Teachers of Fortune’s blog

In the last few weeks we've been working away here in Istanbul, took a mini-vacation to North Cyprus, and have my lovely friend Karen here staying with us at the moment! (Check out our flickr for new photos documenting these adventures appearing soon!)

It's been a blast, and I'm both saddened and excited to announce that we are going to heading back to the U.S. in the beginning of June. We'll be doing a little travelling within Turkey for about 3 weeks (Cappadochia! Trekking! My mom and sister! Beaches and maybe even some scuba diving!) and then braving the long flight home.

We've had an amazing time here and I know I can speak for both of us when I say that there's a special part in our hearts and memories for all the people and places we've encountered here. *Cheesy as that may sound, it's absolutely true.*

We've finally managed to get signed into vox. There is some problem with our internet and vox so we can rarely even load the blog itself!!!

Despite the long absence everything here is lovely. The weather is starting to warm up, the roasted chestnut vendors are slowly being replaced by sweet corn, and the cats are "loving each other all the time." (As I was told by a student.)

Josh and I are planning a trip to North Cyprus next month, followed by a visit from my mom and sister in May. We've got more travelling planned after that and then a return to the good old U S of A in June-ish. I think we're both looking forward to the change, although the spring here has me feeling optimistic about the adventures we've yet to have here in Istanbul.

 

 

 

In other news,my camera broke a few weeks ago and I received a fantastic early birthday present from my family - I think it takes great pictures!

And....in even more interesting news....Josh and I got engaged! Fancy news!

(But don't worry, we won't be having a wedding in Turkey or another distant land.)

 

I'm rattling this entry off from the school, but after a looooong full day of classes I don't want to spend a minute more than necessary here. Instead, you can entertain yourselves with lots of lovely photos. Check out our flickr page for more!

 

*This picture was taken by Tabby, but I really love it. These old wooden houses are sprinkled throughout the city.

Please excuse our delay!  We've been trying to post this blog entry for some time now, but the vox.com website hasn't been cooperating.  So here it is.  In a week we will post what we've been doing in the last month, including Ellen and Pat's visit to Istanbul.

Ami:

I've got some catching up to do with all the things we've been up to recently! So I'll just list them off and get it going:

Cocktail Party:

A few weeks ago we had a cocktail party with all the English teachers we know. We had party hats, wooly black mustaches in a variety of styles for those of us that can't grow mustaches and homegrown tacky facial hair for those that can, singalongs to made-up blues songs, and we even tried out some different mustaches on a portrait of Ataturk.

A good time was had by all and some silly pictures were taken by many.

The Post Office:

I prepared a package to send home for Christmas full of gifts for my family and close friends. I wrapped everything up with little tags and puffy bows and packed it carefully in a box to protect the contents.

Step two was to actually mail the box. Armed with a list of the contents and extra packing tape Josh and I braved the post office. (I say braved because I find it incredibly intimidating, while Josh seems more indifferent to it.) Our first step in the door we're met by the security guard waving his metal detecting wand over our box and sending us to a specific line in the back of the building.

We give the clerks the box and the list of contents (which I am dutifully trying to translate to avoid cutting the box open).

They cut the box open and have us spread the contents across the counter. They are pretty annoyed that everything is wrapped and look at us like we're trying to make their day worse maliciously. Piece by piece I tell them what is in every package and periodically the man pokes a hole in the wrapping and warns me (translated by a very helpful godsend of a woman next to us) that if anything breaks the post office is not responsible. He then crams everything back into the box, literally crams it, and then quickly tapes the top shut. The box is now sort of domed shaped and he tests the integrity of his taping by jabbing the box to see if it will pop open.

We're then told (thank you again translating woman) that we can't mail the box unwrapped. She takes us next door to buy brown craft paper which the clerk then haphazardly wraps around the box, mostly covering it, and then wildly tapes it all over to secure the paper (more or less) to the box.

The package now looks like a suspicious, third world, maybe-it's-a-bomb type of package wrapped in many feet of yellow post office brand packing tape.

To top it off, it cost over 100 ytl to ship this 4k box.

