Dan in Turkey

Ankara’dan.

I guess you could read that as “Ankara Dan,” but in Turkish it means “From Ankara,” and that is from where you are receiving this blog entry. We’ve been in the city for about three weeks now. It’s been an exciting challenge for all of us. There is the usual initial stumbling and fumbling of orienting oneself to a new place, new friends, new teachers or colleagues, in a new city in a strange land. Once you get past the discomfort of being constantly confused, it can be rather adventurous. The students are far braver than I, and have ventured far into the city, have combed the two campuses (Bilkent University and Middle East Technical University), and have even taken an impromptu jaunt down to the Mediterranean (an 8-hour bus ride jaunt, each way!) for a weekend. Of course, they have had some help. They have Turkish student hosts and the International Studies departments of the two universities showing them the ropes.

For me it’s been a bit different. I’ve largely been on my own trying to figure things out. When I’m really stuck, of course, I can call someone in the International Students office for help, but generally I like the challenge of figuring things out myself. With a little bit of bad Turkish and many hand gestures, I’ve managed to explore the campus on which I live (Bilkent), the neighboring malls and shopping centers, and even take a jaunt or two into Ankara itself (the campuses are on the city’s outskirts, but provide free bus service into the city).

So here are some of my big accomplishments over the last three weeks:

1. Bought a reading lamp and the right sized light bulb

2. Sewed a button on my trousers (all by myself!)

3. Found the gym and worked out several times (ah so nice!)

4. Threw a Pizza/Birthday Party at my apartment (lojman) for one of the students

5. Spent days cleaning up after said party

6. Actually found and purchased clothes in my size, and they even look good!

7. Figured out the bus systems (sort of)

8. Fixed my shower (again, all by myself—ah, duct tape!)

9. Figured out how to have drinking water delivered to my lojman (carrying several gallons up the 45 degree hill from the shopping center once or twice a week was growing OLD fast!)

10. Have cooked myself countless wonderful meals all seeming to involve in some way, shape, or form the magical ingredient of tuna

11. Procured a library card (and oh, was THAT an ordeal—seven different forms stamped by seven different offices, and I can still only check out books--“DVDs yok”– no DVDs. I recall it is this region that gives us the English word “Byzantine”).

12. Met some wonderful folks in the philosophy department and am enjoying sitting in on a Logic class (as much as anyone other than the great “B” Hisself can be said to actually “enjoy” logic)

13. Met some more wonderful folks who, like me, are relatively new visiting faculty/staff. We’re all taking a Turkish for Dummies class that started just this week, and we’re having a ball.

14. And the biggest accomplishment: finally rounded up all my students and got them to give me their schedules and contact information so we could set up a weekly time to meet for the course I’m teaching them on Turkish History and Civilization. THAT was a major ordeal, but we did it. We’ll be meeting Tuesday nights here at my lojman for class and snacks. It will be good to see them—once a week.

Otherwise, there’s not much to report. I love my lojman; it has a fantastic view of the city in the distance, and I love sitting out on my upper floor balcony late in the evening, smelling the pines, listening to the silence, looking at the city lights, and smoking my pipe. Oh, I almost forgot to mention my biggest accomplishment: I actually found the ONLY pipe tobacco (“pipo tütün”) in all of Turkey! I’m a happy camper when I have my “pipo.” Now I just need a cat.

For pics you can go here.

As always, thanks for reading and thanks for you emails. ---D

# posted by Dan Shaw @ 7:29 AM