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." :)