THE TOP THREE THINGS I WILL MISS MOST ABOUT TURKEY...
1. Friendly strangers
Turkey is a country where you can receive a homemade-dinner invitation from the woman sitting next to you on the bus and where strangers will go far out of their way to help you. Take, for example, any of the following scenarios:- I was deathly ill within the first few months of being in Balıkesir (kidney infection… don’t get one). My roommates managed to somehow get my feverish self to the hospital. Upon realizing that I did not speak Turkish, half the nursing staff was engaged in the act of Google Translating communication between the doctor and me, then ten minutes later, someone from the radiology department showed up and announced that he knows a little English and may be able to help.
- My roommate and I visited our friends in the neighboring sea-side province of Çanakkale, and we all took a day trip to a vineyard island called Bozcaada off the coast. It was off-season for tourists, and the island was quiet, so we decided to rent a car to explore. The man who we rented the car from mentioned that his family was having a mangal party (Turkish barbeque) on a beach across the island and invited us to drop the car off there once our time was up and join in. We met the whole group and were treated with grilled lamb, fresh sucuk (garlic sausage), köy ekmeği (village bread), cheese, and free-flowing homemade red wine brought in a plastic water jug from their vineyard.
- My other roommate and I traveled to the Southeastern part of Turkey during one of our weekend breaks. After one of our day trips, we rushed back to Diyarbakır, where we were staying, to see if we could make it to a Kurdish cultural center before it closed. The place served as a center for Kurdish seniors to sing traditional songs in order to preserve their culture.* We got there 30 minutes before the center closed, but upon asking, we learned the singing was done for the day. A group of men heard us asking, though, and invited us to drink tea and ask questions. One of the seniors then agreed to sing a few songs just for us, and treated us to the song in the video below (hence the “Americans” reference at the end :) Our Kurdish friends then proceeded to give us a broad education in the history of Diyarbakır and even invited us to a Kurdish wedding (where it’s culturally appropriate for anyone in the neighborhood come in off the street).
Diyarbakır Dengbej Evi from Kealy Jaynes on Vimeo.
*Check out more about the history of Kurds in Diyarbakır
here.
2. Food
Food is an art form and a point of pride in Turkish culture, and for good reason—it’s delicious. After a year of constantly talking about it, eating it, buying it straight from farmers at the pazar, I can’t imagine what I’m going to do without it. Thankfully, there have been a number of people who have invited me into their kitchens and shared their secrets with me— even if the only thing I can somewhat confidently prepare at this point is Turkish coffee.3. These people:
- Çiğ köfte lady who knows my roommates and I by name and our orders by heart. No other çiğ köfte in Balıkesir can compare. And no one else believes me when I say I want “bol acılı” (lots of chili sauce).
- Baklava guy was one of our first friends in Balıkesir. We owe our education on and addiction to baklava to him… A debt I can never repay.
- Yusuf Bey who I buy flowers from at the market each Saturday. He always remembers me, and puts together the most beautiful bouquets, which then prompt everyone else in the market to comment or ask me where I got them from for the rest of the day.
- United Fitness Clubs staff: The people who work at our gym and who I see more than just about anyone else in Balıkesir. I started as the crazy yabancı girl training for a half-marathon on the treadmill in the corner, and friendship blossomed from there. None of them speak English, yet the friendship and jokes shared here have been some of my favorite memories.
- Turkish Friends: The English-speakers who were so gracious to invite me into their homes, cultures, and friend groups. The non-English-speakers who are incredibly patient and creative in sustaining a friendship via my pathetically limited Turkish.
- Fulbright Friends: My roomies in Balıkesir, my friends across the country, and the endless inside jokes that originate from our shared yabancı perspective.
- Students/Colleagues: The crazies that made every day at work memorable, who put up with my pushing, challenging, disciplining, pantomiming, ridiculous facial expressions, and silly games for an entire year— and maybe learned some English in the process. And my work friends, who helped us through the system and who always made downtime in the teachers' room fun.
...AND THE TOP THREE THINGS I DIDN'T EXPECT TO MISS BUT PROBABLY WILL
1. The things that keep me on my toes
- Walking past the fish market and knowing exactly which pavement stones NOT to step on in order to avoid dousing my shoes with fish water… and sometimes still forgetting.
- Still almost getting run over every other time I attempt to cross the street.
- That physical whirring noise that I swear I hear in my brain whenever I am tired or distracted and someone starts speaking to me in Turkish: “…what… oh… response… words… English… no… Spanish… no… something in Turkish… hadi, tamam…”
2. The smells
Çay, cigarettes, body odor thinly masked by the same deodorant smell that every Turkish man wears, döner on the street, limon kolonya, the weird musty smell that never seems to leave our apartment no matter how clean it is…3. The sounds
The train blaring its horn outside my window at all hours of the night, the musical calls of vendors at the market or simit sellers on the street, hearing the same 3 Turkish pop or American top 40 songs everywhere, car horns...And lastly, because it makes me sad to think about leaving Turkey, I'll end on a happy note… My motivation for returning (apart from friends and family, of course, and not surprisingly, all food-related):
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