Confessions of an eager vacationer

 

 

For this entry I collected excerpts from personal emails I recently wrote to my colleagues or friends who are not using this blog.

 

Excerpt one from a letter on life in Izmir and work/school

 

Our life here in Izmir is slowly getting more settled; however, I can't help feeling that it is only temporary. My parents have made me feel very welcome in their apartment, and the kids and I are enjoying being looked after. It's nice having so much love and support from my sister and niece, my parents and grandmother all at once.

 

As far as quality of education is concerned, the school proved to be one of the best in Izmir, but as a work place it is FAR from ideal. I was assigned middle school grades 5, 6, 7 in all three levels - beginner, intermediate and advanced. I have 27 teaching hours all together during the week, and I teach 9 different levels, each with their own multiple books assigned. The classes are only 40 minutes long though, so by the time you greet students and take the roll, it leaves you about 35 minutes for actual instruction. The teaching is very inflexible and non-communicative. All the great methodology and skills I  have accumulated both in the previous teaching years and especially during the teacher training sessions have to be temporarily put aside. I have been given detailed lesson plans for the first four weeks of the semester, and I am expected to follow those plans to the minute detail. On one hand, it may prove practical because considering my schedule, preparing a lesson plan for 27 lessons a week for 9 different levels may be overwhelming; on the other hand, though, I have to throw out the door all the notions of student centered individualistic approach, forget about spontaneity and creativity. Anyone who knows me at least a little bit will agree on how demotivating this is for me. Another issue is, of course, behavior. Some of the kids are uncontrollably rude and disrespectful. I already had to show them my 'other' face (which before I showed on very few occasions :)), and,  hopefully, it will be enough to keep them in place for the rest of the year. My new colleagues are very nice and very helpful; however, in general, there's very little support for new instructors. You pretty much have to figure things out on your own. Because the school has multiple campuses and the managements is only located in the main campus, on other campuses there is lack of direction and there is no one to really tell you anything definite. The time table is a nightmare. The first week of classes I saw some students more than five times a week, and didn't see some at all. Sometimes, I had to go into the classroom unprepared at the last minute because there was no other instructor available to go in. Anyway, the first week was very trying. On top of general lack of direction and organization, instructors are expected to provide their own supplies and technology. I was given one board marker!!!! We are advised to project material on the board and play CDs, but the classrooms have neither computers nor speakers. All the instructors bought their own laptops and speakers (imagine that), and are carrying their stuff around from classroom to classroom. Spoilt by my previous places of employment, I, naturally, refused to provide my own technology and gave them a kind of ultimatum that if I don't get a laptop and speakers, I won't be using technology at all. Luckily, they provided me with both the next day. There are other very illogical, impractical and at times simply stupid policies that are in place at the school which I am not very eager to follow. I'm afraid I may get fired from this job before the year ends for not showing enough flexibility and not being willing to conform! I feel quite a revolutionary at the moment! :)

From all of the above it is not hard to guess that it will be very hard for Eldeniz and me to readjust to living in Turkey. Life here has deteriorated much since we left, and even since 2014, when we visited last. Everyone is trying to leave, or at least, to find a way to send kids away. I am already thinking of when or how or where I can go. However, I think it was good for us to return now. The kids are enjoying being with family. Eldeniz's Turkish and Russian have improved even in the past three weeks, but there is a general feeling among us all that it is just a temporary vacation for us here. My mom is already making plans to finally quit her job and come and stay with us more in the US.

...
 I miss Fayetteville so much, especially the calm and peacefulness of its parks, lakes and trails. I have never been a very outdoorsy person, but here, living among cement and dust, I long for more nature. Going to the seaside was a temporary relief. Here, in the suburbs of Izmir and on the seashore of the Aegean you involuntarily feel the presence of something great - in the splashing of the waves onto the sandy beaches, in the breeze coming from the surrounding picks, in the rustling of the palm trees. You pick up a pebble washed onto the beach a moment ago by the surf and imagine some two and a bit thousand years ago perhaps Alexander the Great stood right at this spot and pickled up this pebble. In the distance, you can see very subtle silhouettes of the Greek islands and think that someone on the other side of the bay- a Greek woman or child or old man perhaps- may be waving at you. I am posting below a picture of the surf at dusk I took a few days ago. 

