Breeze-a-Phobia

It's midsummer and the temperature is in the 30s every day. As many of
you know, I hate the heat. I hated it during the summer months when I
lived in Bermuda and submerged myself in the Atlantic ocean as often
as possible to excape it. I hated it when I was living in the
Caribbean and it was all year round, either a dry, dusty, fly-ridden
heat, or a wet, muggy, mosquito-laden heat - but heat, every day of
every month. In Israel I convinced myself that it was all worth it
because I was in the proximity of the holiest places on earth, but the
heat there for much of the year was unbearable as well. I managed to
survive by dousing myself with cold water every 15 minutes or so while
I was at work in the greenhouse, and the rest of the time trying to be
in as many air-conditioned places as possible. Now I'm in Istanbul.
Fortunately, all the classrooms and the offices and the teachers' room
are air-conditioned. Unfortunately, the air-conditioner in the
teachers' room has given up and blows smelly lukewarm air (from
lord-knows-where) around the room. The school is in the middle of the
city, so it's not like there's a lot of open space and breeze. The
windows that do open, open out over the noisy street, or into a weird
closed shaft between our building and the next (the bathroom windows
also open out into that shaft, and the air-conditioners vent their hot
air into it making it not such a good idea to open those windows).
It's not really a problem though, beacause I go into the classroom
with my handy remote control, and set it up to cool me down. Then the
students arrive. Invariably, someone will walk into the room and make
a signal as though they have arrived at the north pole in February
wearing a bikini. In my quest to be an effective English teacher, I
don't accept the little charades as acceptable communication and make
them express their thoughts in English. Responses range from "Here
very cold" to "Can you turn off the air conditioner please" and
everything in between. At first, as an inexperienced teacher, trying
to please my students, I used to capitulate and let one of them be the
air-conditioner remote controller. In one class it got ridiculous,
when the person with the remote would turn it on, someone would
complain, they would turn it off, someone else would complain, or I
would start sweating, and they'd turn it back on... this continued at
a frequency of about 7 or 8 times an hour. And the air conditioner
makes a beeping sound whenever you press the remote. That system
lasted a day.
Anyway, at some point I realised that the problem isn't just the a/c.
Turks don't like anything blowing. It's as if moving air is something
to be avoided at all costs. Hence, the same problem occurs in a
crowded minibus. You sit down and a million people crowd in, and the 2
windows that can open on the whole bus are only opened to about 2
inches. If we go onto the highway, they are closed completely. It's
crazy! Taxi drivers also express their displeasure when I open the
window, but in that case I can just pretend I don't understand....
So it's hot. I'm hot. Luckily my flat is cool and breezy. I can't
invite my students over on a hot day though, they'll probably go
around closing the windows and saying that they will get sick. Dude,
what would they do if they knew that I sleep with a fan on me on high!
When it gets really unbearable, I dampen a sarong and wring it out,
then drape it over me. Breeze and water - enough to kill a Turk!

it's been a while!

I'm here having a ten minute break. For each hour of class that we
have, we actually teach for only 50 minutes then have a ten minute
break. So a 3- or 4-hour class that starts on the hour actually
finishes at 10 to. Somehow, by some freak of scheduling, I am now
teaching 3 Pre-Intermediate classes, and one elementary, plus an
intermediate private student. 2 of the pre-int classes are at about
the same polace in the book. At first I thought it would make my life
easier, plan once, teach twice.... however, with my sucky memory I
seem to be forgetting whom I've taught what to. Hehehe I said whom. I
like saying whom. I don't use it with my students though, the pre-ints
and elementaries don't know about that yet. too much at once and they
could self-destruct!

But anyway, I feel like I've always been here. There is no longer
anything unfamiliar about the place. My flat is homey - I'm living
alone right now which is really nice. My neighbours are friendly, the
men in the shops at the corner know me. The mussel-man in the street
said I can pay anytime I want. I haven't taken advantage of his easy
credit system yet, but it's nice to know it's there. I don't have to
keep loose change for mussels if I don't want to. my students are (for
the most part) really sweet and nice, and most of them are good
students as well. The weather is getting hot, but my flat is cool and
breezy all the time. Something to do with the oasis outside the window
I guess, and the uninterrupted plain beyond it. At school the
classrooms are air-conditioned and I've managed to find the exact
setting that pre-empts the shivering motions and requests to turn off
the a.c., while still keeping me cool and collected. Incidentally,
most people don't seem to understand the concept of a thermostat. I
used to have the setting at 23 degrees celsius, that's a good 3
degrees above comfortable room temperature. After a few minutes,
everyone would complain that it was too cold. Geesh. I realise that at
24, it cuts off at just the moment they are about to complain that
it's too cold (in fact, sometimes they try, but by the time I make
them ask me to turn it off politely in proper English, it cuts out :o)
and at the moment when a bead of sweat is forming on my forehead (and
theirs) it cuts in. Turks are breeze-a-phobics. I'll explain this
later.

Midye Dolmasi

I know I've mentioned before that I like Turkish food. There is one thing that I like more than anything else. This food is the cause of much discussion among locals and foreigners alike.

