What a Day (or, the Day I Conquered the Emniyet)

It is hot and DRY here with no rain in the ten day forecast but hopefully a precipitous drop in temp -- to day highs in the low 70s (at least that's what they are claiming on weather.com!) However, night temps will be falling to the low thirties -- so i might have to be thinking about a heavier coat sooner rather than later. There is so little humidity in the air that my hair has a completely different texture and my skin is so dry that it is scaling off. Pretty gross.

Today was one of the busiest and most productive days yet despite an abysmal start. The plan: get up early, leave by 7:30, walk to campus, find the place where the buses leave at that time of morning, and head to my first language class at a language school from 9-1. then run some errands, Metro to the other end of town, a nice lunch at a cafetteria near the Homeland Security office, where I was to pick up my passport and all important and usually complicated residence permit at 3. Grab some groceries and home to COOK dinner for the first time ( no fridge yet but got the burners so I thought I could buy a little and eat at home.)

Well, I got up and out of bed at the scheduled time (which might be the first time in 3 years that I've done that), and was dressed, breakfasted, and ready to head out the door on time. And then, the dreaded family curse -- after 20 minutes in the bathroom and feeling really unstable stomach-wise, I had to rush out the door; I walked as fast as I could to campus, and went to all three places where minibuses leave from, at least the ones that I know. The distance between the minibus stops is not close -- a couple blocks between each. No minibuses. Well, I saw some minibuses -- but they were always on the road and not stopping for me. Rats. I tried to ask a couple of other people who were waiting around and it didn't go well at all. So, already running late, I had to hop a cab.

The cab ride -- at first uneventful and pleasant, especially watching the little kids in their bright blue collared pinafors waiting for the school buses -- rapidly took a turn for the worse when we became enmeshed in a bad traffic jam. The cab driver decided to bypass the traffic by going into the opposing lane and butting in line the distance of about a block. As he was trying to merge back in, two cars up ahead scraped into each other in the melee that doubles for Turkish traffic lanes. One driver, a young woman, got out of her car and started hitting the other guys car with her fist. He jumped out and pretty soon there were five drivers screaming at each other (the other three just jumped right in, for no apparent reason) and all the other nearby cars (a lot since it was a traffic jam!) started honking and yelling out their windows. Everybody had something to say, including my driver. Somehow though he managed to find a few little openings (probably by driving on the sidewalk) and zipped us out of there, only to be lodged in another traffic jam a block later. My concern with this language school all along was its distance from METU -- it is outside of downtown. My fears were proving correct, and I thought, I can't do this three days a week for the next 8 weeks! But I decided to give it a chance.

Just in time I got to the language center, climbed up 3 flights of stairs, waited in line, filled out some forms, reminded them that I wasn't going to pay because I didn't have my passport and couldn't go to the bank. That was only a partial reason -- I wanted to shop the class, as we used to say at Haverford, and check it out before paying.

The classroom was nearly full by the time I got there -- and I took a corner seat. A boy from Kazakstan introduced himself -- there is a huge Kazakstani (is that the word?) community here in Turkey. In fact, about half of the class were Kazakstani teenagers who seemed to speak turkish conversationally pretty well. But there were french, canadians, russians, italians, iranians. A lot of people. A woman came in and told the teens that they were in the wrong room, so that cleared it some, but there were still more than 15 people in the class. The teacher came in and she seemed nice -- at first -- but within 10 minutes I realized this was a bad idea. The others had NO knowledge of turkish. We started with hello, and the alphabet. The entire FOUR hour class (well, subtract the annoying breaks, three 10 minute and one 20 minute) amounted to us repeating the alphabet to her, repeating it individually, and memorizing a dialoge: hello, how are you? Good thank you. I was going nuts. Within an hour I had calculated how much money above the Fulbright money for language lessons I would be willing to spend of my stipend to hire a private tutor. The teacher brought back the worst of my memories of language teachers throughout my life. She'd say something, and then make us all chant it. I felt like a petulant child sulking in the corner. Then we each had to say it individually. Since I was at the far end I had to listen to everyone else say the words with their various acccents from around the world. By the time my turn came, I began to question my own prononciation because I'd heard so many other ones. But, the time allowed me to think about what I am really looking to get out of Turkish lessons and what I need for a class experience to be successful. I decided I needed to be challenged and to have my existing knowledge, as sketchy as it is, be used in class and recognized. I need to feel challenged a bit but also have someone who can explain what is going on. No one at this language center speaks English, so she told us things by showing little kindergarten pictures of cats and puppies.

