My Trip to Amasya and Tokat (the best trip so far!)

Amasya riverside.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

More Amasya riverside.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Men in Amasya main square.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Greetings from Amasya

This is definitely one of the loveliest places I have seen in Turkey! So glad I came -- I was touch and go on it until about 45 mins before the scheduled departure after being ill last night. Got here around 4 pm -- the bus trip was a bit longer than I expected but I found it extremely restful -- much different from the ordeal that was the bus trip to Sinop!

Spent much of the trip memorizing the tour book on this town and so I was able to hop off the dolmus at the main square without even asking for directions. I recognized the big statue of Ataturk on horseback from the description in the book and then walked directly to my chosen hotel as if I had been here before! The hotel is fine -- right alongside the river and has a nice rather lively restaurant on the first floor. This town is stunning -- very laid back friendly people -- I do not think they see all that many tourists here and esp not many Americans relatively speaking -- I am six hours east of Ankara -- and if you dropped a line due south my eastern-ness so to speak is in line with Lebanon!

Anyway after I got here I wandered around a little bit; a pretty river cuts through the center of town and the city straddles it -- you cross back and forth on foot bridges and an occasional car bridge. My hotel is on opposite side of main square. This place is loaded with 13th and 14th century mosques and buildings which intermingle with the half timbered white stucco Ottoman houses from the 1800s. There are less nice more modern concrete sections too. The town in is a gorge between two mountain ranges -- above the hotel carved into the rock of the mountains are a series of tombs from the Roman era -- maybe BC can’t remember the date. Tried to visit this afternoon but the guard closed early because he is fasting and had to go home to be ready for Iftar the breaking of the fast.

I saw the largest mosque and library compound in the town and it is incredibly a beautiful with stonework patterned minarets and lots of painted decoration on the celiing of the domed porch. There is where they are serving the public Iftar for the poor -- basiically an elaborate soup kitchen set up for the entire month of ramazan where people can go to get a free meal.
After exploring a bit on that side of the river I headed back to my hotel side and was walking around the quaint little neighborhood when a boy approached me. He spoke a bit of English and we talked for about 20 minutes. His name was Emre and he was really sweet -- 15 but looked younger. Anyway it was a great opportunity for me to speak Turkish in a non-nerve wracking setting. Then I went back to the hotel -- it was nearly sundown and time for the Iftar. I have been wanting to have an official Iftar fast breaking meal but I have not found the opportunity in Ankara. But the hotel restaurant was advertising and had a free table (often Iftar meals are reservation only and booked in advance at least in Ankara). While I was waiting for the host to see if they had a free table the cannon high on the mountain side in the ruins of an old castle up there was set off with a huge bang to signal that the sun had set and it was OK to break the fast. It was so loud! At approximately the same time the neighborhood expereienced an unrelated power outage which phased no one.

The host led me to the one empty table and I sat -- we were all in the dark but with some candles lit on tables and all the familes were laughing and eating their first course -- small plates already on the table of olives cheese helva dates and bread. There was also a great mixed salad on the table with chopped lettuce corn cabbage onion and cucumber. I ate a lot of that with lemon and ate the first course of yogurt soup. I then accidentlally told the waiter that I was finished but then managed to correct that fact a few minutes later by saying that I wanted meat. I then ordered my main meal which was the *special meat* -- I was a bit nervous actually waiting for it to come because I had no frame of reference for what it was. Oh around this time the lights came back on. It actually was a delicious meat stew with tomatoes and pilav that was extremely delicious. I thoroughly enjoyed the friendly atmosphere and watching people coming and going. As people finished their meals a lot of young men came in to play backgammon and people were arriving just for tea and socializing. There were a lot of kids in there so that was fun too. Anyway I finished the meal with a few glasses of tea. A perfect introduction to the Iftar tradition.

After eating I headed out to walk around the town a bit -- it is amazing. It is all lit up after dark with twinkle lights everywhere and the tombs illuminated on the hill and the river and mosques lit up. I stood for a while outside the big mosque -- there was a service going on and I had not seen that before -- it was packed with men and they were all kneeling and standing and bowing in unison. Kind of hypnotising actually. I stumbled across this internet cafe and decided to pop in. Now I will head back for an early night to rest up for the next few days. Tomorrow I will either hang out here or take the 1.5 hour trek to Tokat -- they apparently do wood block textiles there and I want some decoration for the flat. I really cannot even describe adequately how enticing this town is!

Decorated Tokat pide.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

My friends and hosts in Tokat.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Another view of my Tokat friends, with Tokat Ramazan pide bread.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

This isn't a great shot, but it shows a little how things are lit up at night in Amasya.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

The big mosque in town.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

The woman in the odds n' ends store who responded to my anti-Iraq war comments.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Main square, Amasya

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

My friend Emre and his little brother in front of the hotel.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

More from Amasya (sorry for the length!)

After I returned to the hotel from the internet café across the river, I discovered a considerable hubbub outside the front door – TV cameras, trucks, and lots of activity. I asked in the lobby what was going on, and the desk clerk explained that there was a television serial being filmed in Amasya, and that many of the cast and crew were staying at this hotel.

That explained a peculiar occurrence that happened after dinner: an older man had blustered into the room obviously impatient. He kept checking his watch as he sat talking with some women in the corner while everyone else played backgammon and chatted. Eventually a woman came in with a large toolbox and approached the man. I idly watched, wondering what would happen next. She opened her box and fumbled in it; a few seconds later she was applying makeup to the cheeks of the older man. I tried not to register shock on my face – that was about the last thing I expected to happen. What older men wear makeup in small town Turkey? Actors there for a shoot, I later figured out! They filmed until rather late that night; I watched a bit out my hotel room window.

The next morning I ate breakfast at the hotel and watched actresses have their hair done – the dining room apparently in the morning becomes the cast’s salon. I then asked the people at the front desk what they thought about my going to Tokat for the day. They said it was close, and the woman called and learned that there was a bus leaving at 11 from the station. It was only about 9:15 at that point, so I figured I had time to look at the Pontic tombs before I headed to the bus station.

I climbed the high stairs adjacent to the hotel entrance and wound my way towards the guard station. The man greeted me, but told me, I thought, that he didn’t have change (a common occurrence in Turkey) and that I should look at the tombs and then return. I understood, I thought, that a tea man was coming and would give him change. The guard went back to sweeping the path with a broom made of sticks and I climbed still higher to the tombs themselves.

