiding was a small cafe we first called "House of Baklava." Perfect, I thought. Eating my favorite Turkish dessert near a beautiful mosque, and next to the ruling party's headquarters. A little corner of Turkey's essence.

But then it got better, but also less simple... Turns out the cafe was called "Hoş Sofra," or "Pleasant Table." (We'd mistaken part of the menu for the name.) And when I first asked for baklava, the restaurant's single employee brought me burekas instead...

Then he took away our napkins. And then the salt and pepper. For the restaurant's four outside tables, there was exactly one napkin holder. One salt and pepper holder. One ashtray, one toothpick tray, one sugar bowl. One worker. He bustled from table to table, moving items from one customer to another.

But somehow, in typical Turkish fashion, it all worked out. The lady who smoked got her ashtray, we got our napkins back when we needed them (the cafe's owner finally understood my Turkish and brought me the baklava, and a cup of free tea besides).
The owner even had time to slip us a couple of business cards. "Do come again," he smiled from beneath his thick moustache.

And then the processions started. As we sipped our free tea and nibbled on baklava, first the Turkish Communist Party (TKP) drove by, horns blaring, then the CHP in a smaller van, then a few other parties. All did their best to make the most noise in front of the AKP headquarters.

It didn't get violent, and it didn't get nasty. The party vans just drove by, and some of the AKP guys came outside to stare, but that's about it.

And at that moment I had so much hope for Turkey, and so much love for it. It wasn't always running smoothly, (and the baklava was a bit stale :) ), but somehow it worked. Needs were satisfied (despite a slight delay), opposing voices were heard, religion was visible but not overbearing...

Of course, it was just a feeling, a somewhat naive conception strongly colored by heat and sugar... But I can still hope...

This morning as I walked to class, the flags were gone. I saw just one red scrap still curled against a tree trunk. No more blaring horns, no more noise.

And what about those other 48 parties? How will they get their voices heard now? Is Turkey the kind of country in which consensus can be built, in which even after elections, the majority listens to the needs of the minority?

I guess we'll see over the coming weeks...

*Turkey has 51 officially registered parties, of which 13 participated in yesterday's elections (along with independent, unaffiliated representatives). Only those who receive at least 10% of the vote (in each election block) get seats in the National Assembly. Only three parties (AKP, CHP, and MHP), along with independent representatives, will be part of the new government...

Turkish Food

Of course, the best thing would be just to eat it yourself. But failing that, here are some pictures to keep you drooling:

My Fake Turkish Wedding

For our final night on the trip to the southeast of Turkey, we went to a "Sira Gecesi" in Şanlıurfa -- a night of traditional Turkish music and food.

Through a stone doorway, we entered a small courtyard strewn with carpets and pillows. We sat around low tables while more and more dishes kept appearing -- bread, salad, shish kebab -- while a band of six played on traditional Turkish instruments.

The whole evening was organized for us (for the trip we were "hosted" by the local government. I.e. they chose where we ate and what we saw). Other customers to the restaurant sat on higher levels and looked down.

Eventually the dancing started. Then the raw meat preparation: a restaurant worker began kneading some spice-smelling substance in a round metal pan. At first we couldn't figure out what it was -- dessert? Sand? He kept on rolling it across the pan's rough surface, then packing it together and starting over. The night was hot, and his sweat mingled with the ground meat, the spices, the mixed-in cilantro... Our guide Omer and the head waiter took turns wiping his forehead with a wet cloth.

Finally, when it was done (I guess soft enough?) he lifted the pan high above his head and started dancing with it, along the tables, the fountain, the stairs, while the music played faster and faster... Whirling and twirling, he stopped in front of us in his knees, the pan turned upside down, but the meat packed so tightly that not a piece budged.

Of course I had to try it (though with lots of tomatoes and pita, and only a small section of the rawness.) A bit spicy, but otherwise just like a regular meat patty. The spices partially cook it, I guess...

Then all of a sudden they are choosing people for something. I have no idea what was going on, but somehow I am volunteered by Omer...

Then I'm in a room upstairs getting dressed in a long thick embroidered gown (it's about 85 degrees outside) and a veil... "You're the bride. You sit on the right. Your face is covered. ... Okay, go downstairs now and try not to fall..."

Then I'm walking down the stairs with Mike in the dark (we're supposed to be a surprise). A black veil covers my face. No one can see me, but I can partially see -- as if through black translucent glass...