Excerpt two from a letter to a friend on our Izmir diet :)

  

With so many people now living in my parents' house we naturally cook food ALL THE TIME! Below I am giving you some ideas regarding our diet here in Izmir. We consume here a LOT of herbs! Every Friday is pazar day, or market day, in my mom's neighborhood, so a few blocks from her house from about 8 am to 8 pm you can find any seasonal fruit or vegetable your heart, or stomach, can desire. The prices are cheap compared to Fay. Anyway, on average in our household we go down to the market several times. At first, my mom and my grandma make an early trip to buy herbs. And buy herbs they do! Mint, purple basil, fennel, parsley, young celery greens (very tender and not at all crunchy) complete with enormous celery roots, spinach, scallions are the usual set. They buy a few bunches of each. On Saturday, my grandmother spends the whole day washing and mincing them. Usually, they either make it into a 'green borsch' ( I don't have a picture of it, but just to let you know, the soup is literally green, has chunks of potatoes and a few hard boiled eggs in it), a green sauté  of some sort to be served over rice or with meat, or a simple frittata. You can also make borek, or stuffed pastries, but the women in our family are too lazy for that at the moment! :) Also, I highly recommend sautéed celery roots. In Fay you can get them at Whole Foods. Two or three good size roots will make you a lovely side dish. Simply, clean, peel and dice the celery root and a carrot or two if you wish, place all into a sauté pan with a little bit of water and salt and cook until tender adding water as needed. Remove from heat, add olive oil, black pepper and chopped parsley to taste. Let cool if you wish before serving! Enjoy!

From our Izmir diet - the red blob is a tomato :) and in the left corner the celery dish I explained above. Highly recommended! :)

 

 

 

The beach at dusk. 

A view from my window

Today I opened a window into my soul and found that it's not there. It must be wandering somewhere in between where I used to be and where I am physically present now. I feel invisible to the bustling world around me. My new colleagues, the noisy children in their classrooms, the people crowding public transportation, the paddlers on the streets... none can see me because I do not exist in their dimension. And yet, I talk to them, yell at them as I never though that I could yell, push them away, buy something from them. It's a strange sensation to feel!

The gipsy settlement is right across from my parents' house on the other side of the railroad. Today, there is a concert of some sort. There is loud dancing music and a male voice is shouting something. We have just entered nine days of the Sacrifice holiday. The only significance it has for my family is that we get to stay home!!! Yay! And yes, my dad said the prices in the shops were a bit lower so people could buy food for their festivities. My mom came radiant the other day saying that President Erdogan gave all pensioners one extra salary to celebrate their holiday. She sarcastically joked that now she would have to vote for him in the next elections! :) Unfortunately, my dad rushed to disappoint her that it wasn't an extra salary but merely a pre-holiday payment of her regular one. She put the money back onto her account the next day! You can guess that she won't vote for Erdogan in the next elections even sarcastically! :)

Life in Izmir is slowly dragging me in. Even though my phone shows Izmir weather, it still is set to Fayetteville time. It's 5:09 pm on Saturday. It's 1:09 am here on Sunday. The crickets are chirping outside quite like they would in the trees in front of our apartment in Fay. Do crickets chirp, btw?  Tomorrow my dad is taking us to the beach. We'll be away for three days. Considering that it's 100 degrees in here these days, the trip will be a pleasant escape from the heat and the dust of the city. Expect some pictures soon from the picturesque landscapes of the Aegean coast. The kids will be thrilled, I'm hoping.

