Things we can laugh about now...

Here's our Top Ten+ List:


1. Ordering pizza with ham and expecting to get ham (chicken ham & beef ham but no ham ham)
2. Dad imagining that his Turkish would turn out better than his Spanish (many words, no sentences)
3. Mom thinking that somehow the boys could be home-schooled (we're not that family)
4. Dad bringing his golf clubs (there are no courses)
5. That we seriously considered bringing Diesel, our 80 lb. bulldog (not sure where to begin)
6. Long searches for salted butter (doesn't exist)
7. Rows of fishermen catching fish so small we thought they were bait
8. Mom suddenly getting in close touch with her American side
9. Thinking we might take weekends in Beirut, Cairo and Amman (as if there isn't enough to do in Turkey)
10. Starting conversations about politics with Turkish folks we only just met (not done)
11. The sheer joy of being able to read "Arabada bebek var" (Baby on Board)

Thanksgiving fajitas

No big surprise that American holidays aren't celebrated here but it just feels as if Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that should be worldwide. Besides the fact that we couldn't find ingredients for a more traditional Thanksgiving (apparently turkeys are eaten in Turkey for New Year's Day and start showing up in stores in mid-December) it just didn't have that touch football-crisp apples-autumn leaves-choose your cliche feeling that I associate with the 4th Thursday in November. So what did my resourceful and clever wife do? She booked us tickets to Istanbul where there were no turkeys either but where we had quite a weekend and ate rather well. More to come as we start sorting through the photos.

A fine day for football

If you squint really hard you can see helmets and shoulder pads.

Harvard vs Yale it wasn't but on the last Friday before Thanksgiving I couldn't help myself any longer and I walked over to the nearby stadium to watch the last 45 minutes of a "futbol" (soccer) match. We don't really know the local teams well and have been warned about just showing up without knowing who to root for but my curiosity got the best of me, especially when I remembered that folks told me the same thing about Eagles' fans when I moved to Philadelphia. 


Once inside the stadium I felt no danger whatsoever but as you can see from the photographs the "polis" presence was obvious and impressive, especially for a second division local match. 

Check out the show of force with the policeman sitting behind the plastic shield and the row of
policemen going up the corner of the stadium. The Turks take their soccer serious.

I say football, you say futbol

(Sam here) The attitude towards "American" football (which I now say out of habit) is that people are mostly curious but they really have no idea about the rules or the general concept. People really seem to like playing football, like the guards at school, and if our parents arrive late to pick us up the guards will come and throw the ball with me and Zach. Once one of the guards even happened to say "I am running back" in labored English. Remarkably, whenever I bring the ball out to recess almost anyone there can form a spiral or a near spiral and land the ball within a 3 foot radius of their target. My two best friends here are the most interested in it though, and my one friend Kayra has made multiple requests for me to bring my football and throws like a true American. My other friend Mat has asked me to teach him the rules of football so that he could understand what he is doing while playing Madden.

In the parks there are always a couple of people who stop and stare at us throwing the football in awe of the spinning egg shaped thing. BUT...it does not  receive the level of respect as the soccer ball, which I have now begun to call the football. When the soccer ball rolls into the street all cars stop dead in their path for us to go and retrieve it, but when the football rolls into the street we have to chase after it because car drivers seem to not even notice it.

Knock Knock... Who's there.... Boo.... What's Bu?

(Zach writing)
This is about telling a joke to kids at an international school. The kids at the school speak fine English but there are just some words, for example "puberty", that they just don't get. Also sometimes there is a name that they don't know or it doesn't register who they are for 5 seconds. There is one joke especially that NO ONE gets. Here's how the conversation goes:

Me: Do you know how Justin Bieber broke his arm?

Kid : Who's Justin Bieber?

Me: He's that singer remember.

Kid: Oh yeah with the high voice.

Me: Right, so why did he break his arm?

Kid : I don't know

Me: He fell off a latter trying to reach puberty. (ha ha)

Kid: Whats puberty?

Me: Like when your voice gets low and you get hair on your body.

Kid: What???

Me:  (Groan) never mind.

Kid: No, tell me

Me: Its not worth it.

Kid: O.K.

Growing up digital, wired for distraction

Great article on the distractions of technology accompanied by falling grades and a regression of reading ability amongst high schoolers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/technology/21brain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=media

Church hunt in Izmir

Wow, I never thought I would have to work so hard to go to church. There aren't many Christian churches in Izmir and St. John seems to be the favorite name:

St. John's Church - A Roman Catholic church, completed in 1874 with the help of donations from the Catholics of Lyon, France. It is supposed to have a richly decorated interior but is for military (NATO?) use only. They wouldn't let me past the gate.

