Famous

For the past few months I've been running with a group Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. The Saturday morning run has switched to a Sunday pre-worship run, but the group has stayed the same. And...I'm apparently famous. Sunday, while I was stretching, a lady came up to me and asked if I was the Christine who was a fan of Galatasaray. Considering that this is the second time this has happened, and that Turks regularly confuse Catherine and Christine, I corrected the name confusion and said yes. Paparatzi here I come!

I would be the one tucked off in the corner in the brown and white hat. Have hat will travel. I prefer lane one when running in the pack. Otherwise on corners its a speed up to slow down thing. Who wants to do a modification on a speed workout for 5 miles? Not me!

Thankful Things - January

First on the list for the year...the word abla and all that goes with it.

For all my non-speaking Turkish friends (which would probably be all of you), abla is the word for older sister. Some of you are thinking, "Well, her brother doesn't live in Turkey, so why would a word for older sister have any impact on her life at all?" The thankful thing is in the "all that goes with it" part of the previous statement.

Titles are an important part of this culture. At the airport and bus station you hear "sayın yolcularımız" or "dear travelers". A person you don't know well, but who's name you know is so-and-so hanım if its a woman or bey if its a man. The police officer is memur bey, as is every other official worker. All teachers are either called hocam or öğretmenim by their students (the older or newer version of teacher). Everyone older than you gets a title as well. The much older lady on the street is called simply teyze, or aunt. If you are a child and the lady on the street has children you will also call her teyze.

And this brings me to the word abla. Abla is what you call your older sister. It's also what you call someone on the street who is older than you but does not have children or massive amounts of gray hair. Thus, just about every child on the street will call me abla. And the children in my building? They call me Catherine abla. To the children who know me, I will never be anything but Catherine abla. It goes on! When I go to the market or the pazar, the man behind the counter selling things will call me abla, whether or not he's old enough to be my grandfather. The guy on the bus? Abla. You could say it's a polite form of hey you. But then again, it's so much more.

Now things do get a bit confusing at times. I'm to call everyone who is a certain number of years older than me up to a certain age abla. Others I am to call teyze. The general rule of thumb is, if they are old enough to be your mother you call them teyze. Well...who likes to be called old? If you call the wrong woman teyze you are inadvertently saying that they are old. So the other general rule of thumb seems to be to err on the side of youth and call people abla until you are 100% positive you should call they teyze. Ah, but it gets even more confusing. I have a friend who is significantly younger than me, say around 9 years. Her mother is probably only 15 years older than me, and thus could not by any stretch of the imagination be assumed to be my mother (although this is possible, but I will save that for another day). But because I am her daughter's friend, I am to call her teyze.

What I would really like in my life is to have an abla-teyze ruler. If anyone sees one for sale, please let me know.
Those who will always call me Catherine abla mixed in with those who never will (and who, for the record, I only call by name).

A Year of Thankfulness

If I had to pick one theme for the last 2+ years of living in Turkey, I could easily choose the word thankfulness. Through a variety of means, God has been impressing upon my heart the need, the reason, the result of thankfulness.

And so...for the next 12 months I am going to be exploring more and more about thankfulness. Specifically the crazy and unique things I have to be thankful for in this country.

Stay tuned....

Happy New Year!

It's the new year here. I know that isn't an entirely profound statement. It's the first day of the year officially in almost every part of the world. Only in my former state and one friend's former state is the new year still many hours off (hats off to those of you in Alaska and Hawaii). The ball has fallen in New York City, the bells have rung at St. Stephen's in Vienna, the guns have gone off in the streets of Cappadocia.

This morning I woke up twice. Once because, well, I guess sometimes something just wakes you up. A thought? A baby crying? A really weird dream? One never knows. The second and final time to a dog howling out in the distance. It could have been a cry of pain. All I really remember was thinking that it's only 7 am or so and that I should try and get more sleep. And then there was the thought, "doesn't the dog know I'm trying to sleep here?" Clearly street dogs are no more aware of our need for sleep after ringing in the new year than, say, the sun.

