Wednesday, September 29th, 2004

Day three of school. I’m getting used to the randomness of these days and am enjoying being the pseudo-celebrity that I am. Today a girl came up to me while I was with Bekir Gülbidi, the head of the Computer Information Department, and had him ask if I enjoyed archery. I replied that I had done a bit in high school gym class. She replied that she ranked second in some Europe-wide archery contest. What do you say to something like that?!?!? I guess I’ll have to be careful around that one, even at a distance!

Selo was out for the morning, so I goofed around the office and finally got the blog to work. I ended up switching Ethernet cables with Selo’s computer… it seems that mine just sucks. He can hardly check his email on his own anyway so it shouldn’t have any great negative effect on him. So all is posted, all is well… at least on that front.

I had just made that work when I received a call from Hakan, “How would you like to visit the Çankiri Forestry University?” Sure, why not. So I ran outside, hopped in his car and headed to yet another school in town. This one is also run by Ankara University, but is a four-year institution. We met with the dean (called this, but functions as president), drank çay and small-talked. I found out that he is a German Turk. I had read about this but forgot about it. I think in 1961 a large population of impoverished Turks, maybe 2 mil, immigrated to Germany to find work and send remittance money home to help their families. The Turkish government encouraged this as it gave a much needed boost to the Turkish economy. This created a strange group of people that were somewhat out of place in both cultures, German and Turkish. I don’t know too much about it, except that some have come back to Turkey and found it very hard to assimilate into the way of life. Well, it seems that the dean has managed to do so.

The forestry school produces students that primarily work in the public sector, as there is only marginal demand for such skills in private industries. Most are involved in conservation efforts. Around 20% of Turkey is covered with forests, and with a busy paper industry that produces all the paper the country needs, it is crucial for them to maintain their already dwindling levels. According to the dean, the Turkish government is very concerned about sustainability issues and does a good job of maintaining their natural resources. Other students may work at combating invasive species of plants and animals, and apparently always with environmentally friendly methods. I was surprised to hear this, and think it is a commendable effort given the others things the gov. could be spending their money on.

I also made a new friend, Sezgin Ôzden. He is a research assistant for the school who is working on his doctorate. We had a good conversation in English. He explained his research on migratory forest-dwelling people in Turkey who are primarily herders. He has been chronicling their increasing income troubles as Turkey has become more modern, and is working on developing ways for them to find more prosperity without sacrificing their traditional way of life. Interesting stuff. Asked if I would review his papers in English and make grammatical corrections. I agreed and was taken out for a wonderful lunch to show his gratitude. Not bad; tasty payment for minimal work. And a nice new friend too! We did some decent Bush-bashing and Michael Moore discussing with Hakan over the meal too.

Backing up before the lunch, I spent a few hours in Hakan’s English class at the forestry school. A ripping good time for sure. The class was very advanced; most could carry conversations with me. They asked good questions, I did my lines about myself, political views, etc. I was hit with some good questions, both serious and funny. I also received quite a few smiles from an absolutely gorgeous girl across the aisle. Talk about distracting… Hakan told me later that she kept asking him questions about me during break… oh, these temptations are ones I do not need here! I guess we are arranging a lunch for next Wednesday… the class, not just the girl! It should be a good time; they were by far the most excited and enjoyable class I have participated in… probably because we could actually communicate.

In the evening I visited Bakir’s database management class and got to see what they get up to. It was very similar to what I experienced at Goshen, except earlier versions of Oracle and NT instead of Windows 2000. But very in depth and good. I was surprised at the quality of the teaching… not sure why really. It was entertaining to listen to the lecture, which went something like “blah blah blah blah blah SELECT blah blah blah INSERT blah blah blah blah client-server blah blah.” This is probably funny to approx. three of you, but I thought it was noteworthy.

