Signs of Spring

It's here!  My favorite time of year!  It seems like just a couple of weeks ago we were snowed in and now the snow is gone and spring is creeping in!  I am just itching to get my hands dirty and plant some flowers.  The grocery store just got a bunch of pots and soil in and I told James that it took all my will power not to go buy some.  I think he was relieved that I held out because 1.  We already have about 500,000 pots for our 24 square foot balcony and any rational person would realize that we don't need any more, and 2. We're moving out of our house in only two and a half weeks so if I did plant flower seeds, we wouldn't even be here long enough to see them sprout!  

I took a little walk and snapped some shots of spring coming to our neighborhood.  

This is the mosque on the corner.  It has a beautiful garden around it.  Right now this tree is looking great and in a month or so the roses in the garden will start putting on a show that lasts all summer.  Actually, every building here has roses around it.  Miniature roses, giant roses, climbing roses.  Pink, red, yellow, orange, lavender, white, and peach roses.  You name it, and when it comes to roses I think you'll be able to find it in my neighborhood.  When they are all at their peak blooming time you can step outside and just smell roses in the air.  It's a BEAUTIFUL thing.  We'll be gone before the roses start blooming and that makes me sad.

But I can still enjoy these flowering trees.  I don't know what they are, but they sure are pretty.  

I don't know what it is about spring, but it just makes me really happy.  Maybe it's all the newness.  New leaves, new flowers, new... I don't know.... stuff.  everywhere.   Sheesh!  I wish I had some poetry skills at a time like this.

Everyday I Go For A Walk

Turkey is a great place in many many ways.  One thing I love about living here is the way our city actually encourages people to get out there and get in shape.  

Since I have such a wonderful and amazing husband who is willing to give me a chance to get out of the house while he watches the kids, every morning I go to the park for a walk.  Today I decided to take my camera.  Unfortunately, today it was raining so I can't show you all the people out there walking and exercising.  Apparently today I'm the only silly person who was willing to risk getting too cold.

The park is a couple of blocks away and it has a nice long walking track.  One lap is 3/4 mile.  On most mornings if you go out really early, like 7 am, this track is full of men walking and working out a little before heading off to work.  If you wait another hour you'll see more women out here.  I love that everyone gets out here and walks together.  Oh, and in case you can't tell by the picture, the track is made of that squishy rubbery stuff.  

Now here's the part I really really like.  Somewhere around two years ago our city started installing exercise equipment in the parks!  

There are stationary bikes and stair master type machines.  There are ski type machines and machines that you twist and pull and push.  I wish there had been people to photograph this morning, that would have made it much more interesting, but you get the idea.

Okay, so this next series of photos is obviously not from today.  But just to make this post a little more interesting I found these pictures from a couple weeks ago.  

This isn't the same park, its another one that's only about a block away.  This is the "I'm kind of trying to lose weight but I'm really out here to talk and gossip" exercise park.  I normally don't go to this one because everyone moves at such a slow pace and it's more about chatting it up than about getting some exercise, but on the day these pictures were taken, Elise and I were out "exercising" with some neighbors from our building. 

I love that I don't have to buy a gym membership to use these kinds of machines.  And I love being one of the many many people out here every morning walking.  It's fun.  I'm gonna miss this stuff while I'm gone.

A Car Accident and the Breathalyzer Test

James was in a car accident two days ago.  He's fine and considering that it could have been much worse, we think everyone else is fine too.  One woman was sent to the hospital with a possible broken leg and if we can get her address from the police, we're hoping to go visit her tomorrow.  I really don't feel like writing all the details of the whole yucky business of dealing with hours and hours with the police, James getting fingerprinted and having mug shots taken, ending up on the local news, having to get $1500 worth of repairs on a truck we're trying to sell, etc.  So I won't.

In all of this, though, there is this one fun gem that I just have to share.  It just shouts "Turkey" to me and is a good picture of the sometimes incomprehensible way things work here.

James was taken by the police across town to a building where he was going to be tested to see if he had consumed alcohol before the accident.  He thought maybe they would do a breath-alizer or maybe they'd take his blood.  He pictured himself having to walk along a straight line or say the alphabet backwards or one of those other alcohol test types of things.

After arriving he waited and waited, which he was expecting.  Then his turn finally came.  He stepped up to the main fellow in the room and...

Official Alcohol Level Checker Guy:  Alcohol?

James: Uh-uh (raising his eyebrows and clicking his tongue - the Turkish style negative).

Official Alcohol Level Checker Guy: Alcohol?

James: No.

Official Alcohol Level Checker Guy: Alcohol? (Really really loudly.)

James: No! (Really loudly.)

The man then went on to file a report that James was not under the influence of alcohol. 

Does something about this official test seem to be missing to you too?

Ugly Children Everywhere!

This being April fools day I thought it would be fitting to share a normal everyday part of Turkish life.  Let me tell you, those Turks, they're tricky.

After Elise was born Turks began coming up to me as I held her, smiling at her, and in a high pitched baby voice saying things like, "Oh!  You ugly ugly little baby!  Ugly!  Ugly!  I just want to eat you up!  You're such an ugly little thing.  Oh yes you are!"  Sometimes they'd even follow that by puckering their lips, sticking their tongue through and lightly spitting toward her.  And you know what?  My feelings were hurt.  I mean really, telling a new mom her baby is ugly?!  Those are fightin' words!

Elise would usually coo and smile right back at them, oblivious to the fact that they were insulting her.... Or were they??

Here in Turkey, there is this thing, this force, called the nazar.  I think in English it's called the evil eye.  After many many conversations about it, this is the best I can do at understanding it:  Everything has to be balanced.  So if there is too much good attention on something then a bad thing will happen to it in order to balance it out.  That force that balances things out by causing bad things to happen to them is the nazar.  

For example, my friend Nur lost some weight and started styling her hair differently.  She was looking really good and went out to visit her relatives in the village.  Lots of people commented on how good she looked, then when she was washing dishes a plate slipped out of her hand and broke on the floor.  According to Nur, that was the nazar.  And Nur was happy that the plate broke because if it hadn't something worse would probably have happened to her.  Sickness, an accident, death... who knows.  But the point is that a bad thing happened to her to balance the good attention.  

Here's another example:  My first language helper, Sumru, told me that when her baby was born some people came to visit.  They sat in her house, admired her beautiful baby, then they left.  When she closed the door behind them she heard a crash in the kitchen.  A bunch of glasses had fallen off the shelf and broken.  The nazar.

So when people come up to me and tell me what an ugly baby I have, it's really a trick.  They're trying to somehow trick this balancing force, the nazar, into thinking the baby is ugly, because if the baby gets too much good attention then something bad might happen to her. I think they even pretend to spit on her to protect her from the force of the nazar. 

 The thing is that they know, and I (now) know that they're really saying she's super cute.  They're really just doing everything in their power to protect the little peanut from that mean old ever-present nazar. 

There is WAY WAY more about this nazar business I'd love to share with you, and maybe one day I will, but for now this will have to do.  I've gotta keep it short because ...

I have only 24 days until I move out of my house and 29 days until I leave for America and I've gotta pack!!!

Oh.  Just one more thing... While Sumru (from my second example) told me about the Nazar, James was with Elise, who was a new baby, in another room.  A little later James brought Elise out and Sumru saw her for the first time.  Sumru ooohed and aawwed over Elise and DIDN'T say Elise was ugly because she knew I wouldn't understand that and she didn't want to offend me.  Instead she told me what a beautiful baby I had.  Later on Sumru left and I heard a crash in the kitchen.  I went in the room only to discover that a mug had by itself fallen off the counter and shattered all over the floor.  Hmmm......