As I'm paying the clerks and hoping this ordeal will be over soon, Josh looks up and notices the ceiling tile above us is taped up with same liberal use of yellow packing tape.

Kurban Bayram Road Trip:

As some of you know by now, Kurban Bayram is a religious holiday here in Turkey that translates into something like The Feast of the Sacrifice. Families sacrifice a sheep, goat, or cow and much of the meat is given to less fortunate people. It's a four day holiday which means that five of the ILM english teachers (Josh and myself included) should naturally go on a road trip down the Western coast of Turkey. While we were driving we saw quite a few sheep and cows in the back of flatbed trucks heading to their final destination for the holiday.

Josh, Brian, Tabby, Jonathan, and me rented a car and took a ferry across the Marmara, then drove down through Bursa and Izmir to Selcuk. Selcuk is a smallish town (pop. 25,000) very near Ephesus (Efes). We stayed in a cute hotel and spent the day wandering around the incredible ruins of Ephesus. That evening we drove to Sirince, a town famous for making wine, and walked between various wine shops tasting and buying local wines.

We also went to Sigacik and stayed in a little seaside pension owned by a Turkish couple who spoke German with Josh and were tickled that he spoke so well. We only spent one night there enroute to Mudanya (to prepare for catching the ferry) but they sent us off with a sack of 15 oranges to eat in the car!

The thing you notice the notice the most after living in Istanbul for a few months is that there is very little green space. As soon as we drove off the ferry and got outside the sprawl of Istanbul (and the lesser sprawl of Bursa) we saw horizon spanning fields of olive and orange trees, green pastures dotted with sheep, and a bizarrely enormous number of unfinished apartment blocks and housing developments. But it was the open land that was really shocking. You kind of forget there's so much of it out there when all you see are roads, train tracks, and swarming shoppers. (We live pretty close to some major shopping centers.)

It was nice. A welcome change of pace that may have made it even harder to come back...

Christmas:

It was Josh and my first Christmas together and we managed to make it pretty great with just us, a newspaper tree, and some lovely packages sent from family back home. We spent most of the day eating and hanging out with friends, and while we sure would have liked to be back home for the holidays it was as nice as it could have been.

Ami:

We've been having some trouble getting Vox to upload our blog entries, so they've been fewer and farther between than usual. But I'm here with just a few brief updates and mostly photos!

 

Josh's birthday was this last week and we celebrated with a few friends, a couple cakes, and some flashy pool gloves. It was a pretty fun time if I do say so myself. The next day we were treated to a proper English breakfast by Jonathan and Tabby (with bacon and everything!) It was really lovely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've been reading a lot, playing out new Turkish monopoly set, and watching The Wire

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We've been lighting the candles of our make-shift manora every night and making plans for our Kurban Bayram holiday (it's the 19th-23rd). We're planning to head down to Ephesus with a couple friends. Hopefully we'll rent a car and be able to drive all over the place. The Kurban Bayram, by the way, is basically a sacrifice holiday where (we've been told) everyone slaughters (or has someone else slaughter) an animal and gives the meat/money to the less fortunate. I'm not sure what we'll be missing by leaving Istanbul, but undoubtedly the village we're heading towards (near Ephesus) will have some festivities to witness/avoid at all costs.

 

Overall things have been going well and it's hard to believe we've been in Istanbul for four months already! While we both like the city and our neighborhood, it's going to be really nice to get out of the dense urban sprawl and see some open land.

 Josh doing some lesson planning:

And me making some stew for dinner:

 

Ami:

In the last month we've had a barrage of visitors (ok, maybe only 2, but that's more than I expected!) and have been settling into a the recently arrived cold weather.

Gia came to visit with her parents during a luckily, slow week at work and we were able to go do some interesting sightseeing with them. We went to the archeology museum and got to hear the perspective of an art historian (Gia and their guide), and visit with the many cats that live in the museum's courtyard.

 I also went to the Cemberlitas Hamam with them, one of the oldest bath houses in Istanbul. The bathing room has a huge, round heated marble slab for lounging in the steam and looking up at the stone ceiling pierced by dozens of small, star like aperatures to let in some natural light. The women there soap you up with large pillow case type cloths that can trap air inside and push out soap bubbles when you squeeze. You get scrubbed with coarse mitts that take look black with dead skin cells and dirt once you're finished. We also ate tons and tons of wonderful food (in true Pisto style) and it was really wonderful to see Gia.

