Thankful Things - February

Illness? Since when are we thankful for illness? Well...when you're ill in Turkey there are many things to be thankful for. And really, should we not be thankful in all circumstances?

First, I grew up in Alaska. The independent state. The "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" state. The "girls can fix their own cars" state. (As a side note, I once replaced the exhaust system on my old Subaru wagon with my step-dad. He claims I did most of the work. All I remember is him wrestling with a rusted on bolt.) Yes, we are a proud people. We get sick and still go out to haul firewood.

In Turkey you get sick and immediately receive the sympathy of everyone in your circle of friends. Every circle of friends. Tuesday morning I call a friend to cancel an English lesson and receive the offer of staying at her house for two days so she can take care of me. The past three days two of my friends from my running group have kept tabs on me. Friends may get upset if you cancel a date for other reasons, but if your sick you'd better stay home - there's no anger to be found.

I admit, all of this is a tad on the annoying side when you only have the sniffles, but when you're nursing a wicked sinus infection and don't want to leave your house, it's super!

Second, I normally have a huge dislike for anything found in the drug family. "Run far, far, far away" is my motto. This time I attempted to run far, far away. When after a week I actually found myself with a fever instead of improved health I decided that it was time to take myself to the doctor. So I did. I left my house, hoped in a cab, and headed to the health clinic. No appointment. No waiting (that part was only because it was seriously cold outside and 10 am on a Wednesday morning). Good questions. No payment. Just a list of drugs on a prescription sheet and I'm out the door again to the pharmacy. Meds included, this infection has cost me under 50 TL. And that is without insurance paying a portion. Turks love their medications and they are cheap!















The pile is large, but helpful. I am especially loving my netty pot - not on the list from the doctor, but something my wonderful step-mom brought over from the States a few years back.















Oh, and notice the scribbled words on the Zinnat box? Yup, dosage instructions from the pharmacist. It's a different world here.

Third, I'm reminded again and again that I am not the key figure in my life. Not in my work, not in my play, not in my friendships. It is His work, His play, and these are His friendships. I am the steward. Apparently this steward needs to rest. And so she shall.

Another Sunrise

I'm sitting in the same spot...watching the same sunrise....in the same home....in the same region of the country. So what if I just stayed here? No, not in this spot, not in this house, but in this region. These are the questions one ponders at 6:22 am when all 6 children are still sound asleep, the coffee brewer of the house has not yet awoken, and one does not want to get on a 5 hour bus at 2 pm.

Back to home I will go, but with thoughts brewing.

Different Friends

I have this friend. She would be my social director if I let her. We run together, play together, laugh together. In March we're going to Antalya to run a race together (she the half-marathon, me the 10k). Yesterday we spent all day together. It went something like this...
Woke up at friend A's house around 6:30, had nescafe and a nice quiet time (said friend does not wake up until the last minute). Battled snow home, called friend B. Yes, plans are still on. Drank more nescafe - the sign of real laziness - jumped in the shower and headed off to friend B's house. Watched her dig out her car, received a gift, drank espresso, left for lunch with other running friends. After lunch hung out with friends B and C around the Ankara castle area. Bought items for my table in Bozeman (come on, come all!). Separated off from friend C, went to sit a bit more with friend B. While sitting and talking, met up with more of friend B's friends. Said my good-byes (at this point it's 7 pm), went home. Home for 10 minutes when the phone rings. It's friend B. They're at a restaurant near my house. Come, come, come!!! I come. 8:30 pm and a free meal later I'm home and tired.
Said friend B is lovely. She has all kinds of issues, but laughs a lot, loves to talk, and loves to be with friends. And she could easily be my social director if I let her. This is fairly par for the course in a culture where friend groups may be large, but there are not very many of them. Mine are large AND many.
So this morning I shall be alone. I shall not run at the track with friend B - Z from group A. I shall go to the gym. Later today I will hang out with friend A from group B and friend A from group Q. But this morning, I think it's time for this introvert to hang out with...friend Silence.

The Daily Trash Removal

My original plan was to find something to be thankful for each month, something specific to life here. These are interesting words that just came from my head through my fingers to you - find something to be thankful for. I need to chew on that for a while.

Now that I'm done with my sage moment, I have decided that I cannot wait until February to share this thankful thing. Trash pickup. Yes, daily trash pickup from my front door.

As a child I lived in a city that had the potential of being overrun by garbage bears.

In order to protect our town from just such an epidemic, we could not put our garbage out on the street until around 3 am (4am?) the day of garbage pick up. Said pickup happened once a week. So the garbage collected every week either in the garage or outside in a secure area. In my family's case, the garbage collected in the garage. Imagine with me, if you will, fridge clean out day. You open the fridge and realize there is something dwelling in it that could very soon grow legs and walk out on its own. You remove all old items in order to remove the offender. And you realize that the trash was picked up yesterday. So now all that smelliness must sit in your garage for the next 6 days. And it's not winter...it's summer. The hottest week on record.

Now put yourself in my current place. I realize there is an offender in my fridge (today - the special cheese I forgot to eat). I remove the offender to the garbage, tie up the bag, and put the bag out front of my apartment door in the hallway. In a few short hours the building janitor will come around to collect the trash, like he does everyday. He will put the trash outside on the street. Tonight at 9 the trash guys will come and remove the trash from the street. No collected smells, no dreaded trips to the garage (which, of course, I do not have).

Yes, I am thankful for daily trash pickup.

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....