Thursday, September 29, 2011

The last few days have been wonderful, with a lot of activity and dinners with Abdullah’s family.  On Tuesday evening we were invited to  Abdullah’s son, Mehmet, and Beertoo’s for dinner.  Beartoo (of course this is not the way to spell her name, but it is how it sounds to me!) outdid herself making the dinner.  We had a wonderful soup with two different types of small mealy balls in it.  One of them is commonly made in a different region of Turkey where Beartoo’s brother is working and he brought them back for her to use.  This special soup was followed by fish and about 6-8 different types of salads/side dishes.  These are called mezas and are often served as appetizers or side dishes. 

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Fantastic food and fun time as Mehmet had been reading about Alaska since we met on Monday and had questions and was also quite excited about the pictures of the killer whales I had and the information he read about them.  Their 16-year-old daughter, Ege, was absolutely lovely and spoke good English and we were able to visit as well.  Beartoo invited me to go to her school with her the following day to talk to her English classes if I wanted to.  I accepted her invitation, and on Wednesday she came by to pick me up. 

We walked to her school, about a mile from Abdullah’s.  Actually, we stopped at a little café next to the school where the teachers take their breaks to drink tea and smoke.  I met a couple of other teachers as well and ended up going into three classes total.  I brought my photos of my family and of Alaska and shared with them.  The students (and the teachers) reminded me a lot of the school in Hungary.  Their system is the same in terms of the students staying together in sections of about 25 students through their high school years and for the most part, the students have the same classroom and the teachers change for each class they are teaching. 

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On Wednesday, Ayten did not come to Abdullah’s, as her mother returned from the family’s village on the Black Sea where she had been helping with the hazelnut orchard for three months.  Abdullah and I did fine getting our own breakfast and lunch, and for dinner we were invited to his daughter, Ayşegül house for dinner.  Again we had a fantastic meal and good company, with Ayşegül husband and daughter, Zanep.  Zanep is the one who started university on my first day here.  Again, she was a lovely girl and is taking only English this year of University and then will study landscape architecture in the following years.  For dinner, we again had a soup for the starter, and then had the eggplant and meat dish where the eggplant has been pureed and cooked.  The eggplant is actually grilled first, so has a fantastic smoky flavor that carries through into the dish.  Delicious! 

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Abdullah and I have been playing backgammon, and with his help and lots of good dice rolls, I won the most games on Monday and Tuesday.  But, today, he won 5 of the 7 games we played!  I’ll just have to keep trying!  Backgammon is the Turkish national game!  In cafes, on tables outside of shops, and everywhere you look, people are playing this game.  There is also another game that kind of reminds me of a mix of the card game rummy and scrabble that is played in the cafes.  This one is with colored and numbered tiles that the players’ play in the center of the table from a line of tiles they have on a board in front of them. 

Abdullah and I have also listened to quite a bit of music on line.  Today I found a number of Diana Krall videos on YouTube and we have been listening to those. 

I am planning to go to the seaside this weekend.  I will go to Cesme, which is on the coast south of Izmir about 2 hours by bus.  It is a popular beach destination for the people of Izmir – when I asked one of the classes what their favorite vacation is, most of the kids said go to Cesme and swim.  There is also a ferry from there that goes to a Greek Island that is just an hour and a half away.  So, I will probably go on Friday evening and on Saturday go to the Greek Island for the day and then on Sunday sightsee around this little town of Cesme, returning by bus later in the day.  Hope I can pull it all off!

Abdullah has been trying to get me to stay longer, and I explained it was not my choice and that it needed to be fair to the other family as well. When Makbule came by yesterday, we talked about it, and I further understand how this situation came to be.   The coordinator in Istanbul, Niven,  knew Makbule from a few years ago, so when my request came in for staying in Izmir, Niven contacted Makbule to ask her if she knew any families.  Makbule talked it over with her brother and sister and father and decided that two weeks would be an ok time frame, since they didn’t know me and how well the whole situation would work.  So Makbule also asked a friend of hers if they were interested in the other two weeks.  Now since this has worked out so well for all of us, Abdullah would like for me to stay longer, but I feel that this is not up to me, but up to Makbule to work out with the other family.  So I will find out either today or Monday whether I will stay longer here or move on to the next family on Monday. 

Last night I asked Abdullah and I started talking about the history of Turkey and as it turns out he has a great interest in this as most Turkish do.  But he has also studied a lot about the many wars Turkey was involved in leading up to WWI and then to the Turkish Independence war.  He showed me a picture with his father-in-law and a group of other men, including Attaturk, the founder of the country, taken in Seva, Abdullah’s home town, after they had signed a declaration.  All very fascinating, especially since I am reading the book, “Birds without Wings” which is a fictionalized account of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of the Republic.  Actually, the chapters regarding Mustafa Kemel Attaturk are historically true and the other characters are placed in locations to tell the story of the history surrounding all of this.  I have learned a lot from this book, and recommend it to anyone interested in a good historical novel.  (I’ve got it on my iphone).