So, at the end of class I decided to do my errands and check out another language center recommended to me by an odd woman I met in a parking lot at ODTU. I didn't particularly trust her opinion on anything -- she was really bizarre -- but she said that Tomer (the one I went to) is state sponsored but that some commercial ones like ActiveEnglish are better because they are more in the commercial realm and need to give a certain level of service. So after some errands and a little bit of getting lost trying to walk to downtown, I had a little time to stop in at Active English to check them out before leaving for the Security office.

This language school has a terrific location for me, just across the street from the dolmus stop -- in a neighborhood where I am very comfortable and familiar. I didn't want to get my hopes up....when I got off the elevator on the seventh floor, the first receptionist I encountered said she didn't speak English, but she forwarded me to a guy who was great. He said, you are on the english class floor; turkish classes are downstairs. Now, in a lot of bureaucratic settings, they would blow you off fromthat point on. INstead, he escorted me downstairs and introduced me to Nese, the program coordinator. She sat me in a nice chair in her office, chatted with me in good english, and I explained my situation. I knew from their web site that they already had begun this session of classes on the 27th. But Nese said that if I have studied turkish before, she has no problem letting me join a class at a reduced fee. She said that I should take a small test to properly place me because she doesn't want students to repeat and waste their time. That school apparently is the center in Ankara for all US study abroad students. That's where they take their turkish lessons. I said I'd come back after the Emniyet (Security) to take the test. I felt really good about it -- they seemed a lot more on top of things than the other one. It is a little more expensive -- same price for 5 weeks instead of 8 -- but I suspect that It would be at least several weeks, if not more, before I'd encounter anything new in the other class. So I thought it was worth pursuing and headed to the Emniyet, a little bit of butterflies in my stomach, because you never know what can happen there.

The Emniyet, I've said before, Is like a time warp back to Soviet Russia in the 70s. It is chaotic, intimidating, and counterintuitive. And turkish-speaking only. Last time I was there two days ago, I had to get a signature from the manager, who is a large man dressed in militaristic uniform. He sits in his office behind an enormous desk that is completely empty except for his ashtray, which emits a continuous column of smoke from his cigarettes. The whole office atmosphere is thick with a haze from his multiple pack a day habit. An enormous portrait of Ataturk stares down at the manager from behind the desk, while the manager stares idly at a television set that blares in the corner. For the foreseeable future, that man has become my mental image of the term bureaucracy.

By the time I got there and was waited on, it was 3:10. The same officer as before -- very nice -- helped me; he greeted me by my first name with a smile and placed on the chest-high counter in front of me a bright lavender folder filled with paperwork and many copies of my photo. My passport and a residence pass (like a mini passport) sat temptingly close in front of me. I thought, it is actually ready! Something is going well!

"Kristen....kristen....Problem var." Even I know that one. Basically what I inferred, after lots of scribbling and shuffling of papers, was that there was a problem with fulbright fees, and in order to get the residence permit the Emniyet wanted 320 million TL. That's about 200 dollars or more. He asked if I had money -- I'd gotten some cash cause I expected to pay about 60 -- but it wasn't enough. "Yarin" he said. Tomorrow. When the fridge is coming. No, I said, Today. Now. THis I managed in Turkish. "Yarin." "Shimdi (now)" "Yarin" "Simdi". A young woman with some english jumped in to help. Come back tomorrow. No, I will come back today. I'll get the money and come back today." The officer said, "We close at 3:30." A couple more translations and I realized that I had 15 minutes -- only 15 minutes -- to find an ATM, get cash, get back to the Emniyet (through security) and deal with the officer. "Simdi" I said firmly, and took off running through the Emniyet.

At this point my experience, which has alternated between the feel of Fear Factor, Real World Paris, and a weird urban version of Survivor, shifted into a scene right out of Amazing Race. Pure and simple. Let me describe the Emniyet -- it is a huge complex of 1930s era buildings surrounded by police cars, armed guards, and people from all over the state coming in to do passports, drivers licesnses, etc. I was in the center building -- to get out of there, you have to go across an outdoor elevated plaza, down a flight of stairs, across two parking lots, down another set of stairs,across the front of the other building, and through a security gate. Adjacent to the Emniyet is Migros, an enormous indoor shopping center. The space between them is nearly two city blocks -- a city block with a very small sidewalk filled with people, vendors, motorcycles, and alongside a major highway with cars and buses roaring past. Sidewalks in turkey change heights and usually have various potholes and anomalies that trip me constantly. I was like the old OJ commercial -- it was nuts. I was running as fast as I could -- my bag slapping against my but -- leaping over curbs, flying past people, inhaling the smoke from barbeque grills, sweating like a dog. Everyone was looking at me -- I can't say that I've seen women running much in Turkey, let alone running full speed from the Emniyet. I hit migros parking lot and headed in towards the store, dodging cars and getting honked at. All I could think was, I am getting that residence permit TODAY.