Today is Berat (sp?), the Muslim day of forgiveness. Everyone goes to the mosque and prays to Allah in order to be spiritually cleansed. Oh, some just watch it on tv instead of mosqueing it up. I found that to be very entertaining. I also found out that Ramadan will be happening in October, so I’ll get to take part in it. It will I guess consist of no eating, drinking or fornicating during daylight hours, followed by lots of eating, drinking and fornicating during the night. Sounds like my kind of religious experience! Perhaps I’ll have to get to know that girl after all!!!! Yar har, kidding of course mom and dad! I actually don’t mean to be disrespectful to Islam here, so please don’t take it as such.

Ah, the last thing. I’m now in a new apartment. Which is just a bedroom and bathroom but is infinitely better than what I had before. I’ve got clean carpet, a balcony, and a very nice bathroom WITH A TOILET THAT MAKES SENSE TO ME! Actually, it freaked me out a bit the first time I used it. There’s a lever on the top of the tank that you use to flush. Right side down for the flushing; left side down for an end to the flushing. After my first flush I got nervous when it continued to make odd noises after the water had stopped flowing. After a nail-biting minute (post-hand washing of course) it dawned on me that the bowl was filling. So crisis averted.

And on to my next problem: I did a hasty packing job this morning, so I opened my suitcase tonight and found a pile of very wrinkly shirts and pants. Basically everything. I managed to smooth some of them out but ended up putting the worst ones on, shutting myself in the bathroom, and creating a steam room by leaving the shower running on hot until it ran out. After prancing around trying to shake and smooth the #@*$#@# shirts out, I managed to achieve a partial success. They have now backed off from the “incredibly wrinkled” state and moved to the “somewhat wrinkled” state. Perhaps a purchase of an iron and some hangers is in order.

Other than that, the new digs are swell. I now hear the call to prayer from about six different mosques, which creates a glorious stuttered phasing effect that I’d record if it would do any justice. Have to live on in my mind after I leave I guess.

Tuesday, September 28th, 2004

8:00 am found me up and waiting to be picked up by Hakan. We drove to the second campus located on the outskirts of town, where the business, accounting, automotive, hotel and tourism management, furniture design (???) and other departments hold their classes. I think I preferred this campus slightly, as there is a more equal ratio of male to female students, perhaps close to 50/50. The first campus is where the more technical classes such as electrical engineering and whatnot are held, and almost all the students are male.

I had the pleasure of sitting in with Hakan’s first level English course. It was pretty good stuff; I was able to interact with the students in a non distracting way that seemed to compliment the class very well. The previous day they had learned to introduce themselves, to say their age, their likes and dislikes, where they live, and whatever else they could muster. They introduced themselves to me, and then I responded in turn and told them a bit about myself. I believe I said I was Simon, age 23, like reading and techno (ha) music and dislike getting up in the morning, have a family and whatnot, and so on. They asked me some questions (all in English, the class was 90% in English) about my life and opinions. After Hakan told them about my economics interests the discussion quickly shifted towards Iraq and the Bush administration. It was a very good talk; I managed to cover Bush, Fox News, World Bank/IMF, the UN and NATO, and a few other things. Hakan translated a bit, but I was surprised at how much the majority of students could understand. I think the students enjoyed it as much as I did.

After this I returned to the first campus to meet the “principal” or main guy in charge, Prof. Dr. Sabahattin Balci. He had been out of town until today… what a bear of a man! He was huge, and would be scary if not for the fact that he is incredibly nice. We had a good chat and sorted a lot of details out about my time here. I now know that their program for me includes spending approximately three weeks in Çankiri, then six more in Ankara, then perhaps to Istanbul and some other cities in that region, and then who knows? In Çankiri I will be mostly observing classrooms, visiting professors, and presenting a report on my education experience at Goshen College! In Ankara I will attend a language institute to learn some basics in Turkish, visit many government agencies in order to gather data on the Turkish economy, and see various development efforts and public works that are being undertaken at the moment. Balci has many connections to people in high places and seems to be using them! As far as Istanbul and the surrounding areas, I think the goal is for me to see historical sights and learn about the scope of the Ottoman Empire. All in all, it sounds amazing!

