Leave the Path

We are back in North Carolina and the vacation is sadly over. I wanted to write a little about our last day, though, so here’s a final post:

On Friday we made some last minute shopping trips to Tuneli and the mall Cepa. We finally purchased a Turkish tea pot for ourselves. It’s kind of like a double-broiler tea pot, with water in the bottom and very concentrated tea in the top. Every family in Turkey has one of these.  There’s also an electric version but we couldn’t find one that would work on the US voltages (why do we have different electric systems, anyway?).  The advantage of the double tea pot is that you can make lots of tea at one time and then adjust the strength for each person. (The picture below was taken today in Chapel Hill. The sweater was made by Nurten. She finished it at the last minute and I didn’t try it on. It’s unusual but I like it.)

On Friday we additionally bought lots of “lokum” (Turkish delight) for our friends at home. The lokumcu (the suffix -cu or -ci to any word makes it “-seller”) gave me a sample of something which turned out to be almond paste. I don’t like the taste of almonds so I made it into a duck instead. (On a vaguely relevant side note, almonds here are almost three times as expensive as pistachios, hazelnuts, or cashews. I don’t know why that is since I’d think almond trees would grow in Turkey. It worked out well for me, though, since it meant there weren’t many almonds in the mixed nuts.)

We did some packing before dinner and miraculously everything seemed to fit into the same three bags we’d brought from the states.  We didn’t quite get to finish, though, because we left for Volkan’s.

Zeynep’s birthday is next week and Volkan and Hanzade chose to celebrate it early so that we could be there. I thought it was going to be a little family get-together with dinner and a cake with a candle. I was wrong. Literally dozens of people came, many of them were dressed up, and yet another scrumptious feast was laid out on the table. Unbeknown to me, the ladies of the family had been working all day to make a cornucopia of delicious treats. They also had several special things catered by a local kebab place. Along with the meat balls they threw in a huge piece of flat bread with the words “Iyiki Doydun Zeynep” spelled out in those delicious little black seeds. That literally translates to “It’s good that you were born, Zeynep” but more closely means “Happy Birthday.” Apparently these bread-and-seed things used to be very common but now more people are opting for the frosting-covered birthday cake instead.

Our only part in the preparations was filling up the balloons. In addition to round balloons, Volkan had a bunch of the long balloons that you can make animals out of. We had a really good time making dogs and hats and squirrels and swords. (I had forgotten about it, but when I saw them I recalled a time as a child when I got really into making balloon animals — I still remembered how and I didn’t pop even one.)

Then people started arriving and more kept coming for hours. Considering that no one other than Zeynep was actually born in Ankara, it is incredible how many of her relatives live in proximity to one-another now. Emre’s mother and father are from two different cities in the east of Turkey, and Hanzade’s family is from Bursa, a big city in the western part of the country. At this party there were not only Zeynep’s parents, grandparents from both sides, and all of her aunts and uncles, but also a half dozen great aunts and uncles, several second cousins, and a couple of great, great aunts. I don’t think I know anyone in America who has that many living relatives in one city and certainly not if none of them were born there. This was a vibrant illustration for me of how much stronger a place family still has inthis society.

When Zeynep awoke from her nap she was dressed like a princess and everyone clapped when she was brought into the room. She was passed around while the adults sat and talked and ate. Then someone dimmed the lights and Hanzade brought out a pink cake with a sparkler and a candle on it. While Zeynep was entranced by the sparkler everyone sang the Turkish version of the birthday song. The words were in Turkish, but the tune to that song is the same in every country I’ve ever been to or heard of.

Following the cutting of the cake people brought Zeynep presents. In the states I feel like a one-year-old would have received a whole bunch of Fischer-Price plastic play things, but no one had anything even remotely like that for Zeynep. I realized that she doesn’t have nearly as many big plastic toys as I think most kids in the states do, and in fact I haven’t seen all that many of those sorts of toys in the shops here. It came as sort of a revelation to me that all those toys are largely disposable and unnecessary. Instead she got little things made of gold (a smaller version of the kind that are given to brides – they can be easily sold later so they’re kind of like giving money that’s not vulnerable to inflation) and clothes and a very high quality Mini Mouse doll that one of her second cousins brought from a recent trip to Disney World in Florida.

Our friends dropped by to say goodbye. Sefa, Murat, Mert and Baris showed up at the door and seemed distinctly uncomfortable about being part of a baby’s birthday celebration. We had a last beer together and chatted a little while before they said goodbye. With all the people from the party wandering around it was sort of a hasty and distracted farewell and I didn’t get a chance to say how much I genuinely liked all of them and want them to come visit us in North Carolina.

