The Pide Episode

I may have been here for almost two months, but that doesn't mean I know what's going on. Here is a typical example of my Turkish cluelessness:

We got back from İstanbul via bus at 7am yesterday. So I crashed for a while, and woke up sweating around noon. Half an hour later there was a knock on the door. I was too out of it to worry about burglars or murderers, so I opened it. There was a uniformed guy there, holding a plastic bag of food and saying something. Unfortunately in moments of uncertainty, my Turkish flies out the window. All I could string together was "what?" and "who?"

He was nice though, and un-condescending, telling me sumtinsomething "Abla ordered it."* Maybe my host mother had decided to buy me lunch? Maybe this was a weekly dinner order I didn't know about? The origins of my lunch were shrouded in uncertainty. I knew only one thing: I now owed the guy 11.50 YTL (New Turkish Lira). I managed to scrounge together 9.50 (he didn't have change, of course). But he said it was fine and left.

(Two things that would never happen in the U.S.: 1. an order coming without a receipt. 2. a delivery guy accepting less money and no tip.)

Inside the bag were two cups of ayran (a type of salty yogurt drink all Turks guzzle in summer), some plastic-wrapped salad, and a whole tray of pides, the Turkish version of pizza (thinner, with less cheese and more toppings.)

By the time my host mother Funda got back and discovered it had been a mistake, two slices of yummy pide were in my stomach. Poor delivery guy. Out of all the streets and all the houses in Ankara, he had to choose the one with the hungriest and most confused foreigner...

Funda laughed for a while, but then we had some of the leftovers for dinner. Quite delicious. I do wonder who was left without her lunch, though...


*In Turkey everyone of similar age calls each other abla (sister) or abi (brother), with amca (uncle) or teyze (aunt) for older people. A Turkish Embassy representative said that Turks often feel closer to Americans than to Europeans because both cultures are more casual in social interactions.