The Turks seem to be taking my time here very seriously. I think they see it as a great opportunity to strengthen ties between the US and Turkey. Although I really don’t see myself having any sort of affect on these things, symbolically it is quite nice. They have even given me the title of “Guest Intern Professor” and an ID card for my time here. It’s almost ridiculous… wait… yup, it is.

I also had tea with the Student Affairs people again, and ended up staying for an hour and a half. It was a blast, and I learned some more basic Turkish with Fatma. I think the others tease her about getting along so well with me. I pretend to be oblivious; romance is not in the picture for me. Things are challenging enough as it is… adding that on top of it would be disastrous.

Selo took me out for dinner tonight, which was tasty as always. I am living it up here… he says we will try every 5 star restaurant in Çankiri before I leave! The funny thing is I haven’t spent a single lira since I’ve been here. No one will let me pay for anything! I may very well come home with a whole $5 of interest built up in my crappy junior high savings account that I keep my money in. Woo hoo!

Ah, one other thing… I’m moving! No more odd, gigantic gun factory home for me… tomorrow I’m moving to a government subsidized housing facility close to downtown Çankiri that Balci set up for me. It should be a nice improvement. We visited today and it’s actually fairly nice. The room is better; I have a small balcony, a nice enclosed green backyard, and a bunch of hairy Turkish old men to play cards with. Awesome… I love hair. This will mean that I can walk downtown whenever I want to, and will be very close for people when they pick me up. Things are looking up and up it seems… I wonder how long before something horrible happens here to ruin it?!?!?! ;-)

Better not end on a bad note, so… yay Turkey!

Monday, September 27th, 2004

Today was my first day at school… although I did not really do much at all. I was told to be ready at 10 am, and at 9:30 I received a knock on the door while standing around in my undies! I quickly dressed, managed to tie my tie, and headed out the door to Çankiri Technical Institute (or something like that, I can never remember). We arrived and met with the vice principal, who was very friendly and decided that I should go with him to visit the minister of recreation in downtown Çankiri. This visit consisted of me sitting there drinking tons of çay while the minister, the v.p., and a few others guffawed loudly about various things unknown to me. Then they gave me a tour of the place. We saw an indoor swimming pool (empty of water), the outdoor track, soccer field and gymnasium.

By the time we returned to campus it was lunch time, so I ate in the cafeteria with some professors. It reminded me of the stereotypical cafeteria from grade school, except with some arches there and there and random meat pastries and baklava on the menu. In the afternoon I was shown to my office (I share with Selo) and made myself comfortable. We worked getting an internet connection for my laptop, which took a bit of time but eventually was successful. Halfway through the afternoon I noticed that Selo was just kind of sitting around. “Don’t you have classes to teach?” I asked him. He replied, “Yes, but I’m not going!” How extraordinary. He is a strange man at times, but a good friend. I can’t figure out if this is just the way things work, or if he is somewhat of a loose cannon. Other professors I have met seem to take their classes very seriously. I guess time will tell.

The school itself is rather plain, but the equipment they have is surprisingly modern. I have seen Pentium 4 computers with Windows XP, there are Ethernet internet connections in most rooms, and other stuff I can’t remember. Goshen was much more flashy and modern looking, but really, teaching functions are performed in roughly the same way.

I met some people my age today. Most of them were students who now work in the Student Affairs department, which is basically like Student Life at Goshen. One person in particular, a girl named Fatma, seems to be a good friend candidate. She has a fairly good grasp of conversational English (which is rare here for people my age, at least the ones I have met) and seems to enjoy teaching Turkish to me. She invited me for çay at the office, and everyone stopped what they were doing and just hung out. It was very fun… and of course a refreshing change from American busyness.

