"Ellerine sağlık"
Turkish saying literally meaning ‘health for your hands’
said to the cook after a shared meal or gift of food.
After jealously drooling over the billions of
pumpkin/fall/spiced baked goods posted by friends to Facebook and Pinterest, I was overjoyed to find that pumpkins had indeed popped up at our
local farmer’s market
one weekend. They were massive and rock hard, but they were pumpkins
nonetheless. So I bought a kilo (they just busted out a saw and handed me a massive chunk), and then spent the next few days contemplating how exactly I was going
to make pumpkin bread from an actual, raw chunk of pumpkin in the tiny toaster
box posing as our oven.
It turned out better than I expected, and I brought some to
share with my Turkish colleagues. Who were confused by the idea of “pumpkin
bread.”
This exchange:
“If it is bread, in Turkey, it is not sweet.”
“…I’m not sure why it is called bread, come to think of
it. We have banana bread too.”
“Banana?! In bread??”
Turned into this exchange:
“Ah, it is not bread. It is more like cake…”
“Mmm, it is like carrot cake!”
Fulbrighters Are Fit
A few weekends ago, a big group of Fulbright teachers from
across Turkey all went to Istanbul for the Istanbul Marathon. Several ran
various lengths of the race— most either the 10k or the 8k “Fun Run.” The
Turkish Fulbright commission even jumped in and helped organize, giving us all
blue “Fulbright” t-shirts, and Fun Run registration for those of us (like me)
who missed initial sign-up.
Advertised as a “trans-continental marathon,” all three
distance courses involved running from Asia to Europe via the Bosphorus Bridge.
The Fun Run ended up being more of a Fun Walk/crowded-shuffle at times, but it
was amazing nonetheless. Everyone was packed together, waving Turkish flags,
chanting and cheering, eating simit and drinking tea, and stopping for numerous
selfies over the strait. The energy was crazy, and it was a great way to spend
the weekend catching up with Fulbright friends from all over.
"BIR IKI ÜÇ DÖRT, BIR IKI ÜÇ DÖRT"
So one day Sophia and Lisa went to get their hair trimmed,
and the stylist who cut their hair happened to speak great English. Friendship
was born. We later found out that this same friend’s secondary job is teaching
Latin dance class at the “American Culture Center” in Balıkesir. Thus last
Friday night, we found ourselves in a small room packed with other young Turks
learning to tango and salsa, tripping over our feet, and counting out the beats in Turkish.
"Öğretmenler Günü"
 |
| photo credit: the instagram queen herself, Lisa Hoca. |