Even though I read the blurbs in my guidebooks, I never really quite understood what the tombs exactly are. But they began to be cut into the rock face of the mountain as early as the 4th century BC. They are empty tombs apparently used for worship of some sort. After scrambling around the rock cut stairs and enjoying the stunning views of Amasya, I decided it was time to head to the bus station. I approached the guard – still sweeping near the guardhouse – and attempted to pay. Apparently though, for the first of several times on the trip, I obviously misunderstood. His mention of tea earlier was an invitation for me to sit and drink with him. This tea water had nearly boiled, and he escorted me to a small sofa in his closet-sized guard house. I was a little nervous about the time, but he was a friendly older man and I felt I couldn’t be rude by leaving. He poured me a glass of tea and we began to chat. I explained – in Turkish – what I’m doing in Ankara. We tried our best to have a conversation. At one point he started repeating something again and again, and finally I realized he was talking about George W. Bush! I offered my opinion of the Bush administration and he chimed in with words I didn’t understand but the tone was amused agreement. He isn’t happy about the Iraq war.

Soon it was time for me to head to the bus station on the outskirts of town, so I finished up my tea and thanked the man. At the bottom of the long set of stairs a little girl swung from the handrail. We exchanged smiles as I passed.

I hurried across the bridge and towards the Ataturk square in downtown. I figured I could get a dolmus from there to the otogar, but I wasn’t sure where to wait. So, I approached an older man I saw standing on the corner and asked his advice. He led me across the street and about a half a block away, and then kindly flagged down a dolmus for me, telling the driver where to let me off. The people in Amasya are very helpful, I thought.

At the station, I had some problems. Not only did I need to secure my ticket to Tokat; I also had to get my ticket back to Ankara the next day, hopefully at a time of day which would allow me to see some more of Amasya in the morning but be back in the city in time for a Halloween party at the British Embassy. This was not easy. I bounced back and forth from one bus company to the other asking for times; I got the 11 to Tokat, but strugged to find suitable arrangements for Ankara, since all the buses were much earlier or much later. Finally I found one company that offered a solution; but as soon as I purchased a 3:00 ticket I realized that the two biggest companies I’d not yet asked. Oh well. Buying bus tickets here can sometimes be taxing, especially for someone like me who’s so used to online booking and internet facilitated travel.

Tokat turned out to be about 2 hours away – two hours of a long and often badly or semi-paved road. The region seemed quite agricultural; lots of people toiled in the fields and there was very little in the way of development or buildings. Utterly rural.

About halfway between Amasya and Tokat was a small town called Turhal; snaking along the road near the bus station, where we briefly stopped, stood truck after truck overflowing with some kind of tuber or root crop. There must have been 30 or 40 trucks heaped with the product. A few minutes later we passed through a square in the town that featured an enormous statue of one of the tubers, so they must be something for which Turhal is famous.

Anyway, my arrival in Tokat was inauspicious, beginning with another confused attempt to secure a bus ticket back to Amasya that night. Once that was taken care of, I headed off to try to find the downtown area. It seemed to be a fair-sized city, and my instinct was to walk from the station to the left and then head right at the roundabout. On that corner, an older man stood selling melons from large cart while two boys played nearby. I asked the boys for directions to the city center, and when they realized I was a foreigner their faces lit up. They got the older man, who advised me that I should turn left instead and then get a dolmus or bus because it was too far to walk. We chatted a while; I took some pictures and also photographed Ramazan pide for sale on the same corner. In Tokat the pide were different from in Ankara – decorated with rather elaborate designs and seemed to be a denser consistency, with some whole wheat. The man selling the pide asked me to take a photo of him. He had pretty severe leg problems and couldn’t stand upright. The boys stood next to him for a couple of shots. As I was about to leave, the older man with the melons said something to me about my return to the bus station. I thought he said that I should buy a melon on my way back. I agreed, thanked them, and headed towards the city center.

Instead of taking a dolmus, I decided to walk the 2 kms or so into the downtown. I had just missed a Republic Day (a national patriotic holiday) parade, it appeared, and the entire town was swathed in Turkish flags and portraits of Ataturk. People crowded the streets, shopping and clinging to each other in small groups. On benches and in the small plazas and parks that peppered sides of the main street, clusters of old bearded men in small prayer caps sat talking as groups of children played. Here, as far east as I’ve been, there seemed to be far more women covered, both with headscarfs and draped with carsaf, the long black sheets that cover most of the body, but pin underneath the nose, leaving it and the eyes exposed. I stopped by the fountain in one of the plazas to peek at my map to get my bearings; already I felt unusually out of place – receiving far more stares than on an average day in Ankara and I didn’t want to appear to be wandering aimlessly. A little girl approached the fountain and turned her head to drink from it. Her father stood nearby and didn’t join her, although he looked very much like he wanted to. I remembered again the ramazan holiday, and wondered if many restaurants would be closed.

My goals for Tokat were fairly limited, as was my time: I wanted a brief foray around the town, a look at the museum, lunch of Tokat kebab (a slight variation on the kebab theme that involves cooking the meat with potatoes and eggplant and allowing the meat juices to baste the vegetables as they cook), and the purchase of some textiles for which Tokat is well known, a kind of block printing. First, the museum, which I had passed on the main street.

One of the most fascinating things about Turkey, especially coming from an American perspective accustomed to built environments at most a few hundred years old, is the way that buildings dating from many hundreds, even thousands of years ago, form part of the fabric of people’s daily lives, intermingling with Ottoman houses and concrete apartment flats. On Tokat’s main street, Gazi Osman Pasa Boulevard, several of the main landmarks date from the early part of the last millennium. And the street itself runs underneath a craggy mountainside on which perches the ruins of an old fortress, like in Amasya. I strolled past the Tas Han, an Ottoman caravan stopover (like a rest stop) from 1631; across the street, hovering in streets overflowing with the wares of a fruit and vegetable market, I spied a mosque from 1485, rising above carts of pomegranates, men chopping kindling to order, and the largest heads of cabbage I’ve ever seen. And the museum, where I was heading, was built in 1277 as a seminary and later used as a hospital until the early 1800s. The museum was typical in some ways of Turkey – an amazing old building, filled with fascinating and intriguing objects, poorly lit, with little or no interpretation and not much security or conservation. Some of the small town museums have the feel of wandering through a flea market or poking around the corners of someone’s basement or attic, except maybe the museums are a bit more dusty. I wandered through – the building is sunken about a story or so underground as it has sunk over the years, and consists of a hallway and a series of small rooms around a square open courtyard. I noted some of the textiles in the case in the front hallway, but didn’t ask to see any, figuring I’d head back into the bazaar streets first to check out what I could find.

For the next hour or so, I poked around side streets flanked with Ottoman houses and lined with cobblestones. Children ran races up and down, and stray dogs lurked in corners. Most of the storefronts were selling yazmalar, the block printed table scarves and linens. I dipped into a few stores and purchased a bag full, somewhat regrettably indiscriminately because I wasn’t in the mood to say no to the seemingly business-starved (and fasting) storeowners. Frequent beggars dipped into each store, asking for money; at one shop the woman gave some money; at another the man gave the woman a simple blue scarf, and he handed me one to, slipping it over my head and saying slowly in Turkish so I could understand that it was a gift from him (along with an extra table cloth he threw in, something that has happened to me a couple of times, which makes me think I probably in those cases haven’t bargained the price down well enough and they feel guilty.) Anyway, I was pretty satisfied with my purchases overall, and I decided to head on my way to find some Tokat kebab for lunch.

