adopted part II

İstanbul, Turkey

A lesson in asking females in the middle east for directions. It's a very good idea if you want to be adopted. I was walking around Boğazaçi university looking for the library and asked someone for directions. Her name is Figen. I ended up going to her dorm, the "superdorm." We had dinner in the cafeteria in the bottom. I guess it's to be expected in turkey, but the cafeteria served turkish food! I want a cafeteria like that. Although if lenoir tried I'm sure they'd botch it. Then I went up to her room and we talked for a really long time and had tea. Tea is served at any social ocasion and that seems to include hanging out in dorms. The dorm is set up in suites with four bed rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen! and a common room. And all the rooms are singles. So then we actually did go to the library about 3 hours after I set out and she even checked out books for me. It remains to be seen if I can convince myself to do some scholarly reading on housing in Istanbul.

I've also been adopted into the sufi community here. They have an organization called the Turkish Women's Organization that I'm doing volunteer work with. Today I got to sit in the front of a truck and make food deliveries to families. That truck got down some sketchy roads. Saturday I'm supposed to be doing something else but I'm not exactly sure what it is. A woman named Cemalnur (you say c like j in turkish) is the leader and teacher or hocam. Tuesday I went with her and some of her peoples to her mother's sohbet or gathering. Although I didn't really understand the reading it was still interesting to be there, and then they fed everyone amazing food. At some point I might be helping kids learn english, but I'm not sure when that's going to happen. Planning more than a day or two ahead doesn't seem to be too big here which is fine once you accept it.

My family seems to be ever extending. I have an uncle in Turkey. His name is Hasan and he's known me since I was two years old. He's known my mom since she was 27. Once upon a time he was a teacher, but for a very long time he's been selling carpets in the kapalı çarsı or covered bazaar. If you ever visit Istanbul, and are in the market for a carpet he's the best guy to go to.

There have been basketball games on TV the last few nights. It's some kind of tournament. Most of the players are turkish, but there's one I keep seeing named Jerry Holman. Definatly not turkish. And when they interview him at the end of the game they interview him in english which I find funny. It was great, he refered to his coach as hocam. It's also really funny to hear the comentator mention his name during the game because it sounds so odd in the middle of a turkish sentence. Anyways, I was way excited to get to watch some basketball.

I'd like to share that I can now legally drink in any country (saudi arabia etc excluded because no one can drink there). I spent a lot of my birthday at a school of traditional arts and was taught the basics of arabic caligraphy. It's way harder than it looks. I did have my traditional meatballs...turkish style. I went out that night with my friend Alev. And bought myself a chocolate and cherry birthday cake that I proceeded to eat in it's entirety in 3 days (it was a small cake). It was a pretty great birthday, but I'm definatly having a party when I get home :)