Well, here I am, staying with my first family. I am in the apartment of Abdullah, or, Abbe as I have been told I can call him. He is an incredible man. What am I doing here? One of his daughters heard about a foreigner who wanted to come to Turkey for a few weeks to stay with a family and help with their English. She thought of her father, Abbe, who has taken up the hobby of learning English since his wife died about five years ago, and asked him if he would like to have someone come and stay for a few weeks who could speak in English to him. So, here I am!
Abbe lives on the ground floor of a 5 or 6 story building. The apartment has two bedrooms and one bath and a rather large living room/dining room combination. He explained to me that there had been three bedrooms, but he took out a wall to make the living space larger. He also remodeled the kitchen, but I don’t know in what way.
Every day Ayten comes to be his companion and helper. She makes his meals, does his laundry and housekeeping and visits with him. Although I don’t understand the words, I can tell they are teasing and bantering and having a good time with each other. Ayten is 38 and married for the first time 9 months ago. She doesn’t know any English, although she is picking up words from me quickly.
Upstairs in this same building lives Abbe’s second daughter, Ayşegül and her husband. Ayşegül is in the Insurance Business and her husband is an Accountant. Ayşegül speaks some English; we are able to communicate on a variety of subjects, but not in too much depth. Last night we took a very long walk together along the water front, chattering the whole way. She is 57 and has a daughter who is 19 who started her first year of University yesterday. She also has a son, Mete, who is married and returned to Turkey a year ago from Denmark. He and his wife came along the waterfront last night and walked back with us. His English is very good and he also speaks Danish, German and a little Spanish. He is a mechanical engineer and has his own business, while his wife is a “food engineer”… I didn’t quite figure that out yet, although I think it is actually along the lines of scientific work, not dietary work.
The oldest daughter is Makbule (59) and she lives with her husband a bit further away in a house from what I can tell, and not an apartment building. They have a daughter who lives in Australia and a son, and I either don’t remember, or haven’t been told about him! Makbule works with the Cambridge textbook and testing systems, and meets with the representatives for these programs at the schools. Yesterday, with the first day of school across the country, she was quite busy, including attending an opening ceremony and cocktail party last evening.
There is also a son, Mehmet who is 51, is married and has a daughter. They live near Makbule, and I have not met them yet.
So, yesterday when I arrived by taxi from the Konak, or old town section of the city, I was met by Abbe and Ayten who quickly invited me in, showed me my room and asked me to sit. We had tea and before I knew it, we were into the late afternoon! I discovered Abbe’s English is all self-taught, which is incredible, as he uses filler expressions in English, for example: “Let me see”, “What do you think of that?” and “Can I say”, and a few others I can’t think of right now.
Yesterday for lunch, the three of us – Ayten, Abbe and myself – had a yogurt and mint soup, stuffed eggplant, meatballs, salad (lettuce, tomato, onion with oil and apple cider vinegar for dressing) and rice. All of this had been prepared before, so it didn’t take long to put on the table. What really surprised me was when Ayeten came out of the kitchen with a bottle of cold vodka and poured all three of us a full glass! I sat there and watched the other two, and neither took a drink for some time. There was a pitcher of water on the table, but no other glass, so I could not pour myself a glass of water. Finally, I was quite thirsty and gave in and took a sip of the vodka, only to realize it was only cold water! I just had to chuckle at myself. They use the old vodka bottle because it is glass, to put the water in the fridge to cool it! The other thing was that the plates were dished up in the kitchen, except the salad. The salad was on a serving plate on the table and Ayten and Abbe ate directly from the serving plate. I had read that this used to be the custom with all dishes, but wasn’t as common any more. I didn’t hesitate long, and dug right in…just can’t pass up those tomatoes.
When Makbale came by in the afternoon, she definitely took charge, reminding me of Mary Kay! She walked me through the house, showed me where everything is, and explained that I was to feel at home: “mi casa es tu casa”, but in Turkish! Her English is very good and I was able to talk to her about needing to have my hair cut and colored and to get a sim card for my phone, if the phone isn’t too old (it is the one I had in Hungary). She explained that these two weeks are the busiest time of year for her, so she will be short on time. While she was here, she was on two cell phones at one time and then onto the computer! Hopefully, I will see her more.
Tuesday, September 20
This morning I shared breakfast with Ayten and Abbe and Ayten helped me to put in a load a clothes to wash. We then walked a few blocks and then caught a taxi to the same café where Asyagul and I walked the other night. We sat there for a good hour, chatting and watching the goings-on in the park. I am just amazed at Abbe’s English and his constant studying of it. I would think it would wear him out, but he loves using it. Asygul told me he drives everyone crazy saying things in both Turkish and English all the time!
In the afternoon, Ayten’s sister and nephew stopped by to visit. Neither spoke English, although the nephew is in his third year of studying it. They do all the book learning like everywhere else, and very little speaking or listening. Both were quite jovial and looked at my Alaska and family pictures and asked questions through Abbe. Ayten’s sister wore a headscarf and no make up. Abbe said yes, they are nice people, but very simple. Whatever that meant!
Late afternoon Asegul stopped by to get me to take me to get a sim card for my phone. After three shops, we discovered that although the phone wasn’t too old, it could only take a T-mobile sim card, and there is no T-mobile service here in Turkey. So, I ended up buying a used phone for 50 lira, about $30 US dollars and spent another $30 to get the service and some time. They use a pay as you go system. Actually, Asegul’s English is ok, but it was difficult for her tocommunicate all the intracacies to me, so she called Osmen (pronounced Irsman), her daughter-in-law to come help us. Osmen was in the same area buying a pair of boots, so came over and helped out. She was great and I watched the two of them negotiate with one man about a used phone and decided against getting one from him – I came away with respect for their negotiating ability and told them so!
Osman wanted to share a local food with me, but I had already tried a number of them she suggested, so we ended up getting one that I had already had: mussels on the half shell with rice and lemon juice. Quite good. She showed me another local food, lambs head! They separate the meat on the head from the brain and cook it all separately and then mix it up together with lettuce and tomatoes, etc., and wrap it in a thin peda bread! I think I will pass on that one!
I got home about 8pm, so Abbe had already eaten, but I needed a little more so had one of the stuffed eggplants from the day before. We then enjoyed some fruit together. We had grapes and peaches and plums. It’s just so wonderful to have fresh juicy fruit! Abbe is such a joy to be around as he just beams with happiness to have company and to be able to speak in English.
So far, I really have not had any free time, but will try to work that in today. He just wants to talk and talk and talk. I have started to direct the conversation a bit into his history and what his life was like when he was younger, as I find it fascinating. I need to organize our subjects a bit and then set some time limits….or maybe not, as this is just two weeks!
He also wants to use the computer more for writing to pen pals around the world in English, but needs help signing up for this. I’m not sure if his family just doesn’t have the time to help him do this, or if they don’t want him to for fear of the perils of the internet!
The internet is dial up from what I can tell, and is quite slow. I am not able to connect my computer to it, but will try to get out today to find a café with wireless and then upload this.
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