I ducked down a side street that I sensed would head me in the direction of the main square (the storeowner who gave me the scarf recommended a restaurant there, but said he wasn’t sure if it was open.) It was a nondescript street, narrow, with cars parked alongside the pavement and old, shut up buildings lining either side. Strolling down that street struck me memorably as one of those occasional (or not so) moment in this country when you think, “I’m not in Europe anymore.” The only other three people on the street were a man with a physical defect that meant he needed crutches to walk an uneven gait, and two women dressed in full carsaf toddling just ahead of me, the black fabric billowing. Just then, the call to prayer began at nearby mosques, and the Arabic reverberated through the alley.

After the intensity of that alley walk, the bustling of the main square seemed a bit of a shock, as vendors hawked wares and people milled about. Behind the Ataturk plaza, just as the storeowner had described it, I spotted the restaurant and approached. They appeared to be open – or at least the door was open and some waiters loitered inside. I drifted in tentatively, causing a stir, which I suspected might happen. Two waiters rushed up and wondered what I wanted. “Tokat kebab?” I asked. Nope. No luck. I asked where, and the one waiter escorted me onto the street and walked me a block away to ask at two other restaurants. Both were closed, with staff inside preparing for the iftar rush. At this point, having had little breakfast, I was really hungry. So I asked if I could indeed eat at the first restaurant. The waiter took me back, and led me upstairs to a peculiar back room, with a large fountain covered with plastic flowers and three dimensional wall murals of plaster dolphins frolicking in the sea on both sides of the room. He placed me in a back corner table and handed me a menu. He had bright blue eyes and they were twinkling and he seemed really happy to be helping me out. After a few minutes and a small meeting of the waitstaff (I’m not sure if the meeting had something to do with me, the solitary diner, or not) a young woman approached and let me know that they couldn’t make me kebab, or anything else on the menu, actually, but that I could have tomato soup or lahmacun, which is thin Turkish “pizza” except with no cheese. I chose the lahmacun, and it turned out to be the best thus far. Both the male and female waiters were eager to try to talk with me as I ate, and they seemed genuinely pleased by my presence.

When I was finished, I bid farewell to the dophin murals, let the waitress douse my hands with lemon cologne and got directions to an ottoman house museum a few blocks away. There, I had a mild altercation with the front desk clerk, who wanted to charge me the more expensive foreign tourist rate. But I plead my case well and paid the resident rate, which was good because although it was a lovely ottoman house, I have already become of the mindset that if you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all when it comes to the Ottoman house museums. However, this one was exceptionally nice, with lots of kilims, a nice kitchen area, and, unfortunately the obligatory dusty dressed mannequins perched stiffly in the rooms.

On my way back through town, my back getting more and more fatigued from the heavy backpack, I wandered through the market a bit more and took a few photos. I decided to stop into the museum again to use the bathroom (convincing the new shift guard that I’d already been there and paid was a trip in and of itself), and afterwards I looked more closely at the items in the case. Their prices seemed more reasonable after seeing things in the market, and I bought a beautiful flowered white yazmalar, hand done, and a funny hand painted fabric evil eye hanging to protect my house. I soon realized that I should hurry if I was going to make my bus (and have plenty of time to buy a melon). The walk seemed much longer on the way back, and the crowds of people on the street were more pushy and more rushed. That’s one of the things I’ve noticed about Ramazan (and that I don’t much like): as iftar draws near, people who have not eaten, had any liquids, or smoked (which I think is probably the hardest one for a lot of Turks) are rushing home or hurrying to pick up last minute items, and people become, frankly, generally irritable. That’s certainly a generalization, but there are more horns, more jostling and pushing on the sidewalks, more of all of that. And people don’t seem to happy and often aren’t walking in straight lines.

Nonetheless, things became easier as I drew further from the downtown area, and soon I was turning off of Gazi Osman Pasha and closing in on the melon stand. The boy saw me coming from about a half a block away and started beaming. His grandfather was busy with a customer and didn’t notice. Several other men were loitering around on the corner. As I approached, the boy notified the grandfather, and I soon there was lots of undecipherable fuss being made over me. My expectation – a melon and a brief goodbye and chat; their expectation – I was their guest.

The old man grabbed a chair from behind the cart and set it on the street corner and ushered me to sit down. He then upturned an empty melon grate and fashioned it into a table at my feet. He barked orders at the boy, who ran to the pide man’s stall and grabbed a ramazan pide. Meanwhile, he sliced open a melon and extracted a meaty slice, flicking the seeds off onto the ground. He cut it into bite sized pieces and then set it on the crate, first picking one of the pieces up with his knife and handing it to me. It was sweet and tender and juicy. The man handed me the knife and instructed me to eat the rest of the melon. The boy, grinning, ripped off a hunk of the round Tokat pide and handed it to me with his grubby hand, and then pulled one off for himself, eating it hungrily. The Tokat pide was whole wheat flour, with nuggets of walnut embedded throughout. So there I sat, still full from my lahmacun, but touched by their hospitality, eating away on the streetcorner by the bus station with at that point about 8 different men standing there watching. I worried momentarily about the hygiene issue of eating melon with a clearly very dirty knife (Ed’s refrain in the Amazon, “And that was the moment we got typhus” kept going through my head.) But there was no alternative.

The pide man, on crutches, got into a roughhousing episode with the boy, who by the end had a handful of melon seeds smeared across his back. Everyone was jovial; we talked a while, as best as we could, and then I realized the bus was leaving fairly soon. I began my goodbyes, and said I wanted a melon to buy. That excited everyone even more, and there was considerable bustling. But as I dug in my pocket for money, I dropped a small bit of the pide – only perhaps an inch or so square, onto the gravel, melon seed encrusted sidewalk. I ignored it, but the grandfather knelt, picked it up, and handed it to me; you can eat it, he said. There was a moment of awkwardness – a brief one – while I quickly debated the ramifications of eating it vs. not eating it. I realized there was no choice but to eat it, and so I did.

I took a photo of the assembled group and got their address to send a picture, and hurried for the bus. It wasn’t quite ready to go, so I went for a last trip to the bathroom, but while I was in there I heard people yelling outside the door. When I came out of the stall, they were beckoning me for the bus. The bus ride itself was ineventful, thankfully, considering that the driver frequently opted for the gravel shoulder rather than the pothole laden blacktop, and as darkness fell that got a little bit unnerving. We stopped for dinner almost immediately in Turhal, which didn’t make me happy, as we’d just gotten on the bus. But that bus was actually from Sivas to Samsun, so a long way. It was their dinner break. I didn’t get anything to eat, and the place we stopped was a tea house with segregated sexes (common in Turkey). I went in and tried to sit down, but was ushered to the family salon. It was filled with a thick haze of smoke, and they said they had food, no tea. So I left and walked around Turhal a little, but not much. Didn’t seem like much of a place for a woman to be wandering by herself after dark.

