2 Nights in a Cave

Adam in Cappadocia

Ballooning in Cappadocia

We have just returned from a wonderful trip to Cappadocia, a region of Turkey about 3 hours south of Ankara.  Though it was further south, it was no warmer, with about 4 inches of new snow, high daily temps around freezing, and night temps in the teens.  Despite these balmy conditions, it was truly a peak experience and a “must do” in Turkey.  To start with, Cappadocia has amazing natural rock formations, resulting from 3 volcanoes thousands of years ago.  Winds have made all kinds of interesting indentations in the rock, resulting in hundreds of fairy chimneys and other unusual sights.  Along with the winds, humans realized how soft the rock was, so they built homes in the formations.  In fact, there are amazing underground cities which go on for many stories and kilometers.  The early Christians built little churches in the rocks, and there are beautiful religious picture painted on the walls – some still remarkably colorful.  Cappadocia is a region, so it takes a car to go from area to area to see everything.  Alternatively, one can tour by air, which is just what we did yesterday at dawn – by hot air balloon!  Despite freezing temps, the balloon fire provided a lot of warmth (except for the feet), and we had amazing views of valleys and snow-covered formations. 

 

Our Cave

Hamam

Now the real pièce de résistance was living in a cave.  We stayed in Kale Konak, a cave hotel.  This hotel was probably someone’s ancient abode and is literally carved in the rock.  Our cave room had no windows, but 2 holes in the ceiling that were probably for ventilation in ancient times (but now provided a small bit of light during the day).  Our cave was warm and toasty, but even better was the hamam, or Turkish bath, located just below our cave.  In the old days, folks would go to the hamam for their weekly baths (and this may still be the case in some villages), where they would first sit in a very humid wet sauna type of room to work up a good sweat.  Then they would scrub (or be scrubbed) to remove all the dead skin, followed by soaping and cleaning.  We went to our hamam every day while in Cappadocia, and it is truly one of the most relaxing experiences ever.  Fred and Wilma never had it so good!

Spiritual Awakenings

When I walk past the mosques, hear the calls to prayer 5 times a day, and see women in headscarves, I am reminded that 99% of Turks are Muslim.  Other religions are not forbidden, but here in Ankara I’ve not seen a single church except for the little one that we’ve found.

Cef & Father Geoffrey

St Nicholas Church

Nonie, Cef, & David (British Ambassador)

It’s no accident that this church is named St. Nicholas, as St. Nicholas is from Turkey (and is the origin of our Santa Claus).  Now St. Nicholas is the only church I’ve ever attended that requires a passport prior to entry, but then again, this one is located in the British Embassy compound.  This past Sunday, 8 Iranians were baptized – an act that could have been a death sentence were they still in Iran.  Father Cefri (Geoffrey) (see pic at right with Cef) is the only priest and shepherds this small motleyed congregation of about 50 Brits, Aussies, Americans, Turks, Iranians, and even an Iraqi or two.  Father Geoffrey’s strongest suit is the hymns, which he sings loudly and lustily (and he needs to since the non-English speakers don’t sing at all!).  He is retiring on Christmas Day (after >50 years of service to the Anglican Church) to İzmir – a testament to the hold that this country has on expats who live here.  One of the fringe benefits of attending St. Nicholas is that we were invited to a Christmas Caroling party at the British Ambassador’s residence (see picture of our British friend Nonie, Cef, and the British Ambassador).  Though there are almost no visible reminders of Christmas in the streets and stores here in Ankara, this evening of carols got our Christmas spirits soaring.

Shabbat

Last Friday we were invited to dinner at the home (flat) of our American friends, Alice and Carnot Nelson, who are with Bilkent University.  Just before dinner, Carnot handed Cef a yamakkah to wear, and he and his grandson Josh did the shabbat prayers – complete with a sip of kosher wine.  Once again we were reminded of the tolerance of this country for all religions.