Greek Orthodox Church, Alsancak - Built before 1922 when Izmir's population was heavily Greek, this church is a half kilometer from our apartment. The front courtyard is used as a private parking lot during the week and there is a high wall with barbed wire on top which makes it totally inaccessible at any other time. I stopped by one Sunday to listen to mass from the doorway but after a couple of minutes they shut the door pretty much in my face. I would probably have done the same to someone who looked like they might be snooping around but I haven't been back mostly because I couldn't understand the service. I would estimate there were 25 folks inside listening to mass.

St. John's Evangelical Church - I found it on the map but no luck finding the actual church. Possibly converted to a municipal building? 

Saint Polycarp Church - This is the grandaddy of them all but I could not get in today to see it.The Saint Polycarp Church is the oldest church in Izmir and represents ancient Smyrna's role as one of the Seven Churches of Revelation. Saint Polycarp was converted by John the Apostle and became Bishop of Smyrna. He was martyred by the Romans at age 86 in 155 AD at Kadifkale, which was atop the hill near modern-day Izmir. According to tradition, when they tried to burn Polycarp at the stake, the flames wouldn't touch him. They finally stabbed him to death.

The Church of Saint Polycarp in Izmir was reconstructed in 1620.

Santa Maria - A 125 year old Catholic church that seems to be on life support. From what I've heard there are only a dozen or so folks who gather each Sunday for mass although I have not seen it for myself.

St. John's Anglican Church - As it turns out this is not far from us and has an English service at 10a on Sundays. Whew!

My not very scientific math adds up to somewhere between 100 and 150 total Christians attending these few churches on Sundays out of a population of 4 million. Now that's a minority.

A few more notes on Christianity and other religions in Turkey from the British Council's website (britishcouncil.org) - Because of its location Turkey has been a crossroad of many different civilizations and religions. Turkey's land has at one point housed the biggest populations of both Christians and Moslems in history though not at the same time. 

According to the current numbers the primary Christian population in Turkey is the Armenian community. The second Christian population is the Greek Orthodox Community and the third Christian Community is the Suryani Community. Their centre is Syria and they mostly live in the areas of Mardin and Urfa which is near the border between Turkey and Syria. They have many churches and monasteries in the area which are worth seeing in terms of historical value. The fourth Christian Community is the Catholic Community and additionally there are also some Protestants scattered in the larger cities. In total there are about 300 hundred churches in Turkey that belong to these communities.

Today Turkey's total Jewish population is around 26,000, with a great majority living in Istanbul. 

The holiday of Bayram starts on Tuesday

Our favorite grocery store, Kipa, makes buying a Bayram sacrifice easy.

From www.allaboutturkey.com:

Eid-ul-Adha, Kurban Bayrami in Turkish (the "Feast of Sacrifice") is the great festival of Islam. It is also known as Baqri-Eid (the "Cow Festival") because its most important feature is the sacrifice of an animal (cow, goat, sheep, or other appropriate beast) in commemoration of the ram sacrificed by Abraham in place of his son. In Muhammad's time a camel was usually the animal sacrificed. The command to perform sacrifices is given in Surah 22.36 and although no specific day is fixed in the Qur'an the sacrificing of animals was already practiced on the last day of the pilgrimage by the pre-Islamic Arabs and the institution was duly retained. A special prayer, similar to the Eid-ul-Fitr prayer, is also offered on this day before the animals are sacrificed.

Narrated Al-Bara: I heard the Prophet delivering a Khutba (hutbe) saying, "The first thing to be done on this day (the first day of 'Id-ul-Adha) is to pray; and after returning from the prayer we slaughter our sacrifices (in the name of Allah), and whoever does so, he acted according to our Sunna (traditions) " (Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 2, p. 37).

Every Muslim home is obliged to offer a sacrifice on this day. The meat may be eaten by the family but a distribution of a generous share to the poor should also be made. As the two Eids (bayrams) are festive occasions, it is unlawful to fast on these days. Fasting on Eid-ul-Adha (Kurban Bayrami) would, in fact, defeat the whole object of the festival for food is to be eaten on this day with a cheerful heart in remembrance of God's bounty and provision for mankind. Umar once said:

The Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) prohibited fasting on these two days. As regards Id al-Adha, you eat the meat of your sacrificial animals. As for Id al-Fitr, you break (i.e. end) your fast. (Sunan Abu Dawud, Vol. 2, p. 663).

The name commonly given to the Eid sacrifice, qurbani (kurban), seems to have similar origins to the Jewish "Corban", meaning something set apart for God (Mark 7.11), and is probably derived from the Jewish word. Both Eids (bayrams) can last for two or three days but the prescribed rituals and prayers must be performed on the first day of each festival.

I'm just not sure exactly what happens after you purchase the
animal you want to sacrifice.