When I hit the atrium of the mall the flooring material changed to marble, so I nearly went flying to the ground next to a little kids Flinstone themed ride, complete with Flinstones music. I ran into the building -- and was stopped momentarily by security (most new malls have metal detectors) who searched my bag. I ran around the mall looking for an atm, and luckily found one at the far end. I was worried, since I'd already gotten cash earlier that day, that my card wouldnt be accepted, but....with al ittle delay, it shot out the money, I grabbed the card, and retraced my route, going back through the security gates at the Emniyet up the stairs, into the office....the guy saw me coming and looked amused and exasperated. Para, Para, I said, waving the wad of cash at him. "Kristen....problem." He wrote a little slip of paper ... and gave me some directions. I realized with some disappointment that the cashier isnot in that building. It is in the other one. In the passport office which is mobbed with people. 3:30? I asked again....yes....

Off and running -- back across the plaza down the steps...back to the passport office. It's a take a number DMV kind of place, and I had no idea to which of the maybe 15 kiosks I should go. I scanned the names, and one word -- don't know the meaning - but it sounded familiar and I thought maybe the guy had said it. I walked up and showed the officer the piece of paper -- at this point I was covered with sweat and completely breathless. "Kristen Nesbitt." He said, as if he had been warned about me. Here, I asked. Yes.... so I counted out my bills, handed it to him, and he asked another man to write a receipt. He looked completely amused. Kristen, he said, Kristen Nesbitt. He handed me the recept and I ran out of there, back up the stairs, across the plaza, and into foreign services. It was 3:29 by my watch. I grinned at the guy. Tamam. Kristen Tamam (OK). He pulled my file back up to the counter, shuffled the papers, and then folded the file and left. He went to another office, then returned, ceremoniously pulled out the permit and stamped the front -- as if the motion were an exclamation point. He laminated my photo, handed me the cash receipt and told me to take it to Fulbright to get the money back, and then asked me to sign one final paper. Mine was the last signature of about 12 or so. He then handed me the passport and residence permit, and folded up the file. He walked away. I stood there for nearly a minute and he finally looked back up from his desk: "Tamam Kristen Tamam." "What?" He waved his hands at me as if to say get out of here. Tamam! A little embarrassed I thanked him and walked out of the place with the damn permit. I had DONE it. For the first time on this experience I am having I have gotten stubborn and determined and have met with success. I have definitely been determined before but I have failed miserably. This time, I did it.

Feeling a little aglow, I got lunch, looked around the mall, and then remembered that I needed to take the language test, so I got back on the metro. Back at the testing center I took the test, couldnt answer a lot of the questions at all, but tried to show the ones that showed my knowledge. You even had to read a passage and write sentences answering questions. Nerse graded it and then started asking me questions in Turkish. For the first time here, I actually formed full senteces in turkish in response. I placed out of the first elementary course -- which means I bypass hello how are you and the alphabet and get to pick up more where I left off. I could start tomorrow but the darn refrigerator! Anyway, it is three days a week from 9-12:45. The teacher will meet with me to catch me up on what I missed this week. I have a much better feeling ab out this place -- maximum class size is 10, but usually they like to keep it around 7. I will have to study and review this weekend to get my mind thinking that way, but it is more of a challenge and I feel enthusiastic. After I left the center I went to get some groceries (I even felt confident enough finally to order cheese and olives from the deli, and a delicious piece of baklava) and then came home and cooked a nice meal for myself. It felt so good to cook and even to wash dishes! That is the great thing about cooking here rather than eating out -- really good ingredients, for cheap, and no surprises if I've cooked it myself (today I thought I was getting eggplant slices on top of rice pilaf -- from the looks of the food in the cafeteria I went to; the guy filled a plate with mashed potatoes and then put the eggplant mound on it. When I cut into the mound it was filled with beef chunks. Oh well. It was tasty but not the vegetarian meal I'd hoped for!)

Tomorrow I am stuck here waiting for the fridge -- after a 9:30 meeting with the department chair to try to lobby for an ID. They said to be here from 10 to 10 for them to deliver. That will be exciting! I have been fantasizing about yogurt at my beck and call, and not having to put milk outside overnight to chill it for my cereal (the milk here doesn't need refrigeration). I am thinking of setting an alarm to watch the debate live -- it is on CNN International, but I"m not sure of the time conversion. They advertise the time in berlin but I think I'm in a different time zone.

Settling In, The Minute Details

I am finally up and running in the flat. I am sitting at the desk, a little close to the tv for my liking because it turns out that the outlets don't work in part of the apartment, the part where I'd like to put the TV. And the cable isn't working. Those things get added to the list -- which has at itsn umber one the fact that the toilet is leaking consdierable amounts of water onto the bathroom floor. THat should be an interesting experience -- explaining the concept of leaking in Turkish! but all in all I feel I am settling in. The fridge gets delivered tuesday, as I said, so that will help a lot. I think I can manage a shopping trip on my own tomorrow to try to find the burners. The issue with those is that they usually use gas, but that scares me and is a hassle -- I want electric. But I also want two electric burners and they appear to be hard to find -- most come as 1. So...I'll head downtown and try it....we'll see!