Konya

Today we were lucky enough to have gone to Konya, a town about 2 hours south of Ankara by high speed rail.  During this one week in December, Konya commemorates the death of its most famous inhabitant, the Turkish mystic Rumi who espoused a philosophy of love and tolerance.  He felt that the best way to achieve oneness with God was through the arts.  Rumi is well known for his poetry, but best known for the beautiful, haunting, and mesmerizing dance that his followers perform during this week.  The Mevlevi, or Whirling Dervishes (as we call them), is an experience I will never forget.  I wish I had a picture, but photos were not allowed (and I did not want to risk being thrown out of the show), so here's a picture of a plastic one instead.  Note the right palm turned up, the left turned down, and they always twirl counter clockwise. 

Turkey in Turkey

Since this past Thursday was Thanksgiving Day, I have had numerous inquiries from friends and relations back in the US regarding Turkish Thanksgivings and the typical menu – or more to the point – Is turkey on the menu?  As a friend and colleague in Charleston wrote to me: “The average person would think that would be the number 1 meat in the country.”  Aside from the fact that Thursday was a typical work day here in Turkey, there was a bit of excitement among us US expats here in Ankara for our first Thanksgiving.  Is there turkey in Turkey?  If so, where would we find one?  Would it already have been defeathered, decapitated, and declawed?  Now before we get to the answers and actual menu, I’ll digress momentarily to discuss word etymology.

• The word for the country Turkey (or Türkiye as it’s known to its natives) did not come from our word turkey and is not related to birds or fowl.  It simply means “land of the Turks.”
• The word for turkey in Turkish is hind – which is related to the Turkish word for India, or Hindistan as they call it.
• The English word turkey is shortened from “turkey cock” or “turkey hen” which was originally used in the 1500s to designate a guinea fowl from Madagascar.  Apparently because the bird arrived in England by way of Turkey, someone got mixed up as to its origins.  The mistake was further compounded when someone started applying the same name to the big American bird.
• Bonus etymologic tip: the Turks’ word for Egypt is Mısır which means corn.  To my knowledge, there are no countries other than Egypt and India with edible Turkish names.

Back to the menu… We were invited to have Thanksgiving with our American friends Alice and Carnot Nelson and their grandson Josh.  We arrived at their apartment at 7pm not knowing if there would be a bird or any of the other usual fare that we associate with this holiday.  Much to our surprise, Alice had located a rather large bird (which she needed in order to feed the 21 of us in attendance).  Miraculously, she had gotten this bird in her petit Turkish oven (along with stuffing and everything else she had to cook).  She had even brought cranberries from Berlin, someone else had located sweet potatoes, and there were various other contributions which made for a really fine Thanksgiving feast.  By my count, there were only 7 Americans, but it was one of the best and most memorable Thanksgivings that I’ve ever attended.  And the next day, for the first time since I’ve been here, there was turkey on the lunch menu at the faculty dining room.  Yes, there is turkey in Turkey!

Elite Status

It was on this day, 10 years ago, that my status in the world changed completely and irrevocably.  Although I had known that it would happen for some months, I had no idea how profoundly I would be affected.  You see, on November 13, 2001 little Eric was born and I became a grandmother for the first time.  Grandmother status is not without its drawbacks – the age thing being the prime one -- and I certainly thought of my grandmothers (for whom I was not the status changer) as elderly.  But then again, they were both in their 60’s when I was born.  In addition to my grandmothers as role models, my own mother has been an outstanding grandmother role model.  It was her embracing grandmotherhood that made me aspire to achieve it.  Once I achieved this status, I often imagined how the headlines might read if there were ever anything newsworthy about me.  For example, “Grandmother Completes Half-Marathon,” or “Grandmother Goes to Turkey on Fulbright.”  You see how amazing it sounds when it’s a grandmother?  Grandfatherhood doesn’t have quite the same impact (thus, rarely mentioned in headlines).