Dad and me at Ephesus (+ pix)

I took my Dad (Pastor Walt) to Ephesus today and I think he truly enjoyed it. I know I did. He's spent the last two months walking and working out in anticipation of this trip and we made it through the entire city including the residences on the slopes which had a lot more stairs than I remembered. Last night we also reread the passage in Acts where Paul faces an angry mob of silversmiths in the Grand Theater (seats 24,000) who were loyal to the Goddess Artemis and to see it through new eyes today was also a treat. Here are a few pix from the day:

Pastor Walt's first sermon to the Ephesian senate.

The Grand Theater...dang that's a lot of angry silversmiths.

EARTH QUAKE!!!!!

Hey everyone, this is Zach writing,

On Wednesday my Grandfather came to visit us in Turkey. The next night Grandpa and my dad were talking after dinner at the dinner table and I'm kind of lost in the conversation so I fell asleep on the table.
I had a bizarre dream that my family was talking about an earthquake and then an earthquake happened in my dream and then I woke up to a REAL earthquake!!! It felt a bit weird that the ground was shaking and I thought I was still dreaming until my mom started telling me to go to her under the door frame. So just in case you're still confused there was a real earthquake! It wasn't a strong one, it was only a 4.9 but it was still a bit scary.
Sorry I couldn't write a longer blog but its hard to write about something that only lasted about 5 seconds.

Hope to write more soon!

Bye.

Best view in the house

Every morning we get on the elevator with the sun coming up and are met with a breathtaking view. Here's a sampling of what we see out of our glassed in elevator from the 15th floor:

Turkish Navy ships commemorate Ataturk's death on Nov. 10, 1938.

The new Hyundais are here!!

No idea what special purpose this ship serves.

Tuesday, December 7th.  Notice the winter haze.

BTW, I just found this website for our apartment building and it has some pretty cool shots of the view from our building:  http://aksoy-residence.erdil.com.tr/

Lets get with the program (+pix)

(This is Jasmine writing) I have always been intrigued by solar power. In my mind I think, "who wouldn't love free, never ending power." The counter argument for solar power usually is that it takes too long to pay for itself to be worth it. The average amount of time for solar power to pay itself off is about 10 years in the U.S. OK, I think, that is a long time when you think about it in the now, but when you look at the big picture, 10 years is actually fairly short term. And as far as I know, most people plan on living another 10 years, meaning that they will be paying bills for another 10 years; and when the time comes that the solar power finally starts making money, you sure will be glad to have the extra dough in your pocket. Even if you don't plan on living in the same house for the next 10 years, you could sell it for more because whoever buys the house will never have to pay heating or electric bills. Now, the 10 year payoff is if you get the whole deal: electricity, water heating, everything. To heat water with solar power is actually pretty cheap and not that difficult to do.
      
It just baffles me that solar power is not more popular. What don't people understand about FREE?

Is it just Americans who don't grasp the concept? Ever since I have come to Turkey, I have been astounded by the number of dwellings that use solar power. Almost every building here uses the sun to heat their water. When I say nearly every building, I really mean every building. I have seen people who literally live in caves, have their solar water heaters just outside their "door". Turks living in the middle of nowhere with mud houses and thatched roofs have solar power too. Why is it that Americans don't think solar power is a good investment because it doesn't yield good returns, yet people in Turkey who live off of about $100 a week (Turkish minimum wage) find solar power a good investment? There is obviously something wrong with the U.S. system because solar power is very cheap here and everyone uses about the same setup. Our 18 story apartment building manages to provide everyone with hot water from solar power, using about the same system that one room houses in central Turkey use. In the U.S. a solar power set up can cost from 35-72 thousand dollars. How can solar companies in the U.S. charge these prices when the owner of our apartment paid about 25,000 dollars for a system that provides hot water for more than 70 people? Do U.S. companies have something the Turks don't that makes them more expensive? Do the American companies not understand that they will make more money if solar power is more affordable? If someone has the answer to this please email me because I just don't understand. 

[cave dwellers in Kapadokya using solar power]

    

Will the Americans please stop asking questions?

Just one more observation from Turkish class and then I'll leave it alone, I promise. 

I know I'm completely over-generalizing here but the Russians seem to really take to the memorization part while the Americans ask a million questions about why things must be so. Our teacher is always pleasant but seems to get equally frustrated with both sides. On the eastern half of the classroom she admonishes, "Stop translating Turkish into Russian, we don't think the same way." I'm pretty sure that's a true statement but this seemingly mindless (to an American at least) emphasis on rote memorization can take folks miles off course if they get it wrong somehow.