Today was as I said not the day I expected. I slept in til 10:30 or so and was wandering the flat in my pjs trying to tidy up a bit and deciding whether to throw on clothes and run down to Kizilay to try to search for the adaptor. Oh, I don't think I gave the interim part of the story. The adaptors that I bought friday in Ulus and was so proud to have accomplished accomodated my three pronged outlet but actually did not fit into the socket on the wall! I was shocked and somewhat disappointed. But it only stirred even deeper my desire to conquer this problem -- the seemingly insurmountable quest of one woman to plug in her laptop. So, I was going to run down to Kizilay where there supposedly are stores that might have something. The one thing that did work was an adaptor that Susan gave me from a set she had, but she needs it back eventually. So I wanted to get my own, rather desperately at this point. I had a similar adaptor but the shape of it, with a bevel rather than flat did not accomodate the third prong, or let me say that the adaptor wouldn't take the plugs because it seemed that the third prong blocked it just enough to mess it up. Susan's was flat, so it didn't matter. OK -- you can see I was getting completely obsessed by the minutia of these details! At just before `11 though, I heard a strange sound which I decided must be the doorbell ringing. I opened the door thinking it was probably Sahika (pron. shahika) -- but it was the TV delivery men, three hours early! I was embarrassed not to be dressed and a little mystified why it took two men to deliver a 13 inch tv and plug in the cable. But i guess that is the way it is. I gave them the cable and they tried to put it where I wanted it but then there was apparently a problem and I totally didn't understand at all. They took it into the bedroom and said the same thing. I panicked a bit and called Sahika, who dutifully came upstairs and explained that the outlets weren't working and the cable isn't turned on. So they plugged it into another outlet....and now I have all Turkish channels until I get the cable situation worked out. But how much do I need to watch Turkish subtitled episodes of Scrubs anyhow?

Then Sahika started looking at the computer situation, and she got just as confused as I did. Why did the three prong adaptor not fit in the socket? Why wouldn't the one adaptor I had not accomodate the third prong? She suggested that I come down with her so she could finish the breakfast I interrupted and we could ask Erdem for help. So, that began the unexpected day. I went down and we chatted over breakfast for an hour or so and had a great time. My telling them about the orientation transitioned into Erdem giving me a Turkish lesson while Sahika showered...and just after she got out of the shower the water guy came to give them a new 19 liter jug, which costs all of three million TL. I said to them, Oh, I need to arrange for that service -- so then Erdem and I went upstairs with the water guy to get that taken care of. The deposit for the pump is about 18 million TL - -- so I needed 21 million to pay. Well, I opened my wallet and didn't have enough -- unless we counted all the petty, piddly change I had laying around. It was like paying the guy a couple dollars in pennies. Pathetic.

While we were up there, Erdem decided he should look at the laptop situation, and he then set up my settings and got me on the internet. He too was mystified by the one adaptor not fitting. He looked at the adaptor from Susan and said he thought they didn't sell ones like that here. He looked at the one that I bought -- the very first day of trying -- and saw that it didn't fit. He didn't know what to do. As an afterthought, I said that I needed that original adaptor for my battery charger, and got it out to show him, boasting of the fact that it charges the batteries in only 15 minutes. Idly he took it and tried to fit it onto the original adaptor -- and low and behold IT didn't fit either! I freaked -- because now nothing was working. Erdem examined it and realized that the problem was that the receptors were set incorrectly into the plug -- horizontal rather than vertical, and he thought that he could take it apart and fix it. So back downstairs we went to get a screwdriver. He dismantled it with some frustration, took a break to write out some lottery numbers on tickets for sahika to submit when she went out for the afternoon, which she did shortly, and then tried to switch them. The entire time he was griping about the turkish company that made it -- I thought he was saying at first that the one I bought was faulty -- but he said no -- the company probably made 500,000 of them because they thought they were supposed to be that way. Initially it didn't look like his fix would work, but he managed to turn them somehow and it fit. However, he was worried about it not being grounded. I said, "It isn't a grounded outlet -- it doesn't need to be." He said, I'm not talking about the charger, I'm talking about the laptop. I said, but that adaptor doesn't fit the laptop. He said, well, it will now. It wasn't that the third prong was blocking the plugs from going in -- it was the fact that the receptors were configured wrong. I said, you are kiddling, I can use that adaptor after all? First Erdem said, well, temporarily because it should really be grounded here in turkey. But then he looked at his outlet and thought and thought, and then decided that actually it is OK. The way turkish outlets are grounded is a bit of metal on the edge of the socket...and the third prong, he realized, would graze that metal and ground itself. It is fine. So, kind of unbelieving, I said, OK, then I just need to get another one for the charger then. He looked at me strangely, and then started grinning: "Why do you need another one? You are telling me all about how the battery charger works in 15 minutes -- surely you can unplug your laptop for 15 minutes every now and then." I started cracking up. Erdem flopped into the chair and said, "we have a saying in Turkish – Takma kafena. I don't know it in English, but it means don't worry about the details. Just stop. Things will happen." As he described it, it sounds like an exasperated Chill out with a small dose of trust the process of life. So that is my new motto for myself in this experience – takma kafana. The freaking out about the adaptor started on the plane...and was a total obsession of the entire week. And I had the thing I needed in my possession since Tuesday. So that is what brings me to sitting here on my laptop rambling away with perhaps, I hope, the most boring of the messages I will send. Actually, after that resolved the day got more interesting. Erdem gave me a bunch of movies on DVDs and then wanted to show me the opening scene of Gladiator -- which for some reason made me ask if there has ever been a movie made of Ataturk's story. That launched Erdem into a long discussion of, generally, the turkish experience in this century -- which was enlightening/intense/ etc and then it evolved into another foreign policy discussion that was also a good one. Whenever he expresses a strong opinion he prefaces it by saying it is his precious opinion, which is amusing.