But enough about me and more about my amazing grandson, little e, who is talented in somany ways.  Just to mention a few of his many facets: he sings and is now in his 2^nd year in the Atlanta Boy Choir, he plays basketball and is frequently called on to set up a crucial play, he runs in road races, he bikes in a velodrome, and he plays chess.  He has alwayshad a very strong super ego.  I’ll never forget learning that one day Katie picked him up from nursery school, and he was sitting alone while the other children were running around.  When asked why he was alone, little e said that the children were playing Star Wars and Katie had told him not to play Star Wars, and that was why he had to take himself out of the action.  I wish I could say that it is the genes, butit’s definitely the parenting (and maybe a little grandmothering?).

 



So thank you, little e, for my moving me into a new status.   It makes me eligible (eventually) for an even more elite status – great grandmotherhood!

Republic Day and Our Environs

Today, October 29, is Republic Day, which commemorates the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal.  Flags have been flying for some weeks now in solidarity against the attacks by Kurdish rebels, in support of the earthquake victims, and now to celebrate Republic Day, but they seem bigger and more frequent today.  In the picture at left, you'll see the view from our window, which now includes a giant flag flying between 2 buildings.  Not wanting to seem unpatriotic, we have our own little flag in the window of our living room (see below), as well as a picture of Mustafa Kemal, who took the last name of Atatürk, or father of the Turks, when he became the first president of Turkey in 1923.  You'll see below our portrait of Atatürk when he was on the cover of Time Magazine on March 24, 1923.  I've also posted a picture of the school across the street from our apartment, complete with Turkish flags and a flag of Mustafa Kemal.  Maybe one reason we like the Turkish flag so much is because of the crescent, which is also in the South Carolina flag??? 

 

Mustafa the Barber & Ayhan the Kuaför

You really know you're living in a foreign country (as opposed to just visiting) when you have to get your hair done.  Now Cef (or Jeff, as he is known in the English language) has already visited Mustafa the barber.  According to Cef, Mustafa spent a great deal of time on the hair itself, with additional attention to the mustache.  As a bonus, there was the ear waxing.  Now I've had eyebrow waxing before, but ear waxing was a new concept for me (and a definite first for Cef).  Before he could protest, one ear had been waxed, with the offending hair jerked out.  What could he do but submit to the second ear?  I must admit that he received one of the best haircuts in memory, not to mention that his hearing has improved considerably.  (Sorry that he would not permit a close up of the ears.)   Now it may be different for men, but for me, I have a very special relationship with my hairdresser.  As background, I found Rosemary 12 years ago in Charleston, and since then, I've moved with her to 4 different locations, and we have gone through numerous life events together, such as graduating our sons from high school, getting married, and Rosemary's son getting married.  In the last 12 years, only Rosemary (and her son) have ever touched my hair -- so you can imagine my trepidation when I walked into the shop of Ayhan (the Kuaför).  For starters, Ayhan doesn't speak English (nor did I expect it), but then again, it's not too hard to indicate that I wanted a hair cut and touching up of my roots.  Ayhan understood completely and got the team started.  Yes -- it's a team approach here in Turkey.  Ayhan first called Sultan (the lone female on the team) to get me tea.  Then it was Ömer's turn to prepare and hand to Ayhan the little tin foils that are part of the process.  After this (which did not seem out of line with what Rosemary does), I was advised to sit tight and let the "stuff" work.  No worries -- Meena, an English speaking Indian woman arrived for a manicure and cut, and she and I had a good conversation.  Once Meena left, I was ushered to another area where Ayhan and Ömer got all of the tin foil and other extraneous stuff out of my hair for a good wash.  Then there was more "stuff" applied.  When I questioned them on this, they replied "Renk" (one of the few words I understand, meaning "color").  I had never had this procedure, but I was at their mercy, so renk it was, followed by more washing.  Then it was back to the chair, where Ayhan (without assistance) did the cutting.  I have never seen such fast fingers!  Following the cut, Ömer was called back into action to assist in the drying process (it took four hands!).  Although I may not ever have the same level of trust as I have with Rosemary, I do believe that I'll survive the next 9 months without having to wear a wig! 