The new year always puts me, and several million other individuals, in a philosophical frame of mind. Several years ago while sitting at dinner with my step-mom in Denver, I reneged entirely on the idea of new year's resolutions. My step-mom likes to make new year's goals. (Any change in philosophy or practice calls for conversation over a glass of wine and sushi at the Four Seasons in Doha, where she and my dad recently moved.) New year's resolutions tend to last for a day, a week, a month, but not typically for an entire year. Goals are a bit more...trackable, flexible, renegotiable, measurable, up my alley.

So I'm now sitting in the same spot I sat last Thanksgiving reflecting over sunrises and pecan pie. I wonder what my goals will be for 2012. Yes, January 1 might be a bit late to be deciding these things. I could say that I want to master the entire Turkish language. But that is not possible this side of eternity. I do want to get better at Turkish. Yet how do you measure such a thing? Does that look like being able to discuss everything from the stock market to aliens in outer space while not sounding like a small child? Or I could say that I want to memorize every story in the first four of the NT. Could be realistic. Or could it be that I want to keep my 10k time consistently under an hour? It always helps to run downhill for 10.8k.

The possibilities are truly endless. Everything from learning to make dantel (very detailed crocheting that women do here...I'm basically hopeless) to checking out every bus company in the country of Turkey. In search of the decision I plan to spend this afternoon on my favorite ridge, hopefully not freezing to death, in prayer. Always thankful that I serve One who reveals Himself and His desires to His people.

Thoughts on Working

Last night I had dinner with 10 children and 4 adults. Yes, this is my idea of vacation. You could call me crazy. You could call me slightly unstable. I call me a family...woman? Can I say that? We'll just go with it. So yes, my idea of a relaxing vacation is to go to Kapadokya and stay at a friend's house with her husband and 6 children. This morning I woke up early, had coffee, helped put chocolate spread and jam on at least 10 pieces of toast (but not on the same piece of toast - sugar rush!), and now I'm sitting listening to two boys younger than 5 discuss possible names for their toy cars.
But I digress...
I've been pondering what I'm doing here. If I'm forever a language student, people will forever treat me like a 19 year old. This treatment could also have something to do with the reality that at 31 years old I look at most like I'm 25. (Last night a 5 year old did guess that I was 75. The guess was preceded by 12 and followed by 62.) They will then try to give me all kinds of advice, tell me what I should and should not be doing, and believe that when I say slightly mind-boggling things that I just don't know the language well enough yet.
The question then comes up - do they do this because I look young, because I don't have a job, or because they are of a culture that loves to give advise? Or, as my friend just reminded me, because of pride? Or...the list of questions in my mind goes on and on and on.
I could be an eternal student. Go back to school for the second bachelor's degree, go on to get a master's degree in linguistics, a doctorate in linguistics, and then become a crazy old linguistics professor at a university somewhere. But then, how much of my time would that take? I have a friend who is getting her doctorate here. Unbelievable amounts of work are happening in her life. It's good. But is that what I want?
Last night over Mexican pile-up, one new acquaintance asked me if I like to write. Amazing! I do indeed love writing. The recommendation was for me to write about life here. It's now another idea stewing around in my mind.
If I choose to go this route, I may need to buy a thesaurus....

Running in Ankara

Yesterday I ran my first 10k ever. Actually it was a 10.8k, but whose counting? (We are, of course...) It was also my first race in Turkey and my first race in any foreign country.

It all started a month or so ago when I found out I would have to get a lisans in order to run the Büyük Atatürk Koşusu, aka the Great Ataturk Race. I would translate this word lisans, but I'm not sure if it means a license, a diploma or something else. All you French speakers out there, let me know what it means in French. Then I'll maybe be able to give you a good translation in Turkish. I learned that getting a lisans to be an athlete is not hard, but it does help to know someone. My second time going to the Ministry of Youth and Sports I knew someone! One of the guys I run with just happened to be waiting on paperwork. We chatted. I told him what I needed my lisans for. He gave my paperwork to the guy behind the counter. And ten minutes later I had my lisans and the necessary information for the race. In Turkey it really is all about who you know.I realize I look a bit scary in said lisans. And no, Ferdi is not some weird sort of disease or even a club name. It means I run independently.

