Thankful Things

Last week I was out doing something (yes, this is grand revelation!) and I was struck smack in the face with my recent thought patterns. I start by knowing that God wants me to be obedient to some task. I then realize how much "easier" said task would be if I was living in the States. I proceed to inform God of this fact. This would also be known as complaining. As my final step I either do the task with a complaining heart or I choose to be 100% disobedient and not do the task at all.

Repentant prayer and thoughts later, Tuesday afternoon found me preparing to lead our weekly co-worker gathering/planning/talking session. As those newest to the country and culture, we often take time to share new cultural or language insights. Combined with this, I knew I wanted to spend time in prayer. It's easy for me to spend a lot of time talking about my requests with friends and very little time, if any time at all, praying with these friends for my requests.

Introducing the list of things we are thankful for specifically because they are easier or better than in the States. (I want to preface this by stating that this was NOT an America bashing hour, as can so easily occur when one is surrounded by other ex-pats. We could have made a list of things we will be thankful for on home assignment because they are easier or better than here! We have the privilege of living in two lands, two cultures, two continents and of enjoying the benefits of both countries.)

1. Toilettes. Yes, we are thankful for what is lovingly referred to here as the TT or the Turkish toilette. It is much more refined than what probably comes to mind as a hole in the ground. Enough said.

2. Less processed food. The processed food craze is newly arriving to Turkey. May it be very, very, very short lived!

3. The ability to make friends with shop keepers. While my mom and step-dad were in town they related to me that in the States some companies require that their employees refrain from chit chat with customers and shoppers so as to create a more professional atmosphere. Here it is common to get into conversation with shop keepers of regularly frequented stores. The conversation can be short or long and at times results in tea, a chair, and in my case, requests to give English lessons.

4. Public transportation. Not a single one of us has a car/drives a car in this country at the moment. We can. It is completely legal. It is also slightly frightening (rules?) and very expensive (Turkey has some of the highest gas prices in the world). We can get almost anywhere we want with great ease due to an extensive public transportation system.

5. No shoes in the house. People here remove their shoes as soon as they enter a home, sometimes even before they walk through the door. This practice makes the cleaning of rugs and floors much easier.

6. Flexibility of people's schedule. Plan for the afternoon cancel? Call another friend! It's very possible that they are free. The longer I live here, the more I find planning more than two days in advance slightly stressful and unnecessary.

The list could be longer, but we'll leave it at that.

For those of you who may be wondering, we did spend time in prayer thanking the Lord for each of these things. Yes, it is totally appropriate to thank Him for toilette situations and opportunities. I do believe that He has actually commanded us to do so. Thankful in ALL circumstances.

Streets

Roads here are a curious thing. A while back I learned the hard way that one should never run or walk quickly (or walk at all) without looking down. You never know if you are going to fall into a hole. Equally important, you should look up once in a while. You never know when a car might be driving towards you down the sidewalk. Crossing the road, now there's a chance to potentially take your life into your hands. You've heard of car games - games played while driving across America. Whoever spots licenses plates from the most states wins. Here we play road games. Leap frog anyone? You leap from one lane of traffic to the next. I have on more than one occasion found myself standing in between two lanes of traffic, both traveling at over 50 km/hr, while waiting to finish my crossing attempt. Having my parents come to visit strikes home that these behaviors are now normal for me. One should always be prepared for a car or motorbike driving down the sidewalk. This normally occurs when they want to park on the sidewalk, exit a parking garage, or go the wrong way down a one way street. Double parking is a must (otherwise there's no room to walk on sidewalks!). And waiting for traffic to stop in order to cross the street is a waste of time. Those who come to visit: be warned. Those drivers who I may offend when I arrive back to the States for home assignment in a year and a half: my apologies ahead of time.