Mike and I sit side by side on chairs while the group walks around us, chanting and holding candles. I am sweating in every crevice of my body, along my hairline, down my back. It is all absurd, and I am trying not to laugh. ("You're supposed to be sad," the guide explained. "Why?" "It's a tragic day -- you're leaving your family, your friends. Perhaps it's an arranged marriage...")...

The head waiter smears henna into a circle on my palm. (It comes off after a week.) Then the veil is lifted and I squint and try to keep my face rigid while everyone claps. Then we dance, shake hands with the waiters... I get into it, twirl around. The music stops, we bow.

So that's how I was married in Turkey. (What happens in Şanlıurfa stays in Şanlıurfa...)

How To Make Nana Tea

A funny thing happens on trips after several days of complete cultural immersion. You become so attuned to novel experiences and attitudes that you begin to take almost anything in stride, even beyond the point of logic and reason. Some call it "the suspension of disbelief." But I prefer Leigh's catch-phrase for it: "the donkey ate the horse," or "the camel ate the elephant." On the trip to the southeast, if someone had told us such a thing, we would have nodded and accepted it without comment, as if it were perfectly natural.

Let me give an example. Over the course of two days in this "Land of Large Moustaches" (as Mike called it), we had visited an ancient monastery where the Christian sect apparently still spoke Aramaic (a language I thought long-dead).

Near Hasankeyf, we had seen two enormous hunks of rock stranded in the middle of the Tigris River -- the remains of a bridge built for unknown reasons around 1160.

At a kiosk stop in Şanliurfa,* we were offered a brown bubbly drink -- meyan -- made out of pure licorice but actually tasting like a combination of oats and dirt. It is supposedly incredibly good for your stomach, but I could only muster a few sips. (Our driver Suleiman downed a large plastic cup in five seconds flat. I think the key is not to taste it.)

We passed a man driving a donkey cart full of hay. We crashed a traditional Turkish wedding at our hotel and our guide Omer made us dance. So, wearing capris and flip-flops, we danced the Turkish version of the hora with complete strangers.

Finally, that evening we went to a farm to meet with ethnic Yezidis.** We sat at a long table outside, most of it in shadow. The conversation about Yezidis was through the translation of our program director, Erika. Although we tried to keep up, in the end those of us on the far end of the table gave up and just relaxed. Flies buzzed around the small lamp, our tea spoons clinked against tea glasses, the smell of manure mingled with the scent of hay and wild flowers...

One of the owners of the farm decided to show us how to make nana tea -- black tea with lots of sugar and mint leaves. Although less common in Turkey, nana tea is the ubiquitous drink in much of the Middle East.*** The guy spoke no English but he tried to mime the instructions, while we squinted at the dictionary.

He showed us how to crush the mint with our fist so that its scent is released. Then he put some mint leaves in his mouth and pointed at the cup, saying something we couldn't understand (at that point, we had had less than a full week of Turkish).

Not sure of what to do, we followed suit, chewing the hard leaves and then spitting them back into our tea cups. At that moment, if he had told us to break the cups and then dance on the table, we probably would have done so. Another instance of "the camel ate the elephant."

(Later we figured out that he was just chewing the mint leaves for fun. What he was really trying to explain was that hot water had to be poured over the crushed leaves for a proper brew. Yeah...)



Time for this post to end, but the next (and last) post from this trip is the long-promised "My Fake Turkish Wedding."



*Originally it was called Urfa but was renamed "The Illustrious Urfa" ("şanlı" means illustrious or renowned) after the Turkish War of Independence because its militias successfully held back the British and the French after World War I. Also code for "lots of your people died so we're giving you a special name." There are several other cities so honored in Turkey.

For more about the Turkish commemoration of its independence, see the upcoming post about the Atatürk Museum.


**The Yezidis are a pre-Islamic religious minority with substantial populations in Northern Iraq, along with communities in Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Iran, Russia and Syria. The origins of their religion are largely unknown, its traditions and beliefs secretive and with diverse explanations. Sometimes they have been labeled "Satanic."
One of the guys from our trip met the community while posted in Northern Iraq and wanted to learn more about them. If you are curious, here is the Wikipedia article.


***Many of the people in Southeastern Turkey also speak fluent Arabic and consider themselves Turkish Arabs (or Arab Turks). Probably the cultural influences from the Arab world are more prevalent here...