Lisans in hand, in word an athlete, in reality just a person who enjoys the fact that she can run again, I was ready to make the call and register for the race.

I made the call and found out I would have to attend a meeting the night before the race. Hmm. This is new. The only race I'd ever run in the States was Only Fools Run at Midnight in Juneau about 10 years ago. No meetings happened before that race. Of course there was also no cumulative prize purse of 2,000+ TL.

Monday night I walked into the meeting. I'd run into (almost literally) one of the guys from the track on my way in. And we walked into a room full of men in black coats. I don't remember actually seeing a woman in the room at that point. Later I looked around and saw a few other women. By the time the called us up to sign up for our numbers I knew there were at least 8 other women in the room. I ended up with number 8 and a woman behind me in line was waiting for number 10. In total 38 women ran the race.


Race day. The race was set to start at 14:20. Buses left the stadium to go to the race start at 12:30. I was there at 12. All told, preparation for the actual event took longer than it took me to run the route. Riding the bus was an experience. I wish I could accurately describe it all - from the bus that was supposed to be for women but was mixed to the guy who apparently runs every year and is convinced that there is some sort of scandal going on in the Turkish Athleticism Federation.

At the race start I wandered around, chewed the fat with people from the track, and received an over sized sweatshirt with Ataturk's face on it that I was informed our group would be wearing during the race. It ended up being a little like running in a dress.



The race started. And for me it ended around 56 minutes later. I had promised a girl friend of mine from the track that I would run with the other guys in our group. And so I did. At least until the last 2 km or so. Another moment of "the group is more important the individual". At the end they released me with much heckling. We'll see if they're mad a me or not when it comes to hit the track Tuesday.

56 minutes of running and my first 10k in Turkey was over. I think I'll do it again. Antalya, March 4th.

a little forgiveness and a little asking for forgiveness goes a long way

I'm in the midst of learning how to be a language coach. This is not the same thing as a language teacher. Heaven forbid I try to be a Turkish language teacher! Not only am I not remotely prepared for such a thing, I live in a city of 4.5 million Turks. May they teach. A language coach is one who helps a learner through the learning process. She can direct and supervise through a specific program, she can give encouragement and/or accountability where needed, she can give advise on language schools, she can explain grammar points that are tricky, or any combination of the above. My role will probably be a combination of the above.

It also includes the ever dreaded job of finding language helpers. Language helpers are those who will actually be doing the teaching/guided practicing of the language with the language learner. In my case I am not finding teachers, I'm finding helpers. The tricky part is in the word helper. The Turkish for this word does not communicate as well, partially because the concept is not here and partially because we live in an expert culture.

Rabbit trail on the expert culture. You need your oil changed? Call the expert. You want to go on a diet? Call the expert. Keep in mind, this is a fairly generalized description. I do have a friend who, with her husband, has taken it upon herself to design their future house. I have a feeling she would appreciate life in the Northwest. She may even have a career in fishing.

Back from the rabbit trail. Finding language helpers. For me this involved both talking to friends to see if they knew of someone who might be able to do the job and putting up signs in my friend's neighborhood. One gal came through the "asking friends" method. Things seemed to be going well. I was set to meet up with her for tea two days before lessons were to begin and then we would start lessons two mornings a week at my friends house. All clear. But when you include the telephone and someone's second language into the equation, suddenly things are not quite so clear. All kinds of misunderstandings transpired. Unfortunately, because of the miscommunication I had already promised the position to another person.

I ended up calling our mutual friend to see if she could play mediator. She said she would pray about it for a couple of hours and get back to me. As soon as we hung up the phone, the would be language helper just "happened" to walk by our mutual friend's house, see her light on, and decide to stop by! They talked for quite a while. Our mutual friend was able to explain the situation without even telling her that I had called. Later that evening, I talked to our mutual friend. She suggested that I stop by sometime to apologize for the miscommunication. It had become clear that no one was at fault and yet, in a culture where apologizing is not the norm and asking for forgiveness is often unheard of, humbling yourself and accepting the blame speaks volumes. Maybe we could say it shouts when words are not clearly heard.