One of the English professors I met today was Hakan Baykal. He is a great guy and very easy to talk to. He invited to dinner at his apartment, so after the day ended at around 7 pm I went with him. Hakan has a wonderful family of four: himself, Hatîce (his wife), Nílŭfer (a daughter of about 8 or 9) and Zeyrep (another very cute daughter of perhaps 6 years). We had a marvelous dinner of some sort of yogurty garlic soup, dolmas made from both grape leaves and green peppers, and a dish made of beef, potato and various spices that a neighbor (also named Zeyrep!) brought over for us! I felt very appreciated; so many neighbors came over to say hello and to tell me how happy they are that I am here. I feel almost bad, because I’m not even doing anything here other than sitting around and smiling.

Zynep (the little one) was very hilarious. She was quite fascinated with me, so I was able to goof around with her and make her laugh, using such universal games as “chase the fingers across the table” and “make a stupid face”. Who needs language anyway?

After dinner we sat around drinking çay for many hours. The nice thing about Hakan is that he translates back and forth between his family and our conversation. Selo does not seem to enjoy doing this, as I find it hard to get him to explain what is happening for me. We ended up talking quite a bit about global economics and terrorism, the US in Iraq and other meaty topics. While I was ranting about some of my thoughts, Hakan said, “Do you know of Noam Chomsky?” I couldn’t believe it! Hakan has studied Noam’s linguistic work quite a bit, and has encountered his political writings as well. We both agreed that Noam is a genius and talked more about rather lefty political views. It was a very refreshing conversation and quite interesting to find a Turk who feels this way. Most seem to be quite right of center, and extol such organizations as the IMF (in part b/c the IMF money has helped Turkey combat inflation… a short-term positive) due to their desires to be western. I have been afraid to have these conversations with Selo because I don’t think he would be too interested in hearing about my ideas. Maybe I am wrong… I have only known him a few days. It is so hard to judge political views and I am very leery of sticking my foot in my mouth.

At the end of the evening Zeyrep the neighbor gave me a gift: a cassette tape of Turkish folk music from her area, which apparently is very unique as far as the folk music here is concerned. I decided not to tell her that I don’t have a tape player. It was a very thoughtful thing to do, and a good example of the hospitality here.

It was a wonderful evening and a good, more relaxed change from Selo’s house. I appreciate everything the people here do for me here; they really make me feel at home.

Sunday, September 26, 2004

Today I slept in until 9:30 and then straightened my room up a bit. I knew that Selahattin would come for me at some point in the morning, but I did not know when. One of the strange things about a lack of common language is that I am at the mercy of whoever is picking me up. So I was ready by 10:30 but didn’t leave until 1:00. Which is ok with me actually; I feel the need for some privacy. Turkish culture, like Latin American, and probably every other one for all I know, is so much more communal and shared than I am used to. A few hours of privacy might be seen as a somewhat strange thing. Of course, I hardly know anything about this place, so I might be jumping the gun a bit.

Anyway, the place I am staying is weird. But anyway, most everything about this place is weird so it doesn’t really matter. The guest apartment is actually not owned by the college, and not on campus. It is in fact owned by a guy who runs a factory which specializes in producing massive anti-aircraft weaponry to be used by god-knows-who in various noisemaking activities. It’s a funny place. I think I’m the only one here who speaks English, so phrases like “merhaba (hello)”, “kahvalti alabirlirmiyim? (can I have breakfast)” and “teşekkür ederim (thank you)” have become vital. I manage to mangle them thoroughly each day, which will not surprise anyone who was with me on Cuba SST. Actually, the difficulty of Turkish pronunciation is like Spanish to the 80^th power… or really hard. Whatever.

Ummm… what else? Oh, the toilet. I have now decided that the powers of the tube thing and the wall handle must be combined in order to submerge my poo and keep it from returning. This is great material for the book I am planning on writing entitled How to Poop in Foreign Lands. This book will include dumping horror stories from every continent, handy instructions on how to use the various toilets one may encounter, and color pictures to bring everything to life. This will be my new claim to fame and sure shot to riches. If any of you bandits steal this idea I will end you. However, submissions will be considered.

Oh, the location is a bit of a bummer. It’s just far enough away from the center of town that walking would be a seriously laborious affair, so I must rely on people with cars to get me to and from my home. It’s ok though; there was talk of moving me, and also the Turks keep me so busy that I don’t have time to do much other than sleep in the place anyway. There are also some great hills out back, so hopefully I can hike around on them if I ever have time to myself during the day.