Back in Amasya, I took a dolmus to the center of town and hopped off again at the Ataturk statue. As I strolled through Amasya, I was again overwhelmed by how pretty it is, and filled with a pleasant good feeling. Anyway, I walked past a small mosque and it was filled to the brim with worshippers. I realized it was Friday, the holy day, and wondered what the scene was like at the town’s biggest mosque. So that’s where I headed.

The big mosque was crowded too, but an equally large crowd was gathering on the other side of the street, in the plaza alongside the river. Children played, families laughed, everyone seemed in particularly good spirits. A bunch of people in red jackets seemed to be setting up for a music concert, so I found a place on the wall, next to a machine gun toting, camouflage wearing jandarme guard and a small boy eating sunflower seeds. I was above the plaza, but still had a decent view.

In a few minutes the concert began – I would classify it as the Turkish equivalent to Sousa marches in the US, that sound of a band concert but with melodies and rhythms of Turkish folk music. The audience was going wild, clapping and waving their arms and singing along to familiar refrains. At moments, even the jandarme tapped out the rhythm on the butt of his machine gun, his body standing guard still but swaying subtly to the music. I couldn’t imagine a lovelier setting – river, the brightly lit white ottoman houses, the illuminated tombs on the cliff behind them. I felt a sense of calm and joy, and felt blessed to be there.

I noticed movement below – movement in the form of the exuberant dancing of a small boy, perhaps five years old. At first he was racing back and forth as children often do at public concerts, but then it was like the music overwhelmed him and took over his little body. He spun, he marched, he kicked, he waived his arms, he danced alone with his arms pantomiming the shoulders of others, as if he were dancing in a line: whatever the music called for he did, but all the while still moving back and forth across the plaza to one side of the stage, leaping onto walls for parts, dramatically marching through the crowd for others. He was a joy to watch, because he so clearly was overcome with his own joy. I sat there thinking if only we could all echo his joy, and I realized that on this foray to Amasya, I felt a sense of exuberance too.

At the end of the concert the crowd clapped in unison enough to warrant multiple encores. As people streamed home, I wandered across the bridge to the hotel, tired and hungry but feeling content.

When I got to Harsena, the red-headed waiter from the night before was at the front desk. I asked him for the key, and he asked, “You want eating?” Sure, I thought. It was late for a big meal at that point, but I thought a little something would be good. I dropped my stuff off in the room and headed into the dining area. Salad, pilaf, lentil soup and tea filled me up, and I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the dining area, filled with people playing backgammon and watching a TrabzonSpor futbol match on the big screen tv.

After an uneventful rest of the evening, I fell asleep relaxed and happy, with the tv on. At a little after midnight though, I awoke and heard the newly released Osama Bin Laden tape on the BBC. I became consumed by election worries and had trouble getting back to sleep. Finally I did, but in the predawn hours, the boom of the Ramazan cannon woke me, and then I was distracted by the sound of a band – very similar to the one that I’d heard that evening – playing, for an hour, somewhere else in town. An hour later the cannon went off again and it was quiet. Lying there in the early morning hours, I found the distant music and the cannons strangely frightening. I knew rationally that they were benign holiday traditions, but something like that is so foreign to me that I found it unsettling. The cannons didn’t bother me other than waking me, but the music seemed strange. I began to wonder if it was normal or if something else was going on. Like a coup attempt or something. I was being ridiculous, but at that time of the morning…..

The next day I ground slowly to a start; my bus back to Ankara was scheduled to leave around 3. After breakfast downstairs, I packed up my things and left them behind the desk at the hotel. I wanted to walk around Amasya, taking a little walking tour plotted out in my guidebook. The weather was a little crisp, but sunny with occasional cloudy moments. All in all a good morning for strolling around.
I crossed the river and followed its arc towards the Ataturk square, filled with older men in caps talking in small clusters, and continued beyond towards the Darussifa, which was built as a mental hospital in 1309. Now it’s a conservatory for music students; a sign on the gate welcomed visitors to its interior courtyard with words in English, “You can visit and sit for resting in there.” The architecture was beautiful, with lots of honeycomb niches carved in the stone. Some students sat in the courtyard at a table, talking. An older man strolled through the space. Very peaceful. Next door, a hamam steamed, and a linefull of towels swayed in the slight breeze.

I continued along the river, past an older man in a prayer cap selling apples, making a mental note to come back for some. Next on the tour were several small mosques, in a quiet end of town. Outside the main area, which has been somewhat gentrified it seems, there were many dilapidated houses; however, despite the roughness, Amasya still had a congenial feel. One mosque, Mehmet Pasa Camii, built in 1486, had a prayer from the Koran written on a wipe board, in Turkish and English: “Oh you believe. Fasting is prescribed for you as it was for those who came before you: that you will perhaps guard yourselves against evil.” In the tranquil courtyard, a few pairs of wooden slip on sandals lay littered beside the fountains for washing before prayer. A jumble of old carved headstones stood leaning off kilter in a fenced area to one side of the mosque’s porch.

Another mosque, and another hamam, this one steaming grandly as if it were on fire, took my interest for a few minutes before I crossed over the river to look at the far side of town. This area seemed much more residential, with some vendors and shops, and lots of kids playing in public spaces. I paused at the Buyuk Aga Medresesi, an octagonal building sunken slightly into the ground. Apparently it was built in 1488, but has been restored and is used now as a seminary for boys who are learning the Koran. It was closed up tight, but some small boys played in the courtyard. I took some photos of their delicate pink roses, and noted the gorgeous stonework in the buildings walls.

A few blocks along, I passed an underpass running beneath the train tracks. In the guidebook, they suggested that the neighborhood behind there had some nice old wooden houses; I decided to wander in. I had time.

Through the tunnel, I first noted that the old Ottoman half timbered houses were much like those in the neighborhood near the hotel, but had not been gentrified and were pretty run down. I turned towards the right, and began walking towards a playground area; immediately, some small children ran up and began to say, “Hello.” I spoke back to them in Turkish, a little, and soon I was surrounded by about 10 kids, clustering around and very excited by my presence. They wanted me to take their photos. I began to – and immediately it became a crazy experience. The great thing about the digital camera is that you can show them the photos immediately (although I will still get prints made for them), but it nearly started a riot. Literally. The kids each wanted their photo taken, in different family groups, friend groups, all kinds of hierarchies and social dynamics. A few small fights started. I felt overwhelmed.