Anyway, that conversation lasted until I came rushing upstairs to meet the professors up at Bilkent for dinner. I called for the cab and that went ok -- he said something, I said where I am, he said something else in Turkish which I had no idea, and I said lutfen, which is please, and hung up. As I gathered my things though, I realized that I had no money at all.....so that was a panic. I tried to explain to the driver, who came as expected, that I had no money and would need to stop at a bank machine, but I wasn't sure how that would go. But then as we were driving out, I saw that there was a random atm kiosk standing out in a field near the gym. So I got him to stop and got cash.

Dinner with the professors was great -- we were up at Bilkent which is high atop the hill, even higher than we are, and the view was amazing. Conversation was great. Turns out that John from ohio is a museum guy and public historian with an interest in the history of immigration. His wife will be working at essentially the same job as I am but at Bilkent. Susan and her husband are terrific -- I really like her a lot. It was just a pleasant evening, and we vowed to make it a standard thing every week or so to get together.

I cabbed it back down and then wandered over and caught the last few songs of a concert at the stadium which was good -- a classical pianist of some fame and Serdep Erener a famous turkish pop singer-- I watched it from the pine forest behind the stadium , up behind the seats as it is built into a hill, me and a bunch of other cheap types and students in the woods in the dark. --and then I cam back here and tried to do the web site which was a failure but oh well.

Oh by the way, in May they pay for all the fulbrighters to go to a five star resort in Antalya for a few days to have a end of the year celebration. That sounds great!

Oh, and we got a whole health briefing book from the embassy of things we might encounter. My stomach has been going really crazy upset -- and it said in there that usually about a week after people arrive they have this problem as our natural flora readjust and change according to the new surroundings. It is normal and we aren't supposed to do anything except hydrate. So that was good to know. There are also long sessions about how to avoid depression, alcoholism, and a decline in your sexual mores while in the foreign service, all written with a peculiarly uplifting tone.

At the Ambassador's residence.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Lost in Ankara as we walked from Ulus to Kizilay.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

The Orientation

Whew! Well I just finished the two day orientation ... I am pretty wiped out but it was generally a useful experience! Kind of bizarre and surreal in some ways and a lot to process. I have to sit at home tomorrow waiting for the TV delivery so I will write a longer message then because....drumroll please I think I found the plug connector at a little hardware store in a neighborhood near the museum where they took us today. And I did it all by myself! Finally -- now I will have to take it home and see if it indeed works with the laptop. If so...and if I can get my address from the room I will be up and running there which will be much easier to say the least.