Second ride on a dolmuş

Today I took my second ride from work to home on a Turkish mini-bus, or dolmuş.  I felt very proud of myself just finding the bus stop, recognizing the destination posted on the dolmuş, and then hailing it down.  Having already done this once, I felt somewhat seasoned, so I boarded the dolmuş and sat in a seat very close to the driver (security?).  What is interesting about a dolmuş ride is that the fare varies, depending on where you are going (my ride is only 2 lire).  There is only one entrance in the back of the dolmuş, so money has to be passed up to the driver.  As I came to realize, in my strategically located seat, I had to pass the money to the driver from those boarding, and then pass back the change.  Mercifully, a man sitting next to me told the driver where the various passengers were going, so that the driver would know how much change to give.  As it was rainy today, the windows started fogging up (no defroster!), so the passenger sitting in the dolmuş shotgun seat wiped the windows with a squeegee, occasionally passing the squeegee to the driver to wipe his side.  The driver was pretty amazing -- collecting money, giving change, stopping and starting the dolmuş, wiping the window -- all while working a gear shift which requires 2 hands.  So, just as I'm getting used to this routine, I started getting nervous about my exit.  Now I had written on a small (now very wet) piece of paper the name of my bus and what I needed to say to exit ("Inecek var"), but with the windows fogging up on the side of the dolmuş as well as the front, I was unable to get a good look at the street names.  So, I tried to ask the man next to me, who took one look at my pathetic piece of paper and burst out laughing -- promising to get me off the dolmuş at the right place!

Turkish Fulbrighters 2011-12

We are men and women, young and old, married and single, gay/lesbian and straight, students and faculty, researchers and lecturerers, US born and foreign born.  More importantly, my class of 19 Fulbrighters who are spending a year in Turkey are incredibly accomplished and doing absolutely amazing things.  Four of us are historians, two of us anthropologists, and one each in the following areas: computer science, education, landscape architecture, design, intepretation/translation, architecture, linguistics, world music, political science, and communication.  Oh yes, I am the lone epidemiologist (listed as a medical researcher)!  Various projects deal with: re-purposing train stations in Istanbul, GIS technology and art history, ceramic arts in rural Turkey, squatters in Ankara, gay language in Istanbul, and liberalism in Turkey.  I am truly awed and can't tell you what a privilege it is to be among this august group.  I only wish that I were one of the young ones who will be able to make this journey again.  The pictures show all of us at our orientation dinner (the night before the US Embassy reception!).  ...and speaking of the Embassy, turns out that our Ambassador (Frank Ricciardone) has a brother who lives in Charleston with MUSC connections.  It's a small world after all!

School Days

Who would have thought that I would be spending 20 hours a week in school??  After much deliberation, I decided that it would be worth it to invest half of my first month's time learning Turkish.  Soooo, it's back to school!  The first picture shows you one of my first assignments (remind you of 1st grade??).  I am in Intensive Turkish (first level), and there are 13 of us in my class.  We are varied in our backgrounds and purposes, and it's a lot of fun getting to know everyone.  Below you'll see pictures of my classmates.  The first picture shows (from left to right) Ulugbek (a businessman from Kazakistan), Esma (from Afghanistan), Maggie (Taiwan), Mahmoud (Jordan), Tarouq (Iran), Sharron (England), and Tony (China).  In the last picture, you'll see Shafieh and Nafiseh (both Irani), Veronika (Maldovia), myself, and Sachika and Akiko from Japan.  Mahmoud and Tarouq are only 17 years old, and both are trying to learn Turkish so that they can go to a Turkish University next year.  Ulugbek has his own business and is a builder, Sharron has a Turkish boyfriend, Maggie majored in Arabic in Taiwan, and the others are quite varied.  When we were learning numbers and our instructor was having us tell our birth years in Turkish, mercifully she arbitrarily assigned both Sharron and me to the year 1985!As you can imagine, it's pretty amazing to be spending 4 hours a day back in school.  We're going at a good pace, and I'm hopeful that I'll have a passing understanding of Turkish at the end (insha'allah).