I still haven't written about my new place of work. It deserves a post of it's own, believe me. It seems things are slowly settling down there as well. They are desperately in need of a firm hand, though, for it lacks in organization. It was quite a madhouse there last week. In fact, nobody is officially in charge of anything, but when things get though, everyone blames everything on the English instructors! Quite an ideal place to work, isn't it? :)

Anyway, I am posting some fresh pictures from last Friday. First is the view of the campus where Eldeniz and I go from a café across; then, a pictures of the goodies you can get in the café. (Here I need to mention that one positive thing about Turkey is that being a teacher gives you immediate status with regular folk. Hocam or 'my teacher' is the accepted form of address, and with it come all the privileges and lots of respect.) And finally, there are Eldeniz and I at the Friday after school ceremony to commemorate Izmir's liberation from the enemy forces on September 9th I forget which year. Enjoy! :)

And this last one is for those wondering how the boys are doing! This is a new bunk bed we bought for them in my mom's very  non-child-friendly house! They love it! :)

Animal stories

A stray cat hissed at Kerim the other day. He got shocked and nearly cried. Now, we only 'pet' stray animals from a distance. He says mommy cat, mommy dog, but doesn't reach to pet anymore. There is a gang of large stray dogs that live in my parents' neighborhood. They have been feeding them for years, so the dogs now regard them as 'own'. My sister says once you approach the neighborhood, they appear from nowhere and escort you right to the door. It's good considering that my sister and mom usually return home in the dark. The dogs have become our guards. They look scary, but are quite trustworthy.

My dad wants to get us a puppy. None of the house dwellers object.

Nostalgic reminiscences

The kids love being with family! Today on the way home from school ( a big disappointment for both of us so far!) Eldo said that he changed his mind about Turkey. Now, he only likes the freshly squeezed juice (a dollar per cup at a nearby store - apple, carrot, orange, or any other fruit mix you can imagine), delicious food and the family.

Living with my parents is very nice. It's great to wake up to a freshly brewed cup of tea and sip it quietly in the kitchen with my mom; it's even better to come home to a ready meal in the evening. My sister and niece also occasionally pop in to say a quick hello and spend time with the kids. Kerim is oozing with pleasure from so much attention. His grandpa takes him for walks in the mornings and he spends the rest of his day playing, watching Turkish cartoons, or terrorizing my grandma. (My grandma looked much worse a week ago. She seemed burdened and awfully quiet; almost like she was between the worlds. Today though I noticed that she became much livelier. Being around the kids has returned her back to life. She seems almost back to normal now! :)))

Eldo hated the school today.  He is used to hands-on communicative learning, so he is bored by traditional Turkish teacher centered instruction. The teachers come in, talk, talk, talk and leave, he summarized his day. School lasts abominable eight hours from 8:45 to 4:40 with a 45 minute lunch break in the middle. Eldo was completely beat today. I am considering perhaps moving him to a government school, which lasts from 8 to 1 pm usually.

Izmir has changed for the worse, or did I already write about that? The streets are dusty, uneven and filled with trash, especially in certain neighborhoods. But the worst adjustment for us is getting used to the noise - people yelling, cars honking, construction machinery working through the night and most of the day, people talking on the phone in metro, my dad watching TV loudly in the living room! I miss the quietude of Fayetteville! I dream of the lakes, parks, the bike trail... I do not need the bustling life of a big metropolis to be happy; quite contrarily, I long for solitude and closeness to nature. I think the kids do too!

An Ode to Humanity

It's been a week since we left Fayetteville. I thought if I don't write today, I will never start this blog. It's almost 11 pm here in Izmir, and tomorrow morning I need to be at work at 8 am for the start of school ceremony. Private schools in Turkey start a week before state schools do, so Eldo and I have had almost no time to get mentally ready for this. We will see what tomorrow brings. I will be teaching 27 hours a week to 5, 6 and 7th graders of three different levels. In total, I have 9 different levels all with their own different curricula and books! A lot of the stuff I learned about my new employment is absurd. But this interesting matter I will discuss later. Now is all about our trip.