But the most troubling thing was the state of some of these children. Several had various physical malformations or deformities; some were clearly ill or injured (scraped faces, bruises, as if there was either considerably rough play or abuse). A few of the children just looked a little bit different, like there might be some chromosomal abnormalities. But the most troubling sight was one of the older boys, perhaps about 10 or 11 – maybe older; his face looked fine, but he carried himself stiffly and awkwardly, as if his body movement was constrained. And indeed it was. Under his pullover sweater, around the neck hole, I could see that from his chin down there was something terribly wrong. His skin was red and taut and it appeared perhaps that he had been severely burned. Or something. I found it terribly upsetting.

After about 20-30 minutes and many pictures, one of their mothers called them off and said to let me alone. I said goodbye, got their addresses, and wandered back through the underpass. I felt considerably shaken up; the kids’ enthusiasm was great, but there seemed to be such wounds in the community. I wanted to rest, and I wanted to wash my hands – so many seemed to be ill – and I just wanted to recharge. It was intense, and draining.

I hurried back to the hotel; before I went inside though, I ran into Emre and two of his friends. He seemed pleased to see me, and we talked for a few minutes before I went inside to wash my hands. When I finished, I went back to the boys and gave them my camera to take pictures of all of us for a while. Then I headed off to try to find some food. This proved to be a bit of a challenge, as most of the restaurants were closed. I bought some apples from the older man I’d seen earlier, 750,000 a kilo (cheap!) but I misunderstood the numbers and tried to only give him 250,000. It took help from the man’s two older friends to figure it out! They were very sweet about it.

I bought some postcards at a photo store – the man was really nice in there too; he showed me a bunch of old photos of Amasya from many decades ago. Then, he recommended that I get some su boregi from a bakery a few blocks away. I did, then walked to the riverside and ate it. There were many people wandering and sitting in the riverbank park. And in the big mosque across the road, the Sultan Beyazit II mosque, even more people had gathered in the courtyard talking and visiting: men, women, children, family groups. I covered my head and looked in the mosque – totally stunning, with tilework and an amazing sense of light and space.

I chanced into a strange general store that sold an odd assortment of stuff -- it had an army/navy store kind of feel. At any rate, I was trying to buy a handmade wool hat for about $3, but the older woman working (dressed a simple skirt and blouse with a dark colored headscarf) was troubled by my actions because the hat was intended for a man. She didn't think I should buy or wear it. Finally, I told her I was buying it for my brother in Amerika, which seemed to satisfy her. The woman's son, a guy maybe around 40, asked me if it was cold in America, and I said sure. Then he asked if I was German or not, a somewhat inexplicable turn of events. When I explained I'm American, he seemed really surprised; and, suddenly, he was talking about Bush. Tuesday, he said in Turkish, Bush will be finished, wiping his hands together emphatically in a common Turkish gesture that generally means, over, done, the end. He continued; I wasn't sure exactly what he was saying, but he was talking about the Iraq war, and he wasn't happy. His voice raised a notch and he stared at me intently with his one good eye, the other clouded over and unseeing. Tamam, I said, OK, nodding. Then I launched into my spiel about the Iraq war, in my makeshift Turkish. He nodded enthusiastically. When I finished, his mother stared at me for a second, then reached out and took my face into her hands. She looked in my eyes exceptionally warmly; then, she withdrew one hand and pinched my cheek, grinning. She kissed me on both cheeks as she clasped my hands tightly, repeating softly what I'd just said in my attempt at Turkish. Her eyes were watery. It was such an intense moment, I got chills. I'm not sure why I struck such a chord with her, but she seemed so pleased with what I had said.

Time to head back – I walked over to the hotel, noting that Turkish tour groups, day trippers perhaps, had arrived in force in the city. Souvenir stands – low key ones – had sprung up outside the entrance to the pontic tombs and I glanced at them before returning to the hotel to collect my things. An older man, seemingly the owner of the hotel (perhaps a relative of the red-headed guy?) engaged me in conversation, thanking me for staying there. I told him I had to go to the bus station and asked about taxis or buses. He shook his head and explained to me slowly in Turkish that he’d arrange for a friend to take me there; just hold on a few minutes. He pulled up a chair for me and had his little grandson demonstrate his English skills. As the little boy, standing straight and tall, recited, “I am nine years old. One two three four five six….”, the grandpa beamed. About 10 minutes later, he had another man and his grandson drive me to the bus station.

I was sad to leave Amasya – it is probably my favorite place I’ve been in Turkey (this year and the previous trip). Friendliest, nicest people I’ve met.

The bus trip home was less than stellar. I chose poorly when it came to bus lines. There was a well known bus company waiting with direct bus to Ankara, but I didn’t have a ticket for that one. Instead, I waited and waited for a small shuttle, which a bunch of us crowded onto. I thought for a while that that small dolmus, crammed with people and an extraordinary amount of luggage, would be our way all the way back to Ankara. However, the bus drove us about 40 minutes outside of town on a semi-paved road and left us at a dilapidated service station, with a shepherd and a herd of cows across the road. We stood there and waited for a bus. The bus eventually came, and we crowded on. It was going from somewhere to Ankara, Antalya and Alanya, which meant that a lot of the riders had a really long bus ride ahead of them. I was placed next to an older woman clad in a headscarf. We didn’t say much to each other, but she was a good seat partner. In front of us and behind us a mother and daughter with two small children – a toddler and a baby – switched the children back and forth depending on who had the best luck keeping them calm. They were really cute, with angelic little faces. And they were relatively well behaved considering the situation.

We stopped at a rest stop eventually and I ate more of my borek. My seat partner saw me sitting there by myself and called me over. She insisted I take a sandwich she’d made – a hunk of bread with white cheese, pepper and tomato, which she plucked from a bag with her fingers. She was very sweet.

Near Ankara, we kept stopping by the side of the road for unexplicable reasons, and we finally came into town around 9:30. I took a cab to the British Embassy for a Halloween party there. Didn’t stay long, but had a nice time talking to Manuel from my Turkish class and his student Olga, a Turkish woman.

I definitely want to go back to Amasya; it gets top ranking.

Kids from the "photo shoot" in an Amasya neighborhood.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

More kids.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

And even more.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Baby and mother.

© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Scenes from Ankara

Ataturk mausoleum, an Autumn sunday.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Women follow their children into the mausoleum.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Maltepe Mosque, Ankara.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Colleagues from work

(Zelal, me, Defne, Defne's boyfriend Fuat, Aylin, Aylin's boyfriend Bruce.) Bruce organized a great dinner at Aylin's on the eve of his return home to the UK. Being in her lovely apartment inspired me to try to make my flat more homey.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

The Trip to Sinop

Sunset from the Sinop city walls.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Tour guide at Sinop Prison, a former guard. The prison was in use until the late 1990s.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Scenes from Ayancik

The Black Sea at Ayancik.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

The Trip to Sinop, on the Black Sea Coast

I don’t have a lot to say about my trip to the Black Sea Coast. The region was beautiful and I was glad I went. However, I realized on this trip that tour bus group travel is just not for me. Following the group around and being at the beck and call of the tour leader (“Arkadaslar, buyurum, haydi, haydi!) left me feeling disengaged and unenthused. Furthermore, I was sleep deprived and generally unhealthy, and the bus trip on winding mountain roads with a shaky stomach proved to be disastrous. Enough complaining though. Two great things came of this trip: one, I reconnected with my own desire to travel in one half an hour in a little town called Ayrancik; and two, I made the decision to focus on independent travel rather than feeling like I had to do group tours because I was intimidated by the idea of going it alone. Both of those discoveries made the trip, even the nasty bout of motionsickness, well worth it.

A lot of what we saw on the trip was out of my reach, as the entire tour was in Turkish. For instance, the group went to a library in Sinop and got a guided tour. However, I have no idea why the public library was included. No clue. We did see the northernmost point of Turkey and a lighthouse there; ate manti with walnuts, which was quite good; and visited some lovely waterfalls which offered a chance for some hiking. Also on the docket was a long visit to Turkey’s Alcatraz, the Sinop prison, with a tour from a rather flamboyant former guard boasting a grand mustache and the largest set of tespih I’ve ever seen (tespih are beads that some Turkish men carry and fidget with – nothing off color!). We also visited the home of some young Sinop residents who met us at a café. [This visit later proved to be a bit problematic, as one of them misinterpreted my disengaged petulance as a come on and began to stalk me a little bit. Hopefully this will resolve without another meeting!]

But the highlight of the trip was a brief half an hour at the Black Sea Coast town of Ayancik. We piled off the bus and were told we had thirty minutes to walk around. I was feeling really ill so I stumbled over to a wall by the pebbly beach. It was nearing sunset and the light in the sky was pink. I began to warm to the setting a bit, and became intrigued by a family plucking fish from a net. As they filled plastic bags full with tiny fish, one child would run the bag up to a small lean-to near where I sat and place it there for storage. One of the women was dressed really dramatically, in red with a long skirt and a brightly colored headscarf. I got up the nerve to approach them to watch, and they began talking to me a little bit. One of the women said to the others, in Turkish, She’s a foreigner, she doesn’t understand Turkish. I understood her and responded, Right, I am and I don’t understand Turkish. Sorry. The woman in read said wryly, She actually seems to understand Turkish. Everybody laughed.

The fish they were pulling from the net were a small fish, I think called hamsi, kind of like an anchovy. When the net was cleaned, they gathered it up into the small boat that stood on the sand nearby propped up on logs, and three men took the boat into the water. During this process, the call to prayer began, which added to the ambience (pink light, the waves lapping rhythmically on the shore and the cadence of the Arabic – wow….). Then, the woman in red started pointing and getting very excited. I followed her gaze, and saw an amazing thing – four dolphins playing enthusiastically in the waves, quite near the shore. Other than at the Shedd, I’ve never seen saltwater dolphins in the wild so close up, let alone breaching and cavorting. Exhilarating. I got chills up the back of my neck! As we watched the dolphins, the men took the boat out into the water and stretched the net in a long line about 30 feet from the water’s edge. Then, suddenly, the women and children began to throw stones from the beach into the water to scare the fish into the net. The men cruised around in the boat stomping on the bottom for the same purpose.

Then, unfortunately, the bus horn started honking and the guide began to yell shrilly for us to get on the bus (Haydi, buyurun!) And I had to leave. But those few minutes on the shore of the Black Sea captivated me and made me realize I’ve got to get off my butt, stop being scared, and get out there and experience Turkey.

A family harvesting small fish from their net.

Pulling hamsi from the net
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Hamsi up close.

The men string the net along the shore.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

The woman in red throwing rocks into the water to chase fish into the net.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Some Sinop Scenes

The northernmost point of Turkey, near Sinop.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Climbing the falls (looking really ill and sleepy, by the way.)
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Erfelek Falls, near Sinop. The vegetation here is so different from dry Ankara.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

My Turkish Class

My Turkish class: seated in front Lena (Kazakstan); from right, Laura (Italy), Kris (U.S.), Manuel (Mexico or Spain, depending on when you ask), Cigdem (teacher, Turkey), Carol (U.S., but married to a Turk), Melissa (U.S. exchange student); Ashraf (Iraq), and a new student from Mexico. Missing are Glori from Nigeria and Aida from Albania.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Hard at work in class: usually I sit where Manuel is sitting, next to Ashraf. We help each other out during class.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

The view from language class. We hear the call to prayer from Kocetepe Mosque in the last hour of class every day.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

Thoughts on Life (or Ashraf, the Iraqi Boy)

I haven’t written a newsy, detail-filled ramble of my exploits here in a week or so, so I thought I was due. Every day of course, things happen that could be the subject of short stories, the kind where the unknowing foreign woman stumbles upon brief moments of self awareness on her journey through the details of life in an unfamiliar place; unfortunately (or fortunately perhaps) those very details are distracting me from actually writing anything down. No journal, no day planner, just haphazard emails blind-copied to myself and a running list of Turkish proverbs and sayings that seem to appear at the most appropriate times. Yesterday: “gittigen yerde herkes korse sende bir gozunu yum” – If all the people where you go are blind, close one eye. Today: “It urur kervan yurur” – You are too insignificant to control the events around you. I just sit back and listen and learn, one eye shut and the other taking in every detail.

Hmmm. How can I sum up the last week or so? Simply stated, I’m settling in. It’s starting to seem much less like a crazy reality TV show and more like life (although some might argue that there often isn’t much difference anyway.) I can now pass several hours at a time without major challenges to getting my basic needs met. I’ve learned strategies for decoding and circumlocuting, and fewer things each day happen under mystifying circumstances. My Turkish is improving yavas, yavas (slowly, slowly as they say here); at least now I can construct a sentence to a cab driver – not necessarily a useful one, but a sentence nonetheless. The initial shock of being somewhere where I can’t communicate is wearing off, and I’m realizing how important it seems to at least try a little in Turkish, even if I fall flat on my face. If you come into any situation asking others to do all the work to communicate, they’re not as helpful as if you make every effort to try to meet them on their terms. When that, inevitably, fails, we meet halfway, and it works itself out.

