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.