Anyway, a short summary of the day is in order. I was picked up by Selahattin, who I will know call Selo because it’s his nickname and I’m tired of typing it out completely. We drove around the town a bit then went to his flat. The family was there and was in fine form as usual. We ate a late lunch and then took naps. I actually can’t remember much of this afternoon; jet lag is still ravaging me fairly well. However the evening is very clear. Selo and I went out and bummed around the town. More shops were closed so we talked to less people, but did get into very interesting conversations about the Turkish government and education system. Selo mostly focused on corruption. Apparently the previous administration to the current Erdogan one was unfortunately ill-willed, and he put a lot of blame on the Turkish market crash of a few years ago on this fact. He cited some Russian pipeline deal he called “Blue Current” as a main example of officials profiting at the expense of the entire population. He feels that the current government has the interests of the people much more in mind. I really don’t know enough to comment either way, but it was good to hear a point of view.

He also spoke of the Turkish higher education system and how crappy it is. Apparently there are about 2 million students who will take exams to attend university this year, and only 300,000 will make it. This is amazing considering we could host that many students at a few of our state schools. I have never felt luckier to attend college with the ease that I did. I tried to find out what he would recommend to fix this problem but we got sidetracked somehow. I think lack of funding is by far the barrier for growth in the education system… hopefully I’ll find some more answers somehow.

We returned home for dinner, which was marvelous as usual. The main highlight of the meal was the baklava… if you have never had this stuff you are missing out. Baklava is a sticky dessert made from pastry coated with syrup and filled with varieties of ground up nutty gunk. I tried the pistachio and hazelnut varieties; pistachio was a clear winner but both were fantastic.

After dinner Alparslan (the 10 year old) was blasting “In da Club” or whatever by 50 Cent (shitty rap music for those that don’t know) and dancing like a madman. The grandma Hatice and I were laughing like crazy, and then she began to dance. So I grabbed her hand and we shuffled around to this stuff while the whole family exploded with laughter. Imagine a practically 200 year old, headscarfed Muslim woman dancing with me to the lyrics “I’m into having sex, not into making love” along with boom-bapping bass beats and you might understand a bit of the humor I found in the situation.

The evening ended with me talking my way out of staying the night again (what is with this?) and getting home at around 11:30. Not a bad weekend, all in all.

Saturday, September 25th, 2004

It was quite a day today; my first real glimpse at Turkish life. I awoke at 5:00 am to the first call to prayer of the day. I’m living in a guest house directly across from a mosque, so the call was quite clear. The prayer is beautiful, albeit a strange thing to wake up to so early in the morning. I listened until it was done, then drifted back asleep rather quickly.

Waking again at 9:00, I decided to drag myself out of bed. I slept for over 13 hours… not a bad night’s rest! I began the day by trying to figure out how to flush my toilet. This is a task easier said than done! Traditional Turkish toilets are holes in the floor with downward sloping edges that one squats over and attempts to aim into. In my room, I have what Prof. Evren referred to as an “American-style toilet”. I wish I could take a picture of this thing!* There is a bowl, with a tube sticking downwards from the back. The tube connects to a thin pipe which leads to a tap on the wall. If you open the tab, water blasts out of the tube at somewhat high pressure. I assumed that this was how you flushed the thing, so after my first dump in Turkey I sprayed away. This resulted in my one turd turning into five or six smaller turds. Great. They began to sink away, so I figured that perhaps this was as good as it got. Later on this evening, I tried again (peed, that is), and decided to turn a different valve on the wall that I had been afraid of earlier. This resulted in something a bit more similar to what we would call “flushing”. Aha! I will have to try this again.

* My digital camera broke before I left, so I am without any way of taking pictures. Hopefully it will be repaired and sent to me here, so I can update this with photos the best that I can.