The friends left and we rejoined the main party and suddenly it hit me that we were really leaving in just a few hours and that it might be a year or more before we saw any of these people again. Subtly and over days of just being around I’d come to feel comfortable with everyone, like they were all part of my family as well as Emre’s. I am very much aware of how far it is from where we live, though, and I find it really awkward to talk to people there on the phone. The end of the party was sad for me because I realized that I wasn’t really ready to leave but I knew that we had to.

We got back home around midnight and then finished packing. Our flight was at 6:00 am so we left for the airport at 3:30. I got a few hours of sleep, but Emre stayed up talking with his mom and finishing our postcards. Emre’s parents and both brothers wanted to see us off, so we loaded up two cars in the frigid pre-dawn darkness. The snow and ice had mostly melted off of the roads. As we drove through the streets of Ankara I saw that a few people were still out drinking. We got to the airport and said our goodbyes to the family. These too seemed rushed and inadequate. I realized that maybe there isn’t really anything you can say to make it easier to leave people you’d rather stay near.

We flew one hop to Munich on a full plane with at least two other Turk-foreigner families. The flight over the Atlantic was as long and boring as always but none of our flights were significantly late or canceled, the food was actually pretty good, and I felt safe and well-cared-for the whole trip. I was generally quite pleased with this and previous experiences flying with Lufthansa and I’d easily recommend it. The Chicago airport where we had a layover was the farthest west I’ve ever been and it also had a train that reminded me of my beloved tram from Grenoble.

At 7:00 pm we were picked up at RDU by our friends Berk and Scott who also made us dinner and chocolate fondue. When we got home we found that Bilgen (a friend who stayed in our house for a few days while we were away and she was moving) not only kept our plants alive and left us a touching thank you letter, but also left a couple of small gifts and the food she’d had at her house. It was excellent to wake up this morning and have milk for my cereal. There’s nothing better than coming home to a house that’s surprisingly even better than you left it.

Three weeks seemed like forever at the start and no time at all when it came time to leave. I had a wonderful Christmas break and we’re already thinking of when we can visit Turkey again or how we can convince our folks there to visit. I am also thankful for all of our friends here who made leaving and coming back to North Carolina as smooth as possible. We are indescribably fortunate to know such fabulous people on both sides of the Atlantic.

It’s incredible how fast time has slipped away while we’ve been here. I made my last post just before New Year’s. Since then we’ve done more or less the same sort of stuff (breakfast, shopping, tea, visiting, more tea, more visiting) but I’ve got a couple little updates.

For New Year’s Eve, we had a little party at home. Some folks go out for the holiday. There are big outdoor parties in Kizilay and somewhere in Istanbul and all of the bars have a New Year special. We went out several times that week, though and so I was happy to stay home. People also have a saying (or superstition) that however you spend the evening is how you will spend your whole year and so Emre has a personal tradition of spending it with his parents which he hasn’t been able to uphold since we’ve been in the states. We had another big dinner. People here eat turkey for New Years and only for New Year’s. Most ovens aren’t big enough to cook a Turkey and honestly it is a pain, so many Turks buy their turkeys pre-cooked from restaurants. Ours came in a big foil-covered basket surrounded by a rice pilaf with currents and roasted chestnuts.

After dinner we broke out the party hats. We opened our gifts at Christmas, but other families would have opened them this night. Volkan set up karaoke on his computer and we all gave it a try. I tried to sing a song in Turkish and totally butchered it. (Everyone was nice about it, but I think I saw them cringing between laughs.)

After Zeynep went to sleep we watched the Turkish New Year specials on TV. There were lots of music programs with famous singers and also belly dancers. Apparently oriental dancers are as much a part of New Years celebration here as “Noel Baba” and we saw a half dozen different dancers live on TV. Leading up to midnight we watched a live show by Tarkan on TRT1 (which quite redundantly stands for Turkish Radio Television 1). Tarkan is a hugely famous singer here and one of the few Turkish musicians who’s had any success abroad. He’s known for his blue eyes and scandalous dancing. I think of him as the Elvis of Turkey. For his new album he created a new look, wearing shiny futuristic suits instead of his normal t-shirts and gelled hair. Unfortunately he looked really sweaty and stiff while dancing in a suit jacket. At midnight here (which is only 5:00 pm in the states) people set off fireworks, some of which we could see from our window. We blew horns and went around kissing everyone on both cheeks. I snuck off to bed soon thereafter, but everyone else watched TV for a few more hours.

The next day Emre and I took down the Christmas tree and stowed it away. Christmas is over, sadly. We still have the gingerbread tower, though. No one wants to eat it and yet it doesn’t quite seem time to throw it away. I wonder how long it will linger after we go back to the states.