Flies, stories, and the road to Batman

After a long-ish break, I want to continue the tale of our first trip, from two weeks ago:

On the bus from Diyarbakır to Marden I stared out the window. Rolling hills, rocky fields, little clumps of bush and tree along grass burned yellow... Small houses with flat roofs (attics are too hot for this weather), old men on stoops... The houses crowd together against the desert-like expanses, built so closely that I saw a girl on a swing strung between them. Grazing goats, skinny horses and cows, wild almond trees, grape orchards with their glossy green leaves (later used for dolma).*

The flies wandered along the seats and occasionally bit my ankles. Every once in a while, our guide Omer would share a story. One I wrote down (I heard it in translation, unfortunately): "Why the Tigris River Winds."

Unlike the straight(er) Euphrates, here the Tigris River meanders like a snake. Why? God told a saint to walk with a stick from Diyarbakır and draw the river's path with a stick. The only stipulation? The river couldn't cut through any poor people's homes. So to avoid all the poor people, the saint had to make many curves and curlicues. And that is how the river flows to this day...

****

Later in the hotel, Alice D., Leigh and I talked about our trip thus far. We all felt so conspicuous as Westerners, so obviously strangers to this land. There was a huge distance between what we were seeing and what life there was really like... We could sightsee, but not interact. When we walked through Diyarbakır earlier, I felt everyone staring at our group. I was more aware of people looking at me than I was of the buildings and people around me.

Yet, what is the best way to travel? Is it better not to visit such places at all? Or somehow hope that the sights alone will have enough of an impact? And what does such travel really give you? It is a fact of human perception that often we see what we want to see, rather than what is really there. We travel just to confirm our expectations and preconceptions...

But the hope is that, instead, even such "travel at a distance" will shift something imperceptibly, will somehow leave me changed and seeing the world through clearer eyes...


*This was a trip of intense overeating, most of it paid for by the program. Pictures will follow.

**To end on a lighter note: one of the towns in this area is called Batman, which inspired many hours' worth of wisecracks from the guys on the bus. For example, when we visited a cave, the guys would explain: "This was Batman's secret dwelling, of course"... As you can imagine, this got old pretty quickly. But at the same time, these are the memories, the inside jokes, that stay with you years later. Why oh why? :)

Next: How to Make Nana Tea

The Things You Notice First

I should update y'all on the trips, but right now I'd rather tell you about the random unexpected things, the salt and pepper of my stay:

--The symbols on bathroom doors: the man is smoking a pipe, the woman wears a hoop skirt.

--Hard white balls are in most sinks and drains. They look like tiny golf balls and smell like moth balls. Apparently it's to prevent rank smells from seeping out of the sewer... (at first I thought -- did someone lose their marbles?)

--Children begging no matter where you go in city centers. It's hard to get used to. They peddle tissues or jewelry or other trinkets and they don't leave.

--Men kissing each other on the cheeks in greeting and parting. And being touchy-feely by American standards. Here it is much more accepted for men to greet each other with hugs and kisses than to kiss a stranger of the opposite sex.

--Insane hospitality. So kind, but also suffocating at times, because I feel obliged to reciprocate. Our instructor had to remind us that when shop owners serve you free cups of tea, you still don't have to purchase anything.

--At the beach or in outdoor activities, men in their 30s and 40s wearing short-shorts (but never in the city). A throwback to the 80's?

--Squatting toilets.

--No women wear spaghetti-strap shirts in the city, but most wear heels and tight clothing and make-up. The uniquely Turkish blending of Islamic modesty with cosmopolitanism. (But the women in newspaper and magazine advertisements are always half-naked, as in the rest of Europe.)

--Strong black tea with sugar at every meal, between meals, and after meals. Or Turkish coffee. The whole nation is in a perpetual state of caffeination.

I'll add more as I notice them... Thank you for all your comments and suggestions up till now, and keep them coming! I will make sure to eventually answer/address every one.

Now I have to go to bed because I am exhausted... Each day my Turkish gets a tiny bit better, while my English worsens by leaps and bounds... By the end of this trip, I'll have to write in two-word sentences...

*****

By the way, re: beggar with scale (see end of "So Much Turkish!"). As several people have mentioned, the scale is exactly what it purports to be -- a way for people who have no scale at home to weigh themselves, and pay for it. Apparently scales are expensive/hard to get in Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries? Or people just have urgent cravings to know their weight? (I would, too, given the insane richness of Turkish food...)

However, as my teacher here pointed out, the scale is also a way for those uncomfortable with pure begging to offer a simple service. It lends a measure of dignity to an otherwise lowly occupation...

One of my favorite things about traveling, and writing: the way scratching at a simple question or mystery usually uncovers something more fundamental about the way people work...