Last week our friend Mitch came to visit in the midst of his cross-Asia-and-Europe travels. Unlike during Gia's visit, Mitch was here over a particularly hectic weekend, but we did get to hang out and do some relaxing around Bakirkoy and Istanbul. During one of the walks we took to go find this big outlet mall, we passed blocks and blocks of fur shops. Apparently the whole fur district. There were coats and pelts of so many animals, some recognizable, others less so, some dyed hideous unnatural colors (an apple green fur coat!), and some racks with only tails hung in long heavy rows. There were even some raccoons. One the streets outside the shops were little bits of fur and I really think I saw a tiny little flattened nose next to a pile of trash from the sewing rooms. Then Mitch headed off for the rest of his adventures, which I've got to say I'm a little jealous of!

Recently I've been preparing a package to send home for Christmas. Shopping for gifts, trying to imagine what to avoid that will get the package caught in customs, and fumbling through finding a place to get a plain, brown shipping box – but I'm almost done and it'll be on it's way very soon! It's funny to realize it's almost Thanksgiving and there's not been a hint of turkeys or pilgrims let alone the oppressive launch of Christmas season shopping in the malls. I doubt we'll do anything for Thanksgiving, but I'm lobbying for a Christmas / Hannukah / Holiday event. I will say that I've already seen a Christmas tree in someone's flat here in Bakirkoy! That was a surprise!

(NOTE! At the moment it is impossible to get photos posted here, I'm not sure why but it's got something to do with Vox running really erratically on our end. There are lots of beautiful and interesting new photos on our flickr though - go look!)

Josh:

This month-long Muslim holiday of Ramazan (Turkish spelling) ended October 11, and I would be lying if I didn’t say I’m not relieved.  It’s not that we were fasting. Rather it was a tension that seemed to get heavier as the day progressed, until finally everyone got to break the fast with the evening call to prayer.  Class attendance predictably waned as the month progressed, and energy levels were quite low.  We were constantly changing class schedules as sundown got earlier in order to allow students to eat.  Some teachers claim to have witnessed more fights and car accidents than usual.  And although restaurants and donner kebap stands were open during the day, it was easy to project a sense of resentment on the fasting workers preparing our meals. 

But the moment the iftar (break-fast) call to prayer was sounded, the bustling city would go quiet as millions of mouths were stuffed with food.  In Bakirkoy, many shopkeepers would drag tables out in front of their stores to share their iftar meal with the other workers, brining business to a virtual standstill.  Every evening dozens of people would wait in line at the bakery to bring a loaf of the traditional sweet Ramazan bread home in time for iftar.  But three minutes before iftar, the bakery and street would suddenly go empty. 

At the steps of the Blue Mosque in Sultanahmet, thousands of people gather to share the iftar meal together.  Fellow teacher Gill joined us one evening to see what all the excitement was about.  Roughly sixty semi-permanent tents were erected to feed everyone simultaneously, turning the historic Hippodrome area into a sort of Muslim carnival.  After eating you could get your picture taken dressed as a sultan at one booth, or have your name written in Persian calligraphy on a plate at another.  My Istanbul students tell me it’s quite a tourist trap these days, though for Turkish tourists rather than foreigners like us.  You could see the excitement of Muslim women in full hijabs seeing the Blue Mosque for the first time, appreciating it in a way a non-Muslim like me simply couldn’t. 

Ramazan is followed by a three-day Bayram holiday celebrating the end of Ramazan.  Traditionally everyone visits their older relatives, who in turn cook (or buy) candies or desserts.  Ami and I incorrectly thought the holiday was more like Halloween where everyone goes door to door demanding candy, so we stocked up on a bunch of chocolates.  But the only person who came to our door was our landlady asking us to pay our utility bill, so we are still eating the candy to this day. 