I am in the downtown area Kizilay again having just walked with two others from the orientation all the way from the museum to the center of town. Now that is a walk that rivals my Chicago days and it was excellent because I have so much better a feel for the city. What I’d seen of Ankara thus far in some ways didn’t feel that much different than any big city -- say North Michigan avenue or gold coast -- but today it was a lot more of a feel of open markets and spices being sold and lots of tea men (guys who carry a tray with fresh made tea in little tulip shaped cups) wandering the streets -- very crowded and exciting. Call to prayer -- headscarves -- kids in the streets -- the whole works. Exhilirating. At one point as we were walking along I realized with a considerable jolt that I actually LIVE here...and I’m so excited to explore more. That will have to come with time though -- but there is plenty to do. A cab ride from downtown to my door is less than 10 dollars by far -- and with the rent I am paying I can afford to do that fairly often. I think once I figure out the evening transit situation that will work fine too. It was a great reality check to hear how much others are paying for rent....and how their situations would not be as good for me in many ways (such as with roommates who are strangers or paying up to 800 a month in Istanbul! And the heat and water and internet bills plus the basic cost of a land line for phone can be up to a hundred dollars over the rent! All that is free for me. My setting is a bit isolated from the hubub of Ankara but my feeling now is that it is a good thing -- a very manageable and already somewhat familiar base that offers all basic needs -- and for the difference in rent I can cab it all the time if need be! And being a little out of the fray is kind of nice -- when I got home last night it felt like a sanctuary from the busy streets and honking cars. When I went to Þahika's parents' flat in Baçilievler -- a main area -- it felt like we were in a storefront it was so amidst the hubub.

Anyway I said this would be a little bit short and a longer one from the house tomorrow I hope but the key pass along to the worried family points are this: in our security briefing yesterday the guy reported that he feels safer having my wife and children living in Ankara than living in the code orange world of DC and New York. Much safer. They have had nothing historically in the last few decades of Americans being targeted and after the bombings last fall -- which he described as Turkey's 9-11, he said that Turkey has been impressive by any standard at improving security overall -- they have really done an amazing job. My housing setting in the university is ideal for safety from the standpoint of blending in. He also noted that incidence of crime in general here is so low compared to US standards...there have been some reports of scams and pickpocketing in Istanbul but Ankara nothing at all. It is the safest place in Turkey from that perspective. Additionally I am now officially registered with the Embassy so if there is any kind of crisis we will be notified and I will now be receiving emails with all threats and problems and etc. We were given volumes of information about health information and all kinds of things. There is a tremendous support network for us.

A couple of interesting notes – I’m not really sure what to think of the embassy staff. One guy who spoke to us and walks on water from what everyone there says gave this really weird speech that offended a lot of the Turks there suggesting that their smiles are insincere and that you basically cannot trust them -- that they feel sorry for themselves, have no sense of self, feel america should take care of them, and are made up of quote -- a mix of western yearnings with oriental cunning. It was really strange. No one knew what to make of it. His overall point was to suggest that we should come into situations from a listening stance, wary of what people’s opinions could be. i.e. do not start ranting about religious fundamentalism with people who might be like that or say bad things about Ataturk with people who might like Ataturk. Do not offend their pride. But it was a strange way to get the message across. He never made any acknowledgement that we as Americans are anything but totally perfect as individuals and in international politics. Then a Turkish professor got up later and gave a speech about Turkish views of foreign policy that was pretty eye-opening as well and was even more interesting in light of what the first guy was saying. I felt like a lot of Turks who were surveyed feel a certain way about the US govt partly as a result of the first guys attitude to an extent-- he must be coming into diplomatic situations with the attitude that Turks should be treated like children who do not think logically -- he said there is no Newton in turkey -- the apple might fall up. I don’t know. There is an awful lot to process.

The reception at the Ambassador’s residence was interesting ** relatively low key but a nice thing to say that you did once in your life. Oh it was really strange -- as we were nearly ready to leave another consular officer from the embasssy showed up rather late. He came over and started talking with our cluster of people -- and this Texan recent college grad started telling him the anecdote he had already told me twice about his decision to visit the liberty bell or the rocky steps on his recent trip to philly. I asked if the embassy man was from philly and he said yeah -- too many details -- basically when he asked me specifically what town I am from and I said west chester he freaked out -- he grew up in West Chester and is from a quaker family apparently. It was really bizarre! we didnit have much of a chance to get any further than that -- but he gave me his card. Oh and I am supposed to get in touch with the head of the public info office because they are trying to link up with museum and exhibition projects and I offered to help. I might rather not do that stuff for the embassy...but I will have to see on closer inspection what these folks are really like.

Hmmmm what other interesting points -- oh -- if we have applied for a ballot but don’t receive it in time, there is a special ballot that I have now in my possession that I can use for the federal part of the election -- so we will have to figure that out. I have to give it to the embassy by the 12th of October if so. The Turkish American Association and the embassy are having a big election watch overnight gathering on election night -- basically you go there all night and into the next day to watch the returns. That sounds intriguing and might be cool -- but it also seems like it could be stressfully frought with partisanship and I might feel a bit awkward if it were a rah-rah- Bush kind of thing. It would be a crapshoot to figure out what they do think...so who knows. But it would be a once in a lifetime kind of experience. I’m rambling....oh -- I am the only teaching assistant because the ohter guy resigned last minute....and all the other grad students are in Istanbul except for one. But there are three really really really nice older faculty at Bilkent and Metu -- and I really liked them a lot! In fact we are all getting together for an early dinner tomorrow night near Bilkent which is neighbor to ODTÜ.