I knew it would be hard to leave good old Fay, and indeed, the city clang to us with all its might. We spent half the day on Sunday trying to fly to Chicago. First they couldn't check all our luggage all the way to Izmir (which would have meant that I would have to leave the secure zone in Munich (without having a Schengen visa), go get my luggage and recheck it till Izmir. I almost went mad. When finally the luggage matter got resolved and we  went through security with all the kids, strollers, and an abundance of carry-ons, and having said tearful good-buys to friends at the airport, Chicago stopped accepting due to inclement weather! So, we had to go back home with fresh tickets for Monday!!!! By the time we finally left the next day, all of us, the departing and the remaining, were eager for us to finally leave!

If you've never traveled alone with two kids and tons of luggage on a intercontinental voyage, don't even dare! If you have, you will certainly feel compassion. It may be that I felt so miserable being a single mom all through the journey that I imagined inquisitive looks in the eyes of all the travelers and airport personnel around me. Truth be told, I didn't see another woman travelling alone with kids. There were lots of families with moms, dads, and bunches of kids, moms accompanied by other adults and bunches of kids, and it felt very lonely being alone. The kids were brave and stoically overcame all the difficulties of the trip. They slept, played, laughed, threw up, crawled through dirty passages in airports, occasionally kicked the seats of passengers in front of us, and talked to strangers. And it is to those strangers that I am dedicating the first entry in my blog!

First, it was a kind U of A student travelling for his study abroad year in Moscow who first noticed that I had too much on my hands. He kindly carried half of my carry on luggage to another part of the O'Hare. Incidentally, he was also flying with Lufthansa. Here, I was both grateful and a little ashamed. Why I was grateful is clear, but the feeling of shame may need clarification. Our parents teach us to always be attentive at airports and never trust anyone. This young kind youth was carrying my bags, and all I did was watch him with a keen eye to see if perhaps he was going to take something out of or put something in one of my bags. He even offered to watch our bags for us while the kids and I went to eat, but, naturally, I said 'no'. I think I offended him a little bit, so I am ashamed of myself for not trusting him enough. On the other hand, I know I was right since in the world of today even a kind Samaritan is received with suspicion.

Next came a stout gentlemen who helped us eat. Imagine having a stroller with Kerim, Eldo carrying his backpack and roller, me carrying Kerim's bag, my own roller, computer bag and bag, two kid's meals, a hamburger, and three drinks in a cup holder. Now count the number of hands! :) The guy helping us looked very puzzled at the abundance of stuff in front of him, and kindly offered to carry something. We ended up devouring our burgers on the floor across from McDonalds for lack of other options! McDonald's at O'Hare doesn't have any seating.

Then, a middle aged German lady approached me suddenly while the kids and I were waiting for our Munich flight. She asked if I would mind letting her assist me with the children while boarding the plane and during flight. How very nice of her. She spoke with a slight German accent, and perhaps was a grandma back home. Unfortunately, she was going to Frankfurt!

Then, I left Eldo to watch our luggage to take Kerim to the bathroom for emergency. I couldn't have gathered all luggage and kids together to get there in time.  A kind American grandma assured that she would keep an eye on my boy! I know I was careless leaving an eight-year-old to watch luggage by himself in a crowded waiting area, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I am so grateful and slightly surprised that all three of us, plus the multifarious luggage, got to Turkey safely!

Last but not least, there was an American traveling to Izmir in Munich. He also requested the privilege of carrying our carry-ons. All in all, a mom and two kids can relocate to another country on their own provided that they meet some very kind and helpful Samaritans along the route.  There is hope to humanity after all! :)

p.s. An idle customs officer in Izmir, having watched me come and go through the doors carrying each of my bags one by one, finally condescended to ask me what could one woman have in so many bags ( a ridiculous questions, isn't it?) and upon being satisfied that there were three passengers all together and not just one with six bags, he apologized. It never occurred to him, though, to offer help!