Midye Dolması

Midye - mussels
dolma - stuffed

So I don't know exactly how they do it, but the end result is what looks like a closed mussel. In fact the meat inside has been cooked with spicy seasoned rice. I think they use red hot pepper and cinnamon. There's not a lot of pepper, you can still taste all of the flavours. So when you buy midye dolma, the vendor guy opens the shell, and uses one half of the shell to scrape any rice and mussel that may be stuck to the other side, and squeezes lemon over it. So what you get is a half shell containing a mouthful of rice and seafood. If you think it sounds delicious, you're right! What's more, the price is great. Usually they have a tray with 2 or 3 different sizes for different prices. I've seen the smallest for 200 000 turkish lira (which is 0.20 New Turkish Lira), which is somewhere near15 cents US. There are also some for 250 000, 300 000 and sometimes 400 000 and 500 000 (about 40 cents in US money).The price is right and it's a delicious meal! So what's the fuss about? Well, this isn't something you buy in a restaurant. It's readily available everywhere and it's street food. The guys who sell it appear out of nowhere with a tray. They set up shop, open the midye, serve it to you and collect your money and you eat while standing on the sidewalk with traffic going by. There's a lot of them too. Apparently, in one guide book, they have been referred to as "gastroenteritis time bombs" (although, I'm inclined to believe that might be the Fodor's Guide (a.k.a. the Fogies' Guide, which also tells you where the best bingo halls in any given city are!). So, you may wonder, why I venture to eat street food that could possibly cause gastric upset... well the thing is, I was first introduced to midye dolma by my friend Tolga, back in 1991 when we were at the summer house. We used to spend the day on the beach, and a guy would come by in the afternoon selling midye dolma out of the back of the truck. Everyone and their parents and sister would come running out to buy them and eat their fill. There was never any mention of gastro or any other disease. In fact, the midye dolma truck was more popular than the ice cream truck among the kids! It's one of those flavours you remember forever. for a month I ate large quantities of this stuff daily and never got sick. Neither did anyone I know. In fact I've never known anyone to get sick eating it. So when I came back here and saw them, dude! Dig in! I was here last year with Lyndsay and Aida and Veronica and we had some in Taksim. They all loved it too - oh yeah, there's also deep fried midye, but that's greasy and fattening.
The other teachers who have tried midye dolma are all as addicted to it as I am. we all agree that the flavour and enjoyment one gets from eating them far outweighs the hypothetical risk of gastroenteritis. They're that good. Those who haven't tried it, however, are adamant that the thought of eating them is absolutely disgusting and that they will never in a million years try one.
So that makes me wonder - how do people actually try them? I found out the other night. Josh insisted that he would never try it. He and Mark and I were walking home one night, and we passed my midye guy (yeah, I have a guy I buy from frequently). I was like "who's having one with me?" Josh was about to say yes, but Mark talked him out of it.... It's only a matter of time now! Ha!
The locals have a different problem. Apparently, Muslims don't eat the meat of mensturating female animals. Apparently, according to them, female mussels menstruate. Because one can't tell the difference between a female mussel and a male mussel, there is a chance that the one you eat may have been a menstruating female before being cooked to death, and so people with stronger religious inclinations (not a large portion of the population) don't eat them. I find the idea of a female mussel having a period absolutely fascinating and a bit off the wall. I'm going to check it out now... maybe after I have some midye dolma....

Every now and then...

I haven't blogged for a while. Sometimes it comes down to either living life or blogging it, and recently it's been more about living than blogging. That said, it's also nice to sit down and type a bit now and then as well, otherwise the days fly by and all meld into one. There are so many times when I'm doing something and I think "I should blog that" and all I remember when I'm sitting here in front of the computer is that I've said "I should blog that" about 15 times in the past 2 weeks. Oh well!
The biggest thing and the thing that is occupying all my mental space right now is the fact that Violetta's coming to visit on Sunday. She came to Spain in February at a time when we were both at a bad point for the visit, and although it was nice having her there, it was hard because she was sick most of the time. It didn't help that she couldn't stay with me and I was packing and getting ready for the course in Barcelona, and I lost my wallet and my cellphone and the weather was awful.... Anyway, she arrives on Sunday afternoon and she will be staying at my flat. She will be my second houseguest (Chris Mazloomi got fisrst dibs on his last night in Istanbul). It's so nice to be living somewhere where I don't have to ask permission for houseguests, I have extra keys, everything is mine (well, kinda mine). We're going to Edirne on Monday, and in my free time next week, I'm taking her to my favourite places in Istanbul. While I'm working, she'll be able to visit my non-favourite places that she wants to see. I'm guessing she'll want to see Topkapi Palace and some other historical places. Maybe a museum or two. I'd like to go with her to the Whirling Dervish museum, but I have to find out when they do the actual whirling....
Other things in my life - teaching. I have really settled into it. I'm happy teaching. It has its strange days, like last Thursday when my Pre-Intermediate morning class spent the whole last hour looking at me with blank stares. And then there are the times when people just say things, and they're hilarious! I'm getting used to the different textbooks, personalising the activities, doing different review games, etc. It's really interesting. My flatmate Lydia is gone. I'm expecting a new flatmate at pretty much any moment. That'll be interesting.
One of the things that's really tough on me is that with my schedule, I work almost every night. It means that I don't have the opportunity to take part in any study circles. There is one that I was invited to on Wednesday nights, which was perfect because I had Mondays and Wednesdays off, but now that Lydia's gone, our schedules changed, and I'm working 6-day weeks and they took my Wednesday nights.... Ugh! It's only temporary but still disappointing. Lucky for me, activity starts pretty late at night in the Baha'i community. In order to make sure people show up for feast, they have dinner first. That means that I can usually get there after teaching.
I know I've said this before, but I'm really happy here. I like Turkey much more than Spain. All my Spanish friends will hate me for that comment but it's true. I think I'm better suited to it. I'd love for my family to come visit me, and more friends to come, but that will come as people get used to the fact that I'm here.
My neighbours are fun. There are lots and lots of kids in the neighbourhood, and those who speak any English at all like to try it out on me as I walk to and from home or one of the 2 corner stores. Now it's become commonplace for me to hear a little voice calling out "Kris abla!" and a tiny hand waving from a window or balcony or sidewalk as I walk by. Abla means older sister so that's cool. I feel at home.