We did more shopping this week, this time for people in the states. We’ve been back to Tuneli a couple of times but I’m trying my best to avoid the shopping malls. Once we visited the Turkish Cultural Handcraft and Book store, which has certified Turkish traditional crafts at surprisingly reasonable prices. After that we went to Real, a big supermarket in a shopping center to get some hard-to-find grocheries. They had mugs with names. It was a little strange to see such a common and familiar product with so many names that sound unusual to me.

Then we visited Emre’s aunt that same day and ate some of her signature meat balls. They are a specialty of the town where she and Nurten were raised and they’re almost like dumplings, made with more crushed wheat than meat. They’re boiled and so they’re light and delicious. While we were there, Hakan wanted a cutting from one of her plants and so he spent a fair bit of the visit digging with a stick.

I got a little chilly and put on my scarf. Emre’s aunt and cousin thought that I was too polite to tell them that I felt cold, so they then covered me with many more scarves. I felt like a little old lady, covered up in crocheted shawls. (And for the record it is no where near that cold in their house.)

The nights we’ve stayed home we played Settler’s of Catan again one night and we’re working on a particularly difficult puzzle. (Apparently puzzles of Orientalist paintings are very popular at the moment in Turkey.)

We’ve also done more cooking. Emre made chicken and Indian-style rice with tumeric. I made oatmeal cookies (with Efser’s help) and we put sprinkles on them. I also made biscuits again. The first attempt was a little brick-like, but this time I put a little more butter and more baking powder. They were wonderfully flaky and fluffy and buttery and we ate them with pumpkin soup.

One night we went back to The House and played darts with Mert and Murat. Hakan was disappointed that the beautiful English pointer wasn’t there. I was disappointed that I couldn’t seem to hit the board with the darts this time. We had fun, but the fact that this would be possibly the last time we went out in Turkey hung over our heads and dampened the mood.

Afterwards, we went out for “durum” which is another kind of thin sliced kebab, this time smothered in tomato sauce and rolled in a tortilla. It came with a cacik (cucumber yogurt soup) and unlimited salad and fries. I wasn’t thrilled with the sauce, but the durum was pretty good once I put the salad in the wrap.

As we came out of the durum place, it was beginning to snow lightly. The roads were still clear but the trees and grass were becoming white and fluffy. The next morning a thin blanket of snow covered the houses, cars, and roads. Periodically throughout the day heavy wet flakes fell, accumulating to a centimeter or two of lovely wet snow. It was the perfect kind of snow for snowballs and construction. Emre and Hakan must have thrown dozens of snowballs at each other.

We ventured out to go to Nurten’s English class. The class is nearby and she usually walks, but the roads and sidewalks were covered by this time with a sludge of mud and half-melted snow. We caught a taxi.

Across the street from the community center where the class is held we saw an elementary school. They were on recess and noisily proved their approval of this first good snow of the year. Even once we went and sat in the classroom I could hear them squealing happily as they threw snowballs.

The class was pretty good. I was surprised to see that all of the students were women and most of them were older. The course seemed to be moving very quickly. Unlike my Turkish textbook, theirs had no aliens or invisible men. I saw lots of passages about American and English history and stories about normal things that happen in people’s lives. On this day they read stories about people falling in love and then practiced saying dates and numbers. They also listened to tapes of people reading passages in English. Most of the readers were difficult for me to understand, though, because of their strong (bordering ridiculous in some cases) British English accents.

One of the questions was “What day is Christmas?” and the student answered “December 31.” She was genuinely surprised to learn that it’s celebrated on the 25^th, which explains why Turks have adopted so many Christmas traditions for New Years celebrations. At least some people genuinely think that’s they day of Christmas. The course was about 3 hours long and poor Emre got very bored (I took his pencils away to prevent walrus impersonations.)

When the class ended it was around 4:00 and the slush was starting to freeze on the roads. Luckily we could call the best chauffeur in town. Hakan picked us up and carefully drove home. We went out again to visit Volkan and Hanzade for tea, only about half a mile away. Zeynep’s learned how to knock down block towers, she loves to turn the pages in her books, and she has a dance that she does when Nurten picks her up and sings. She’s not quite walking yet, but she’s trying very hard.

Coming back we progressed very slowly. We saw people on the sidewalks slipping and sliding and there was a horrible car accident on TV. We made it home just fine, though, and piled into the little elevator in our apartment building (Curiously enough, this elevator doesn’t have an internal door. You can see the wall and exits for each floor passing as it goes up and down. I always stand in the back because I’m afraid of getting hair or a scarf or something stuck in it.)

Today is our last day in Turkey. I didn’t get to finish everything I wanted to, unfortunately. I can’t believe we’re going home tomorrow. I don’t want to start packing. I think Emre’s in denial. Maybe my next post will be from the states.