But after two days of family visiting, most people spend the third vacation day going out with friends.  We joined a Turkish teacher and her two friends in downtown Taksim for a night out.  We were soaked by the heavy rain, which in turn caused the bar’s electricity to go out.  But unfazed we had a great time drinking beer by candlelight, swapping jokes, and teaching each other curse words with our new Turkish friends.  And to finish the night we all had the (in)famous Turkish hangover cure Kokorech, which is spicy lamb intestine in a sandwich (pretty good, actually, though we are told that Kokorech will not survive EU health regulations if Turkey is ever admitted). 

Josh:

We finally had our first break from Istanbul's intense urban environment.  The Princes' Islands are a chain of nine small islands situated in the Marmara sea about 10km south of Istanbul that have been a relaxing respite from noise and pollution for centuries.  The best part: no cars!  Istanbul is typically a huge snarl of traffic, with cars and vespas competing with pedestrians in streets that were never designed for motor traffic.  Vehicles drive extremely fast and continuously honk to make you get out of their way.  If you don't, they slam on their brakes and you hope the ground isn't too wet.  It was really unnerving at first, but now it is simply annoying.

But I digress.  Point is, they don't allow cars on the islands, which makes the islands seem really neat and old fashioned: For example: Like the rest of Istanbul, water is not drinkable and "sucus" deliver 5 gallon water jugs to your door.  But on the islands, sucus use horse and cart.  There are also a lot of older pre-Republic "yalis" (large wooden houses) that have been turned into apartments with a lot more character than the cube apartment blocks than make up nearly all of Istanbul.

So Amelia and I met up with out teacher friends Jonathan, Tabby, and Gill and we spend the day walking around the island of Hebeliada, having tea and ice cream at cafes, and enjoying the relaxing one hour-long ferry rides to and from the islands.

The weather in Istanbul has started getting cooler, and is actually starting to resemble Portland's fall weather more closely than we had expected!

Yesterday we had planned to go to the Prince's Islands with some friends, but the sunny weather suddenly became overcast and our friends all came down with colds. We decided instead to put off our trip to the islands until a sunnier day and to go to the Spice Bazaar instead. The Spice Bazaar is also known as the Egyptian Bazaar and as the Mısır Çarşısı.

Like the Grand Bazaar, it is covered (thus our choice for the rainy day), lined with shops jammed to the rafters with things to buy, and inevitably contains a misrepresentatively large portion of the English speaking population in Istanbul. "Hello can I help you?" "Hello where are you from?" and "Hello I love you" are some of the more popular phrases.

 

Unlike the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar is not insanely large, the salesmen aren't as pushy, the crowds are much smaller, and there's more stuff that you actually would want to buy. I set off with a list of spices in English and Turkish and was taken by surprise when the sales people immediately spoke to me in English, which I automatically replied in. Only after a few interactions did I start using Turkish more, and nearly every shop keeper was happy to see that the group of yabancıs (foreigners) were able to speak (some) Turkish.

 

 

We sampled Turkish Delight and honey dipped off the comb with tiny spoons, smelled innumerable scoops of spices, and had a long, enjoyable conversation with a young man who had just returned from his obligatory military service in the East. After asking him where we could buy a practical caydanlık (a Turkish teapot), he walked with us outside of the bazaar to a side street where the small shop was to help us get an uninflated price. Everything was closing up early for ıfta (breaking fast at the evening call to prayer) but I'm looking forward to going back when we have more time.

 

 

 

With all the things I got at the bazaar, our cooking is likely to improve as well!

 

 

We recently received the news that Roland, Josh's uncle has passed away. We were lucky enough to have been able to visit him when we were in Leipzig during August. He let us stay with him, introduced us to his son and his family, and showed us enormous hospitality. We are grateful to have been able to spend that time with him and have gotten to know him.

He will be missed.

 

Josh:
Instead of providing a blow-by-blow account of our activities, a few thoughts and opinions:

Sultanahmet
Sultanahmet (the main sight-seeing area of Turkey) quickly loses its charm after a week of so in Turkey.  Throngs of ill-behaved tourists, overpriced food, and jaded locals looking to make a few dollars from rich foreigners – if it weren’t for the beautiful and historic buildings in the area, I’d be happy to never step foot in the area again.
 