Istanbul

Riding through the streets of Istanbul is strikingly different than riding through the streets of Ankara. Old houses and new mixed together. And by old I mean Ottoman Empire old. They're old, wooden and falling down but for one reason or another cannot be torn down. So they sit. There are the fish sellers. They occasionally sell fresh fish and occasionally they sell fried fish sandwiches. There are the fresh stuffed muscles on the dock. Yes, the dock. Three famous bridges, several famous docks, uncountable ferries, tours of the Bosphorus, tankers and freighters, and various fishermen plying the choppy waters in various forms of fishing boats. Ankara is where I live. Istanbul is where I wander.

Are you from the city or an outlying town?

Back in June I went to a wedding with a friend of mine in her village. Or rather, I went on a marathon celebration with my friend, stayed in her village, and did a whole lot of travel on the road. It went something like this...
Go to a different part of town that happens to be more conservative than mine. Wear skirt without nylons. Feel rather uncomfortable. Oooppss.. (Hadn't done that before and won't do it again.) Hang out with friend's mom while friend and friend's sister-in-law get their hair done. Go as a family to a circumcision celebration for friend's 12 year-old cousin. Head to the village. Stop and eat dinner at 12 pm on the way to the village. Arrive at village home at a very late hour. Go to sleep. Wake up, eat breakfast, get ready for wedding. Go as a family to friend's mother's hometown near the village for part one of the wedding. Have fun at wedding, dance, eat food, meet a million relatives. Leave wedding, go to house. Bride and groom have religious ceremony. Leave house, head to Sivas (a town waaaaaay to the east of Ankara). In Sivas find location for part two of the wedding. Have fun at wedding, dance, eat cake. Watch bride and groom's civil ceremony. Dance more. Head out to car and drive back to village, stopping to have soup on the way at 1 am. Sleep in car. Arrive back at village at 3 am. Sleep more.
The next day, celebration marathon officially over, we had a late breakfast and wandered around. At one point we ran into one of my friend's many cousins wives who I had met the previous day at the wedding. She asked me where I was from. My response - America. Her follow-up question - am I from the city or an outlying town? My response after trying not to laugh - I'm from Alaska.
To explain such a quandry, I suppose I have to explain a bit of Turkey's design. We have provinces, each named after the main city in the province. So there's Ankara province and in Ankara province is the main city of Ankara as well as many outlying towns and villages. The common question here when you say where you are from is my friend's cousin's question - from the city or from the village. So in her question she revealed that she thought of America as similar to a Turkish province, having one main city and several smaller towns.
I wondered why she would ask such a question. Asking my friend was out of the question. Their family is full of gossip. The last thing I wanted was for my question to make it back to the cousin.
I learned the answer just last weekend at...another wedding. Talking to the same cousin I found out that she finished school through either fifth grade or eighth grade. She and I are the same age. Apparently when I was enjoying fifth grade and/or eighth grade, in her town there was no high school. She loved school and did well at school, but would have had to leave her small town for a much larger city in order to go to high school. (I have a feeling this might remind my mom of rural Alaska when she was in high school.) Her mom was fearful for her. Girls who stayed in dorms occasionally became pregnant. So significant was it that she stay pure and clean, she was not permitted to attend school in another town.
Today there is a high school in or very near her village. Her daughters will have the opportunity to go to high school.
Before I laugh again at such a question as her's I have to ask myself - this one who is my age, did she have the chance to learn? Whether or not she did, is it that important that she know that America is large, that Alaska is no longer a part of Russia, or that cars made in Europe and cars made in America are driven the same way? In view of eternity these facts seem terribly insignificant.

Rock Climbing in Olympos

Last week while on language break/vacation down by Antalya I discovered again the wonderful world of rock climbing. Olympos is amazing - lots of really, really old rocks left by those who worshiped everything from Zeus to the Real Lord. It's also a place where supposedly a pirate died. And...it's a climbing mecca.