"Stop asking me why" she says to the Americans, "it's our Turkish language." I am daily reminded of the different learning styles and the fact that Americans in general are taught to ask why and to challenge the status quo. This is definitely not the traditional Turkish method of learning nor, as far as I can tell, the Russian approach. Lots of broad generalizations here but the clear vibe from the teacher is that the Americans just need to memorize more and ask less. Delving deeper is often misconstrued as questioning the teacher's authority.

The kids also come home with stories of impatient teachers who aren't in the mood for more challenging questions from the American kids. It's hard to know how to advise them since they are encouraged at school in the US to come up with reasons why or why not and to try and argue the "other" side of almost any issue. This is not cool, at least at school, so here we sit during mid-term week watching the kids memorize scads of stuff. Very interesting to see the difference between accumulating information and critical thinking. As a product of the latter you can guess my bias.

"What I did on my summer vacation..."

Tomorrow is my last day of Turkish 1 at Tomer Language School and it doesn't really make sense to take Turkish 2 although if we were here longer I would. These are intensive courses (4 hours per day plus more for homework) and missing even a day or two makes me feel like I'm hanging on to a tow rope with no skis on. Everyday we have to speak a few sentences and so today after learning the verbs meaning "to wake up" and "to look" my mind made an involuntary and ancient connection that I thought looked like a great opportunity to entertain the other Americans. 


When it was my turn to speak I started with "Birinci, uyaniyorum. Sonra, shehir merkesina geliyorum ve ish bakiyorum" which as every baby boomer knows comes from Sister Mary Elephant, one of the greatest comedy skits of all time by Cheech and Chong. Since we're only learning the present progressive tense it roughly translates into "First I am waking up. Then I am going downtown and I am looking for a job." After a comedic pause I laugh at my own joke and look at the other Americans. It's clear now in a way that it wasn't before that they are all about half my age, but still, thanks to iTunes and YouTube my kids listen to Zepplin and have a broad repertoire of lines from old SNL skits. Cheech and Chong anyone? They give me nothing, not even a glimmer of recognition. Cheech and Chong don't seem to have made it over the digital divide and now the teacher is giving me a look intended to make me feel like a junior high kid that's been caught passing notes. It works. 


Intolerance for old comedy routines aside, I'll miss the teacher and the class for all sorts of reasons. Everyday I would pick up some new tidbit of Turkish information and everyday I was amazed by how the students arranged themselves. For no particular reason, around a U-shaped table we sat with the 4 americans on the left or western side and the 6 Russians on the right or eastern side. I sit the furthest east of the Americans, interesting in and of itself, which also happens to be right next to the Russians at the bottom of the U. A Spaniard, a Syrian and a Serbian are scattered at the top of the U and our one Japanese student sits with the Americans while the only German sits just on the other side of the Russians. Even though two of the "Russians" are from the Ukraine the Americans imagine there is a certain kinship between the Eastern bloc folks. They sit there in their tight little group I'm sure imagining the same about us. Scary.

Comments from the non-blogger

Ok the pressure is on for me to write something........

I have been holding out so far because the other 4 bloggers have been busily writing away and covering most of the Schlichting adventures in Turkey. Also because it has probably taken me the longest to get my bearings and become a fan of the "turkish lifestyle".  Things have finally become routine and therefore given me a chance to think about what this trip means to me.  Having had some familiarity with the "eastern" lifestyle I can't say that I find the daily annoyances (e.g the maniacal driving and limited communication, lack of variety in grocery stores) as amusing as the rest of my family does.

However, watching the kids and Warren fall in line (and for some, in love) with this vastly different life than what we're used to in the U.S., has been both heart warming and amusing.   It gives me hope to see that the kids are so flexible that they have easily adapted to inconveniences such as sharing a bathroom between the 3 of them, and for 2 of them even sharing a room. Just the other day Zach said: "Mom I'm so glad we didn't bring our X-box, otherwise we wouldn't have spent so much time making paper airplanes"!!! (Not sure if he was being sarcastic, but I have a feeling it was sincere.) Sam has also said that he does't EVEN miss T.V. By now I'm thinking, WOW maybe this trip is having impact beyond what we set out for initially.

Being a psychotherapist it naturally makes me wonder how this has come to be, and why would 3 children raised with all the excess of U.S. lifestyle happily settle for, well, for lack of a better word, less?  For that I have a number of theories.  But the one I like to believe most is the "childcentric" approach that is obvious in most Eastern cultures and probably plays out at the kid's school, along with the simple life and relatively stress free togetherness that we have shared as a family. The latter has certainly been the biggest bonus for me and I can honestly say that after 2 months of togetherness we are still enjoying each other and looking forward to more. As much as certain quirks about living abroad have been hard, I know I will miss the simplicity and the children as we know them now, when our lives get back to normal.