I met a few nice people from Istanbul. The people I walked today with -- Holly who graduated from Yale in 2000 and has been working in NYC since -- and Harris who is a teacher from Washington State who is doing a Fulbright teacher exchange in Istanbul -- were really pretty nice – I’d talked to holly a little bit before...but Harris was mostly an afternoon interaction at the museum. We all ended up walking with our tour guide down in the shopping district and then I did the marathon walk with them. They were cool. It was good to talk with them because I was finally able to give voice to my biggest sense of vulnerability here now which is the fact that I am so into being independent and doing things for myself in these situations (like in Chicago – don’t count my dependent summer mom) that it is really hard for me to have to be completely dependent on other people for all kinds of little stupid things. Not being able to meet basic needs on my own is so hard -- and it begins to chip away at my overall confidence. After I bought the adaptor all by myself I felt like I was walking on air I was so proud! They both agreed and Harris pointed out that in order to do something like this-- especially completely alone -- you have to be a pretty independent person to begin with...and then you get here and are forced to go so outside of yourself and ask for help constantly. Today in the restaurant in the old city I couldn’t figure out how to flush the toilet. I didn’t ask for help though ** finally figured it out ** but if that isn’t a basic need I do not know what one is! I think it is good for me though ultimately.

anyway I will try to write more and send some photos when I get set up at the apartment. I should head back to campus now. Today was so exciting actually walking around in the city -- it is a lot more interesting than I expected. Ankara gets a bad rap for being boring but it is all hustle and bustle and culture and modernity but with pockets of pure old fashioned turkey -- I feel like it is kind of a little bit of everything.

First few days

i obviously need to learn this keyboard better! right now it is around 6 pm and I am sittin gin an internet cafe in the kizilay section of ankara equivalent to loop*michigan ave.....all the other customers are teenage boys shouting at each other and at their computers as they play a game called team deathwatchç. i thought i could take the time to sitand write a longer email but this is not a conducive setting and the keyboard is frustrating. so that will have to come later.

all things considered things are going well. Last night I settled in a bit more then went back to campus and got dinner which was really good --i canit figure out how to make a comma of all things so excuse my punctuation -- but my turkish abilities are so profoundly abysmal that i cant even make myself understood in a restaurant. I was trying to order a pide and the guy told me that they dont sell beer. right now that is the main problem ** my complete inability to make myself understood in any way. partly I am being too hard on myself becuase I know that i should have been studying nonstop since i found out I was comingö and I didnit so that is my own fault.

I am managing to accomplish some things....but it is always harder than I would ever expect. for instance buying clothes hangers for my closet -- about an hour and surprisingly stressful. I am starting to be able to laugh about it. for instance when i got on the dolmuþ today to come to the city -- about a 20 minute ride at most -- suddenly people started handing me money and speaking in turkishç i was ob,vously really confused -- there is the elusive comma by the way but i donit know where it came from -- apparently instead of paying the driver you just hand the money up to the front of the bus and everyone hands back the change. i happened to make the mistake of sitting in the hub seat for taking in money. if i were more conspicuously american than it might be a bit easier. now everybody just thinks iim either deaf or retarded....actually i realize that i have been mistaken for deaf or retarded in my life more times than any hearing intelligent person should. oh well.

anyway things are really working out quite well with the housing situation. my supervisor at work Aylin put me in contact with a woman named Þahika who lives on the second floor of my building. she has lived there for five years and is an english professor -- 40 years old with a sweet 30 year old boyfriend Erdan -- so good for her. Anyway i called her last night and she came up and answered all my questions. Indeed there is no refrigerator or stove -- but here people use toaster ovensö and little two burner plug in range tops and electric kettles for heating water instead of ranges in this situationö so that wonit be a huge problemç the frigde situation is a bigger problem....but Þahika said she would take me shopping in her car either wednesday evening or this weekend to acquire these things. I looked in a store today and there were small regrigerators for only around 150 american or even less and considering the rent i am paying that is cool. oh by the wayö the rent is a coup -- right now only 87 million lira -- which is about 60 american dollars ** per month!!!! it mighyt go up next month as that is the beginning of the rental year... but even if it doubled it is still shamefully cheap for what is really quite an amazingly nice space. there is a phone in the room and I have a number to be called at but not a secret code -- as in the villanova calling scam -- to call out other than local. but that will be soon -- after i get the magic id which will allow me to go to yoga the gym which is nearby and get a computer account. not only will the computer account allow me to use on campus PC Salonus -- it will eventually allow me to have FREE fast internet in my very own living room. the plug in is there *-- I am n ot sure whether my cord will work and I need to solve the pesky adaptor problem -- so right now the laptop is useless. However if worse comes to worse I will get you to get one in the US and send to me -- apparently they sell exactly what I need at CompUSA. another annoying mistake in pre-trip planning.