Weddings and a...Circumsision Party

This past weekend I found myself partying halfway across Turkey. Literally. Friday afternoon I went over to a friend's house to, well, wait for my friend to get back from having her hair done. As soon as the girls came back, we were off. First stop...a circumcision party near downtown Ankara. This marks a coming of age in a boy's life and usually takes place between 6 and 12. In this case, the boy was 10 or 12 (I kept getting different answers). He's been battling cancer for a while and had to wait until the upper end of the age range for his party (an presumably circumcision, although I never did have the guts to ask).
Party number one down and it was off to the village, about an two hours east of Ankara. Crashed out for the night at my friend's house in the village. Saturday morning we all crawl out of bed, have breakfast and get ready for a marathon wedding day. First the village wedding party, about a half hour east of my friend's village. We ate (men first then the women), we danced (Turkish folk dances), the women gossiped (so did the men), we danced some more.
Then it was time to leave the village wedding and head east to Sivas for the groom's side to have a wedding party. This is the farthest east in Turkey I had been so far. Five hours farther east is the town of Erzurum and after that comes Armenia. The Sivas party was a little different than the village wedding in that it was inside, there was no meal, and company was mixed. Other than that, it was fairly typical. We danced folk dances, guests (friends and family) pinned gold on the bride and groom and we ate cake.
At about 10:30 or 11 everyone headed for home, we for the village. I was in bed by 3 am and...drum-roll, please...slept in until 8:40. Yes, this is a miracle. Still slightly in shock that I traveled all the way to Sivas to dance folk dances and eat cake.

A Trip to the Center of the...Country

This past weekend I decided to shake things up a bit and...get out of Ankara. Wait. For me, that really isn't shaking things up a whole lot. This I admit. I get out of Ankara on a regular basis. I have to say that this frequent trip out of Ankara business does make you love home when the bus rolls back into town, though. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

I have friends and co-workers in Kayseri who are currently without other co-workers in the city. They also just had a baby in March. Woohoo! I get mixed reactions to traveling outside of Ankara. Some friends do the same and understand. Others are jealous, but at the same time love to brag about how much their foreign friend has seen of the country. Still others worry for me while I'm on the road. Make that all of them. All my friends worry for me when I'm on the road, while I'm living alone in Ankara, when I get home late...basically my friends worry. A baby is a reason to travel that is 100% normal. I've found the way to travel! Now if I can just convince all my friends to continually be having babies.... I think I'll just have to settle with being weird for a while.

Hop on the bus Friday afternoon (bought the bus ticket Thursday - I love the last minute convenience of life in Turkey!) and 5 hours later was in Kayseri. Met my friends at the bus station, went out for birthday dinner and then proceeded to have one of the most relaxing weekends I've had in a long time. I would love to give you all my impressions of Kayseri culture, but alas, I spent Saturday chatting it up and flipping through American magazines. And Sunday? Two friends from America showed up right around breakfast (this is not exactly normal - a great surprise!). Sat around talking to them until it was time to go to fellowship in the afternoon. Great teaching from Heb. 11 from a nat'l brother. Back home. Pizza and a few rounds of Master Chef Australia. So as far as special Kayseri "events", I didn't do a whole lot. Wait - I did eat pastırma Friday night. My dictionary says it's "preserve of dried meat", "cured spiced beef" or "pastrami". My friend says "dried garlic meat." None of these are quite as appetizing as the real thing, I assure you. Kayseri folk are quite proud of their "dried garlic meat", so she says.

Yesterday, off to Kapadokya to meet up with a group of students here from Liberty. Again, no camera because I was feeling lazy. Yes, I went to thousand or so year old historical sites and did not take pictures because I was feeling lazy. You know you live in Turkey when...

Caught a bus last night at 6:30 out of Nevşehir and was in my house by 11 pm or so. And I did buy the bus ticket at the counter that afternoon. As I rolled into Ankara, in between waking and sleeping, I thought, I love my city with all of its ministry buildings and government offices. Yes, sadly, this did come to mind. But it is home. And I do love it.