I went down for breakfast, and after feeling quite stupid with the guy at the front desk, managed to mime an eating action and got myself a breakfast. This consisted of bread with various spreads and lots of çay tea. Selahattin and his younger son Alparslan picked me up at about 10, and we ventured into the city. I met the rest of his family at their flat. The Selo family consists of Selahattin (the dad), Nermin (the mom), Alperen (the older son), Alparslan (the younger son), and Hatice (Selahattin’s mother). All of those names are pronounced basically the way the are spelled, except for Hatice (Ha tee je). In Turkish, the “c” is pronounced like our “j”. Their version of our “c” is “ç” (note the squiggly thing on the bottom of it). Except you pronounce it as “ch”. I don’t know if there is a straight “c” sound or not. I’ll have to ask.

The family is great. They are loud, very touchy, laugh a lot and are incredibly generous. It seems like they embody the Turkish way of life quite well in these ways. They appear to be quite well off too. Selahattin refuses to let me pay for anything, even things like shampoo. Their apartment is very beautiful, and has recently been redecorated. They are very proud of this; Selathattin has explained the next step of getting a larger tv and a digital satellite feed. My family back home doesn’t even have cable! The main activity of the day was taking me around town and introducing me to everyone. Selahattin’s friends seem all seem to be businessmen, and most seem to be quite well off. We stopped by a used car dealership, an ice cream shop, a clothing store, a pharmacy, and a household items shop with things like televisions (we compared models for the next family purchase), appliances and furniture. At each stop we were all given scented oil for our hands and served çay tea. I don’t even know where this tea comes from. I assume a shop around the corner, or maybe some places serve their own. I never notice where it comes from though; suddenly someone will just appear with a platter full of tea, one for each person sitting around the table. Hehe, another thing… there is always a table, and we always sit around it. Allowing a guest to stand is very bad form.

We also visited a hospital, where a family friend was staying after falling off a roof and breaking his leg. We then went out for lunch. By we I mean myself, Selathattin and another family friend Mehmet (or Memo for short). Memo is a year older than I am, is a large guy and very jolly. I wish I could communicate with him; I think we would get along quite well. The kids stayed home, and Nermin and Hatice were off doing other things. We ate a tasty meal at a restaurant… I wish I remembered the name of my dish. It was thinly sliced beef layered over some sort of spongy bread, served with salad and yogurt, and of course çay afterwards.

After arriving back home, Sebahattin demanded that I take a nap. Although I didn’t feel tired I slept for two hours! This jet lag thing is crazy. Following the nap, Selahattin and I went back out on the town. The streets are so busy all of the time. Each block consists of apartment buildings maybe 10 stories tall. Almost every ground floor consists of shops, ranging from convenience stores to butchers to spice shops to clothing stores, and everything else in between. We headed to the market area, located very close to the Selo residence. There are two markets in town: the Selo market is open on Wednesday I think, and the other is open on Sunday. It was evening, and people there were preparing for parties. One was a wedding party for a bridegroom, the other a circumcision party. I’ll explain each.

Before a Muslim wedding, the bridge and groom each hold a separate party. These consist of live music, dancing, eating and general merriment (but no alcohol). At the one I watched for a bit, the groom sat at a head table with his friends, while many older men and one young boy danced in a circle, shuffling from side to side with their arms out and snapping to the beat. Selahattin told me that they were performing the traditional folk dance of Çankiri. The guests were served çay and some sort of pastry-like snack. It seemed fun, and Selahattin promised that we would attend a friend’s wedding party in a few weeks so I could participate!

The circumcision party looked similar, but was being held for a different reason. At the age of five a Muslim boy is circumcised. If he is not, he will never be allowed to marry as no woman will have him (Selahattin was very relieved to find out that I have been circumcised!!! I hope he’s not planning on marrying me off!!!). Friends of the family come to the party and bring gifts of money or gold coins (not sure what these are exactly) and wish the boy well. Then he gets doctored up and everyone rejoices. I hope they give him some meds… otherwise I’m sure the kid remembers it!