The first few weeks, I think, I was blindsided and overwhelmed by everything new. Now, I’m starting to notice more and more details about little everyday things: how dolmus drivers let people fill in standing room only, but then make the standing folks kneel when we go around a certain roundabout, apparently because there are police officers there who bust dolmus drivers who allow standing room passengers. Boys and men who deliver cups of tea to businesses run up and down the streets, carrying little glass cups of tea on silver trays – miraculously not spilling as they dodge in and out of women, men and children, clinging to each other in cordial groups as they stroll down the streets. Men interact so differently with each other here – they link arms on the street, walking with arms around each others shoulders, laughing and talking close to each other’s faces. Every day I see men sweeping the streets with brooms made of sticks. In the evening downtown when the vendors come out, I didn’t notice before that they shout and hawk their wares in battle with the others – trying to attract attention to their stockings, sweaters, sweatpants, dishes. Women and men cluster around their makeshift tables constructed from cardboard boxes that fold ingeniously into carrying cases, fingering the fabrics and haggling for prices. I notice smells more these days: fish cooking on grills; seeds roasting in metal machines outside snack stores; the greasy rich smell of cone-shaped slabs of doner meat sizzling as they slowly rotate on spits. The thick fragrance of flowers at the flower market mixing with the exhaust of the dolmuses pulling in and out of the parking lot next door where they pick up passengers.

Life is starting to have a rhythm instead of a haphazard feel. But the rhythm doesn’t mean it is starting to bore me. There are always enough surprises each day. Today, for instance, I knew that we were supposed to have manti – Turkish tortellini – for lunch at the language school. I thought someone was bringing in samples. Instead, three classes worth of students from all over the world walked 5 blocks across downtown and went to a manti restaurant. We sat there for an hour and a half, talking and laughing and eating incredibly good food: spicy bulgher wheat kofte, salad, and steaming plates of tiny meat-filled ravioli dripping with warm yogurt and tomato sauce. The waiters brought containers of rich red sumac, mint, red pepper, and oregano for us to heap on top of the white yogurt. My classmate from Mexico, Manuel – a PhD student from Mexico City -- kept marveling, “We’re the UN right here. And here we all are in Turkey.” Looking around the table I realized he was right; I was within easy speaking distance of people from Hong Kong, Nigeria, Albania, Kazakstan, Italy, Turkey, and Iraq. When else in my life will I have that opportunity? This is what it means to be a world citizen perhaps.

Speaking of Iraq, my classmate Asraf, a sweet 19 year old boy from Baghdad, has made some influential cameo appearances of late. Last week, when I learned in an awkward moment in the middle of class that he is from the country that my country is currently occupying, I felt immediately off kilter. I found our presence together in a class strangely troubling – maybe troubling isn’t the word; I just felt bad, felt like I should say something. But what? We’d eye each other hesitantly during breaks in the hallway. Friday, he offered me a mint. After class that same day, we both ended up going to a conversation club meeting at the language school. Conversation club is an opportunity for Turkish students studying English and international students studying Turkish to meet and speak with each other in the two languages unsupervised by a teacher. Asraf and I were the only two international students, joined by three young Turkish guys. Those three immediately were intrigued by the presence of an American and an Iraqi in the same room, sitting next to each other no less. As soon as we opened the floor to conversation, the Turkish guys started asking questions – “So, what is it like in Iraq right now?” “What do Americans think of the Iraq war?” “What do you both think of Bush?” At first I think we both felt a little like doner meat – turning on a spit – at least I did. But soon enough it became a conversation. I made my feelings about the whole thing known in no uncertain terms – at one point I felt choked up, overly dramatic perhaps, but I was really reacting strongly to this experience. Asraf left Baghdad with his family two months ago – he said the situation was just so bad they couldn’t live. When Asraf says “kotu” -- bad -- when he talks about what’s happening in his country, he gets an intense, scared look in his eyes. Doesn’t want to go into details. He was supposed to go to university a year ago, but because of the war he couldn’t. SO now he’s in Turkey, trying to learn the language so he can pass the exam for foreigners to gain admittance to Turkish universities. He hopes, perhaps, to make Turkey his home. He’s not going back to Iraq. “In the election,” one of the Turkish guys asks me, “Who do you support?” I told him; yes, I get the critiques that Kerry and Bush are perhaps two sides of the same currency, a common Turkish phrase, but it can’t be Bush – not now. I’m hoping, I say. I’m hoping. “But 55 percent of Americans prefer him!” a Turkish guy says. “Why?” I can’t answer. Fear, I offer, with a shrug. It causes arguments, I try to explain, in families, among friends. When I begin to describe someone I know and use the phrase, “He loves Bush,” Asraf on my right bursts out, “No, no, no. No. Bush. No.” He gets that same look in his eyes. “So who do you support?” the Turkish guy asks him. “We want Kerry win,” Asraf says. “Bush did it in Iraq, and can not do more.”

I’m looking at Asraf – so young, a ready laugh, shy but willing to crack a one liner when he can. He reminds me of kids I know. He could be my little cousin in a few years. And suddenly nothing makes sense and everything makes sense at the same time. I feel myself aching for what’s gone on and just don’t get why, but I understand in sharper relief for the first time why I’m 5000 miles away and waking up at 4:00 a.m. to watch every debate; why my blood boils when I read an article from the U. of Florida newspaper about the Republican club turning debate-watching into a drinking game (slug some beer and laugh whenever you hear the phrase Weapons of Mass Destruction); why I continue to marvel at how the footage we see here on CNN International and BBC World differs so from what you see on CNN and Fox in the US; why I ended up sprinting as fast as I could around downtown Ankara trying to find the US Embassy to turn in my absentee ballot before the deadline, desperate to make sure I could exercise my right to vote. This isn’t about me being cantankerous. It isn’t a joke. It’s about more than politics. The situation is critical. Something like 38% of Turks in a public opinion poll answered “The United States of America” when asked what’s the current greatest threat to international peace. We’ve got to do something to stop the bleeding; even if the alternative is only marginally better, at this point perhaps a gesture counts for something.

This week in class, Asraf and I are becoming pals. We often laugh together at comments the teacher makes under her breath. Manuel from Mexico City amuses us both. Today Asraf helped me figure out something on my new cell phone; he’s got the same model, but his LCD is filled with Arabic letters. It’s parallel play right now; we’re both just responding in our own ways, and those ways just happen to be similar. I guess it doesn’t matter much, in the scope of things, but in its own small way maybe it does.

Tonight I’ve been feeling very sentimental. I got home from work and decided to go to the gym before I made dinner. The air is the coolest its been, and I felt close and connected to some of those nights in Chicago when I’d go to yoga, come home breathing in the crispness, and make dinner in the warmth of my apartment; more than the adventures I had in Chicago, sometimes I think it is those memories I think of the most fondly – alone in my tiny kitchen, cooking and listening to the radio and feeling at home in my own life.