aT any rate though the room will be great ** water and heat are included but I will pay phone calls and electricity. apparently heating costs are hugely expensive here so it is good that it is included. after answering all my questions last night Þahika took pity on me and sait the apartment was too lonely and empty for me to sit in by myself for the rest of the nightç also she wanted to give me some sheets and towels to use. Mom your instinct was right and mine wrong that I should bring that stuff with me. So I went down for a visit to Þahika and Erden's and it was great! They are really nice and really fun -- I ended up being there til midnight driniking american coffee and talking politics with them!!! It was excellent. They are of course very unhappy with bush and with the Iraq war -- first time i have heard someone say --Iraq is our neighbor -- which was kind of a weird moment. but Turks are also not hapopy with the prospect of Kerry because he is siding witht he Armenian lobby and promising responses against turkey because of the whole 1917 genocide controversy which i must learn more about. So it should be really interesting to be here for the election. Erden was very into talking about that stuff ** and got even more heated than I do -- it was really great. I also learned so much more about the turkish education system islam and lots of other cultural stuff. When I was getting ready to leave they insisted that I take some silverwareö a bowlö some breadö tomatoes and a peach with me....so I would have something to use in my house! They said I am always welcome so I feel like I have some pals in the building. After going to sleep so late last night and being tired anywayö I ended up sleeping til noon and getting a slow start. I compeletely screwed up my attempt to get my apartment better cleaned -- which Þahika said was my right to demand -- her words not mine. My words to the manager consisted of saying tyhe phrase -- to clean -- over and over again and gesturing wildly. I did succeed in getting a desk for my apaaartmentö but it was a terrible thing because the old woman maid ** who apparently is only actually forty but just looks older -- crawled underneath it picked it up on her back and carried it groaning and grunting and gasping for breath up three flights of stairs to my roomç when i tried to helpö I couldnit tell if her response was teling me to stop or to keep helpping. I thought she was going to have a heart attack. And then I didnit know if I should have tipped her or not. I will have to ask.

Then I made my way into town and tried to get sheets hangers and a shower curtain and a towel. That was four hours ago and I am now exhausted and drained....but I am actually carrying all four in my pack. So I guess it was an accomplishment! Each attempt at a purchase was frought with communication difficulties. For instance I mistakenly picked up four towels instead of two-- and then I thought that the price was way too hight. Of course it was too high -- it was for four towels instead of two. The woman helping me with sheets was so nice -- but it was problematic too. I think I might have spent more than I should but by the time it was over I igured it was better just to have them rather than to go throught that rigamarole all over again. I embarrassed myself withy the shower curtain -*- picked one out and gave it to the man in the store ** he walked to a cashiuer and took my money ** then he walked away into another room with my curtain. I didnit know whether to follow him or wait for my change. I followed himö and all the clerks and everyone else waiting in line started shrieking for me and chasing and waving at me to come back. apparently he was just getting a bag for the purchase. Oddly enough the search for the hangers was long -- and included the womanb I bought the sheets from taking me to two stores and asking the m --*but I finally found them on my own and that was actually the smoothest purchase of the day. I also ate a terrific chicken doner sandwich on the street and heard the call to prayer for the first time in my few days in ever secular Ankara.

Tonight I am going home and trying to clean up some ** after the desk incident I think I would rather clean the apartment more myself....and then try to unpack and get organized and rearrange the furniture. Maybe I will get some dinner food on my way back and eat it in the room now that I have a borrowed knife and fork. Seçil says that my contract job description is for only 12 hours a week so that is what i should tell them. that doesnit seem like muchö but should assure me long weekends every weekend. there is also a long mid semester break. Tomorrow I will try to get the id and all of that taken care of ..and hopefully get a shopp9ing trip in. I am looking forward to the orientation on thursday and friday....and the start of work next week. Having a place togo will be helpful....and will allow me to start meeting more peopleö althoguth bewtween aysegul on sunday and þarika and erdan last night I already have a better social life here than I had in PA! I have to check into turkish classes on campus or at a place in the centrum which might be cheaper and Aylin thought would help me to meet people from outside campus.

Ok -** Iid better head back to Odtu ** supposedly if it is after six the dolmuþ will go to where I live diretly...which is good because it is about a 10 minute walk to campus directly and 15-20 if you get lost like I always seem to do. OK...more laterö and I promise more coherent and more frequent emails and photos! once i get up and running in the Konukevi room 406... I do have an address now by the wayö but I will send it later. Hasta Luego ** seems fitting since I keep talking in spanish to people here instead of Turkish.