We returned home in time for dinner, which Nermin had prepared. It was fantastic. We started off with a soup called Tarhana, made with tomato, flour, yogurt, mint, and some random hot spices we could add as we liked. We ate it with bread (a staple with every meal). This was followed by an unnamed dish of chicken, potatoes, and a few other things that I cannot recall. And finally, we had dolma, which you may have eaten. This dish is grape leaves stuffed with rice and various spices and stewed in tasty broth. I have seriously not had a bad bite to eat since I have arrived here!

After dinner, we goofed around and ended up playing an ok game called… OK! It really was just ok, but I enjoyed playing with the family. It basically consisted of drawing these tiles of four colors ranging from 1-13 and trying to make sets. I was very bad at it, mostly because the rules were hard for them to describe. But we did enjoy ourselves anyway.

The weird moment of the evening came when I had to convince them to take me home. They wanted me to spend the night, but I did not have any of my things! I also really wanted the privacy for a while, which is something that they did not really understand. Sebhattan did not get it at all… I think it was a combination of cultural differences and him being used to getting his way. But in the end, he brought me home. I have no hard feelings… I’m worried that perhaps it is an honor to be asked to spend the night, and that I have slighted them by refusing. Culture clash is a weird thing… normally I would be so much more assertive, but I feel like I should tread lightly, especially since they are so generous with me. Ah well… what fun would it be if there weren’t any challenges?

Friday, September 24th, 2004

Well, I have arrived in Turkey. The flight was ok, but incredibly long. Cedar Rapids to Denver, to D.C., to Munich, to Ankara. Ugh! Highlights included accidentally eating someone else’s breakfast at McDonald’s in Denver (they gave me the wrong one!) and getting hit on by a German lady all the way to Munich. Could have been worse, I guess!

After arriving in Ankara I was met by Prof. Selahattin Evren from the university. He is an English teacher in their Foreign Relations Dept. (I haven’t figured out quite what that is yet) and is a very open and generous man. We drove straight from the airport to a shop where he purchased me six different chocolate bars, a can of Turka Cola, and three boxes of milk-like liquid with honey, banana, and some other flavor that has escaped me. After heading back on the road, not half an hour later we stopped again! This time is was a restaurant with an outdoor barbeque. We had kebabs of beef and hot peppers, which you eat by filling a chunk of thick, pita-like bread with the beef and pepper, as well as cold tomatoes and onion chunks. Amazingly good. We also had salad of tomato, onion, cucumber, and some sort of spiced oil, and drank copious amounts of Turkish tea called cay (except the bottom of the c is a lot more squiggly, but I can’t reproduce it with my keyboard). For dessert I had a chunk of fresh honeycomb that they had removed from the hives behind the restaurant. Talk about removing supply-chains! Everything was incredibly tasty.

Back on the road, we mostly made small talk on our way to Cankiri. I honestly cannot remember a lot of it. I asked a lot about the school, various facts about Turkey, and whatever else came to mind. Mostly it was just getting to know each other.

The land here is dry and very hilly. Most roads are paved, but some are just the hard earth with a multitude of small rocks strewn about. There is dust everywhere… I’m getting more boogers here than ever as a result!!! Yum. There are a few trees here and there, but the only ones that flourish are the ones that people take care of. Otherwise they end up being little shrubby things. I’m interested in hiking one of the hills, but right now lack of energy is a serious hindrance.

As far as work is concerned, it seems that I will be assisting at a technical branch of Ankara University in Çankiri. This town is an hour or so north of Ankara, with a population of about 70,000. I will be assisting Prof. Evren in his Foreign Relations classes. It seems that I will have plenty of opportunities to explore the university and engage with English students, which is a definite plus. I had forgotten so quickly about what it feels like to have no language skills. It’s so weird to have Selahattin introduce me to people and go on about my intelligence and studies and whatnot, and then not be able to even answer the question how are you. I know it gets better, but it’s hard to convince yourself of that.

It is bed time now… 7:30 p.m. and I’m completely knackered!