At any rate, I went to the gym, negotiated getting a 10 visit pass from the gym manager, who is now very amused by me in general and immediately finds someone who speaks English to help navigate our communications, this time a really nice professor guy who arranged for the workout room manager, Ahmet, to orient me to the fitness equipment. That’s always a laugh for those workout guys….but Ahmet handled it well, language barriers aside, as I tried to untangle myself from various pieces of equipment and overly heavy weights. When I got home, I made myself a good dinner –always a miracle– and as I ate it, I felt myself thinking about how I came to be here, at this exact moment, feeling again at home in my own life, even though I am so far away from what I’ve always known. And I realized that I can feel at home here because I am at home with me; I have what I need. Yeah, I’m still frustrated by my own faults, and failures, and blockages; over the weekend I was getting a little bit mopey about how those things managed to follow me 5000 miles. But in these first few weeks here, I’ve realized some pretty incredible things to know about myself, too. I’m more adaptable, more resourceful, more open-minded, and more able to listen and to stretch myself than I thought. I can make my own luck, and I can call myself on my own behavior. I can choose to think about things in a way that will be constructive rather than destructive. And I can enjoy the basic, silly little moments of life that are inconsequential in and of themselves, but end up being the sum total of your contentment. I feel blessed; I am living an amazing life of my own construction. I have the tools I need – in various stages of development, to be sure – to make my own way. I’m reminded of that saying about giving your children roots and wings; I’ve never appreciated more the importance of that. Mom, I’m realizing now more than ever what an amazing job you did under difficult circumstances to give me these tools, and my whole family in general for contributing the little bits and pieces of yourselves that you’ve given me. I’ve been feeling Pop’s curiosity and resourcefulness in me a lot these last few weeks.

As I was sitting here writing this, the doorbell rang. It was Sahika from downstairs, standing out there after a long day of work with a steaming hot bowl of homemade soup for me, just because she thought I might be a little cold with this first burst of fall weather. I wasn’t very hungry, having just eaten, but you should never be too full to accept someone’s kindness. That’s not a Turkish proverb that I know of…but maybe I’ll run across it one of these days. I think that is the most important thing I can learn from this experience – accepting the warmth of others I don’t already know into my life. The soup, by the way, has to be among the best I’ve ever eaten.

That’s all for now. I want to turn in early to get up at 4:00 for the debate. More dispatches later, perhaps others more about Turkey and less about me!

On frustrations

From an email to a friend, who had asked, what is difficult about adjusting to Turkey?:

....I've traveled a bunch and I've moved to new places in the US and set up life. And moving here is like pulling out all the most difficult aspects of both of those -- those daily, stressful, nagging little problems -- and throwing them all on yourself at the same time. But when you are traveling, you patch things together as best you can and just get by. When you are moving in your own country, you at least h ave a general sense of what needs to be done. but living here is just totally different. The simplest little tasks can seem utterly mystifying. Life just doesn't work the same way. It is exhilirating but exhausting and draining in a way that I didn't expect. You think it is going to be this fun, exciting experience, but you still have to get certain daily needs met. For instance, it used to be that only people who spoke English called my phone. But now, some who don't speak call -- you know, stores, etc -- that kind of thing. Well, I've had a couple of times when I've answered the phone, and this disembodied voice couldn’t communicate with me at all (or vice versa should I say). It is a really hard/bad experience! Surprisingly so. So now when the phone rings, I get a feeling of anxiety. Lots of little things like that.

New Arrival

The new, much heralded fridge.
© Kris Nesbitt 2004

New Arrival!

Welcome to the long-awaited: Souk-luk, the miniature refrigerator

arrived: Friday October 1st, 2004 9:02 p.m.,
approximately 75 lbs, 34 inches

The delivery was long -- after problems were encountered today at the local store, they informed me that it would be next friday before it arrived. I begged, pleaded, and wheedled....and they called back and said they would have one driven from their store in Bursa -- about 200 miles away -- and delivered to me tonight by two men huffing and puffing and not very happy that I live on the 4th floor.

It has a small freezer compartment, a crisper drawer, shelves in the door, and a cute little ice tray. Both of us are doing well -- Souk-luk is purring happily and chilling down in the kitchen, and I am imagining the possibilities of having yogurt, fruit, and veggies in my apartment! I have never been so excited by an appliance.

Awaiting the Refrigerator

I overslept the debate but woke up just as it was ending at the call to prayer/dog howling hour and then was able catch some of the annoying pundits and the spin. Got to watch the rebroadcast at 11 on CNN International.

I met with Hosnu Bey, the director of the department, about the ID issue. He gave some names to lobby. He also said, which kind of made me happy, that although my credentials were not deemed adequate for teaching initially, they now have a teaching shortage, so he was trying to get a feel for my interest in teaching 10 hours a week. I said that I needed to wait for a while to get adjusted before thinking about that, and reiterated the 12 hour a week fulbright cap. Now if they would appoint me and give me some additional money!

So, I was stuck here waiting all day for the refrigerator. I decided to attempt to do laundry. I walked over (after putting a note on the door) to the little mini mart and they have a lot of selection for a little place. Bought detergent....and got the coins that I thought I needed because those were the ones I thought would fit in the slot. well, I took the laundry down, and didn't see anyone around to ask. I put some of the coins in, and kept feeding them in waiting for the machine to turn on. Then one got stuck -- totally lodged in the slot. I went to the mudur and appologized. He got a screwdriver and pushed it in, then pushed the button to release the coins. When he saw that I'd put 100,000 lira coins, he was kind of appalled. Degil (which means not) he kept saying over and over again. You have to buy tokens from him for 1.5 million lira. So I did that and managed to do 2 loads of laundry despite my embarrassment. I think the water and the different detergent didn't go over too well on a couple of my older shirts. It seemed really rough on them.

Anyway, the other embarrassing thing was that I managed to explain that my overhead light in the bedroom burnt out. The mudur sent Mustafa the janitor up -- he fixed the lights in the bathroom, and then showed me that inexplicably the bedroom light actually works. Last night it seemed to blow out! but today it worked.

I tidied and decorated the apartment a bit and really was feeling like I was settling in. I couldn't wait for the fridge. Well, about an hour ago I got a call from the store, and they are having a problem, and said that they couldnt bring it today, and maybe not til next friday. Last week I would have said, OK ,that is fine, I'm a wimp. After a good day yesterday, I said as simply as I could, no thank you, bring something today. I explained that I have been living without a fridge and that I need it TODAy. I kept being firm about it -- said I wouldn't have shopped there if I"d known it would be a week and a half -- now you are saying two weeks? NO. I said I took off of school and work today to be here, and I can't next week. So she said she'd talk to her manager (she speaks english -- the last time they called they didn't, until they found that woman). She called back a few minutes ago and let me know that she and the manager have decided to have one from their store in Bursa brought over, and I will get the fridge today, but it will be late. Bursa is really far away -- at least four hours! She said I could go out for a few hours obviously. So I might wander a bit and then come back here....I hope it works out!