Bakirkoy
Our neighborhood is on the European side of Istanbul 20 minutes west of downtown.  These neighborhoods each have everything you need to live, such as grocery stores, movie theaters, bars, restaurants, and so on, so generally people tend to spend their time living and working in the same area.  Yet each neighborhood is also known to sell certain items which people travel long distances for.  Bakirkoy is known for fancy suits and dresses, designer shoes, pregnancy-wear, and plus-sized women’s clothes.  Along the main shopping boulevard there are easily over 100 shops dedicated to these same items, and it still baffles me that they can all stay in business.  Apparently this is a holdover from the days of guilds, when certain industries would clump together because they needed the same resources or were similarly loud or smelly.

Tuesday Market
Bakirkoy’s market takes place every Tuesday about a ten-minute walk from our place, and we try to buy as much here as we can.  Every sort of fresh food is available fresher and cheaper(!!!) than at the grocery store, and they also have everything from sports bras to lemon juicers to head scarves.  It is loud, crowded, colorful, and quite a lot of fun, connecting us to the neighborhood in a way a large grocery store couldn’t.

6th Century Construction Workers
We can’t get over the fact that the Aya Sofia was built 1500 years ago!  The massive unsupported dome gives the mosque a wonderful sense of expansiveness.  This of course leads to thoughts of those 6th century construction workers balancing themselves on rickety wooden scaffolds 10 stories high to build that huge dome in the middle.  And the thousands of tons of brick and marble dragged from far-off quarries....

Call To Prayer
I was expecting the call to prayer to be either a) very exotic sounding, or b) highly annoying.  But instead I have completely tuned it out.  I guess when everything is so different from home, you are more willing to accept distorted Arabic chants blaring from every mosque minaret five times a day.   I have not once woken up to the 5am prayer call, even though it is so loud in our apartment that we have to close the windows to talk normally.  (Ami interjects that she does not think it is that loud.)  Our neighbor’s child incessantly banging his squeak-hammer against the wall is quite another matter, however.

Akbil
Traffic in Istanbul is a huge, snarling mess.  Fortunately they’ve got their public transportation system down pat.  They’ve got river ferries, trains, light rail trams, subways, buses, mini buses, and dolmushes (vans) running to every part of the city all day long.  And to make things even simpler, they’ve created a keychain-sized electronic device called an Akbil which you can load up with credits and use to ride city-run transit (so everything but the mini buses and dolmushes).  They also give you a free transfer.  We tried in vain to acquire one of these devices our first two weeks here.  Apparently the city had run out of Akbils, and it wasn’t until September 1 that we finally acquired Akbils of our own.  With these little babies, we feel like regular commuting locals rather than skittish tourists fumbling with foreign change, timetables, and impatient drivers.

Wages/Prices
Everyone knows foreign English teachers are incredibly well paid considering what the average middle-class job in Turkey pays.  This of course feels unfair and perpetuates the idea that everything is better for those who have the good fortune of being born in an English-speaking country.  It also leads to some tricky situations: For example, my apartment manager wants me to tutor her twelve-year-old son in English, and she has offered to clean our apartment in exchange.  I’ve tutored him twice for free, but I don’t want to make a regular thing out of it, and I know they could not afford the going rate for private English language instructions, which runs about $40 an hour (or more).  While they certainly can’t demand free language instruction, it is not without a sense of guilt that I am typing on this laptop with wireless internet during what used to be our regular English time.  

Even though our wages aren’t huge in terms of American dollars, they do give us a lot of buying power here depending on the commodity.  Loaf of bread: 30 cents.  A very tasty lunch in Bakirkoy: $3.50.  A DVD (inevitably pirated): $3, a polo shirt, $8.  However a beer at a bar is usually $4-6, electronics are roughly the same as in America (meaning very expensive for the average Turk), and a bottle of Whisky runs about $40.  I even joined the gym next door, and I feel like a rich man every time I go to work out.  You automatically get a personal trainer, everyone (but myself) is in designer sportswear, and the treadmills have their own TVs with cable.  Some nights I am tempted to go to the gym and simply walk the treadmill to enjoy the free cable TV.