Personalized Medicine

What, you might ask, is my husband doing with an IV attached in a garden in Istanbul?  In the photo, you'll see our psychiatrist friend Cengiz, his nephew Onur, and his son Safuk.  It actually started back in Charleston, when he had tooth pain and went to see a dentist who gave him some pain pills and told him it would get better spontaneously.  What this dentist forgot to say was that the pain pills would put him in la la land and as long as he took them, he wouldn't care where he was or what happened.  As I was beginning to worry about very rapid onset Alzheimer's Disease brought on by the sudden change of venue, I also noticed that the right side of his face was getting bigger and redder.  Luckily for Jeff (or Cef as he spells it in Turkey), I work in a hospital, so he was whisked down to ENT where they declared an abscess and prescribed oral antibiotics with frequent returns.  A note about antibiotics in Turkey: they are actually quite easy to obtain, available at any pharmacy without prescription!  In Cef's case, the oral antibiotics didn't work, so two days later he had a procedure to drain the abscess with a new prescription for IV antibiotics.  Nurhayat, the psychiatric nurse here at the Hacettepe, got him started, but he was not going to miss the weekend trip to Istanbul, so with drips and lines on board we forged ahead to Istanbul, trusting his care to Cengiz (shown holding the bag, so to speak), his wife Emine (a child psychiatrist), and their friends and relatives in Istanbul.  Cengiz managed 3 successful infusions, before we had to resort to a hospital nurse to reinsert the IV line.  It finally got to be too much trouble, so he's now back on oral antibiotics and the infection is nearly gone.  Hurray for personalized medicine (even if delivered by a psychiatrist)!!

Middle Passage and Soft Landing

We survived the four fights (including a large number of babies who expressed considerable frustration at the long wait on the tarmac in Atlanta) and were met in Ankara by my Turkish colleague Cengiz and one of the psychiatric residents Mehmet.  Luckily for us, they had each brought a car, because with the amount of luggage we brought (and I had to talk my way out of paying for extra baggage again in Istanbul), we definitely needed the multiple vehicles.  We are now guests in Cengiz's really lovely home on the outskirts of Ankara.  I met my psychiatric colleagues at Hacettepe University on Friday and am looking forward to a full day tomorrow.  Meanwhile over the weekend, I have power walked around the neighborhood and even visited the health club (more to come on that).  Food is outstanding, so I'll definitely need to build in lots of exercise!  In the picture, you'll see Jeff, Cengiz, and me at the Washington Restaurant, a lovely spot located above the city inside the walls of an ancient castle.  

Counting Down

Last Spring, I found out that I had won a Fulbright Award for research in Turkey.  Needless to say, I was thrilled (having never had a sabbatical). My departure date in mid-September was so far away, and there was time in the world to do all of the things that would be necessary, including learning Turkish, applying for sabbaticals at the VA and MUSC, tying up loose ends at work, and getting the house ready to rent.  Well, you know how all that goes!  And now that I've got less than 24 hours, I'm beyond panic and decompensating rapidly into psychosis!  And it doesn't help that my super organized husband has been packed for three weeks.  So, this post will be short, but I promise more to come when we arrive in Ankara on Thursday.

You'll see in the picture my mother, children, and grandchildren who all came to Isle of Palms a few weeks ago to wish us well.  Since then, there have been wonderful parties, happy hours, breakfasts, and dinners to send us off (maybe I should leave more often??). 

Testing. Katie's Blog