Hi All - well it’s been a week or so since I wrote last, and I’ve had some ups and downs along the way, both literally and metaphorically.
I moved from Maslak to Beyoğlu, which basically means that I gave up a clean bright room in a quiet apartment with a friendly woman who loved to cook for me to move into a tiny hostel room with one window (but it’s a big window) a damp spot in the wall/floor from the shower on the other side, and a weird smelling pillow and lots of noise both inside and out. BUT it’s much easier to get back and forth to school from here. Plus it has forced me to be more independent in getting around, buying food, talking to people. Though actually for the past couple days I’ve been on overload so I do very little of all of that. Sometimes I just buy bread and cheese and fruit and eat in my room, blissfully alone.
I’ve had one other small setback, in that I had a small tumble down the stairs here at the hostel one day when I was moving my things from the first floor to the third floor (room is cleaner, and more light, but still smells odd, and has the same damp spot). The problem was that I was intent on bringing my mattress with me, because despite all the other benefits to the 3rd floor room, the mattress was significantly worse. It’s just a twin-bed size, but it didn’t fit in the tiny elevator so I hauled one up the stairs and then hauled the other back down. By myself, which was dumb, but I was hoping the manager wouldn’t notice and there wasn’t anyone else around. The stairs are partially spiral (so some are wedge-shaped rather than rectangular), the stairwell is dark, and the stairs themselves are made of beautiful but *hard* old Turkish marble. Well, I did fine on the way up, but ended up slipping rather hard on the way down. Total damage: three bruised knuckles on my left hand with a cut on the index finger with an ugly bruise under the nail, and a really sore right thigh muscle that makes it painful to walk up or down stairs (but I’m okay on level ground). The first morning after the fall I woke up pretty achy all over, but today it’s just the hand and the thigh pain that are still lingering. I’ll survive, though it is another excuse why I’m happy to just sit around and read and do homework and write emails today rather than go wander.
Last Tuesday was my first Teaching Practice, and it was actually rather easy. Because Monday night was my first night at the hostel, I didn’t sleep well at all (I’ve since solved the funny smelling pillow problem by buying my own pillowcase. Now I’m daydreaming about a new fitted sheet and duvet cover, ah) so for the teaching practice on Tuesday I think I was too tired to be nervous. But I think I did fine. I had the easiest part - the first 20 minutes of the lesson where you do introductions and little icebreakers that help everyone get to know each other.
Tomorrow I’m doing my second Teaching Practice, and this will be more involved: 30 minutes of reading exercises on the topic of people’s Routines and Habits (so we are using the present simple verb tense and the adverbs of frequency, as in: I get up at 6:30 am every day or I go to the movies sometimes.) I’m learning a lot of teaching lingo. I don’t think I ever heard the phrase “adverbs of frequency” before, though certainly I know what they are. After tomorrow, I will be doing Teaching Practice just once a week, on Fridays, for the next four or five weeks. But there will be plenty of other work to do as well…
I have made a couple phone calls to try to visit one of the synagogues here and it’s been pretty difficult. It’s hard to find someone who speaks English, and when they do, they just ask “visit or prayer?” - they are accustomed to tourists who want to come just one time, but I think this situation of coming and staying is a little unusual and their English vocabulary can’t encompass it. But I figured out the first step: I have to fax my passport information (a photocopy of the first page of my passport) plus my local address & phone number to the Chief Rabbinate, and then they will call and give me permission. They did say that I could go to Friday night services at the one Ashkenazi syangogue which is near me (somewhere but who knows where) or Saturday morning services at Neve Shalom, which is also near me. I actually found that one, but it was while I was wandering and already lost, so I have no idea if I can get myself back there or not. So who knows how this will go, and whether I’ll ever become welcome anywhere. And if I do get there, if I will have any clue what to do. I did learn from one person, wanting to be helpful, that “Pesach bread” is available everywhere at the appropriate time. She meant matzah, I’m sure. So that’s handy to know, though what I will be doing for Pesach, if anything, is unknown.
There is one German woman in my class named Selma who I have been enjoying talking to. I haven’t quite figured out her history as to why she’s here, but she’s been in Istanbul for a while and unlike the rest of us, doesn’t seem to have money issues. (Unlike with the others, rather than talking about the boring Where are you from, Why are you here stuff, we’ve talked about culture and art and New York vs. Istanbul and she even gave me a newspaper she’d finished reading one day - bliss!) Anyway, she told me about a couple groups called something like “International Women in Istanbul” and another for some other category of women, that meet every couple weeks or so. It’s a way to make some friends besides just in this narrow community of teachers and without having to be fluent in Turkish language and customs. She said they are useful for when you first arrive but eventually she said you find them boring. So maybe I will check that out.
I suppose you’re all expecting great insights into Turkish culture and daily life, but so far I don’t have a lot to share in that regard, because I don’t really talk to a lot of Turkish people other than teach them English and the little I manage when I’m buying food etc. There is one custom I find endearing: that men will walk down the street arm in arm with each other. I think this is done in Arabic countries as well, but of course it’s not done at all in the US. I find it charming, a nice display of warmth between friends. Women do it with each other as well. And of course you see plenty of PDA between the sexes too, but always from younger people. Also, on my street, one night when I was walking home after dark, I happened to peek into a narrow doorway and saw this tiny cafe filled with men, with a haze of smoke hovering at the ceiling. They were all playing cards or tabla (backgammon) and my impression was this is what they do every night after dinner, all gather in this tiny place to chat and relax together. No women of course. I haven’t figured out where the women go.
Overall, over the past almost two weeks, I feel like my life has narrowed a bit rather than expanded. Probably partially due to the fact that I am now so much less frequently on the internet. I find it difficult to get news (in English) so I hardly know what’s going on in the rest of the world. Whereas before I could easily get information from all over the world, think on it and come up with grandiose thoughts and ideas, now I’m just trying to figure out how to buy bread and water (ok, and baklava!), how to refill my akbil (like a MetroCard, for the subway) and how to slowly expand my world without getting lost turning every corner. I keep telling myself that it’s okay that it’s a slow process, since I’m going to hopefully be here for a long time. Very different from my last visit, a holiday, when I just breezed in and out pretty much, and had the benefit of a native speaker with me for much of the time.
Also, most of the people I talk to these days are English teachers, and they are definitely a unique and somewhat “inbred” community. These are the people that travel the world, often just staying in one place for 6-12 months at a time. Their conversations revolve pretty much around these topics: Where are you from? Where have you been? Where are you going next? Where is a good place to stay in ____? Where can I find ____ really cheap? Any information about ___ school in ____? And then the ubiquitous discussions about the insane policies of the US. So conversations with these people aren’t all that enlightening either. 
But I’ve done some classroom observations and these people are good and confident teachers. I guess they are mostly younger than me (but not all!) and so don’t seem to mind living from a backpack and being mostly broke as they wander around. The older ones I’ve noticed are a bit more settled, living in apartments rather than the hostels and staying for a year or two. This seems more sane to me. I learned that my instructor Amanda has been here in Istanbul for nine years. Someone asked her about her husband and she replied that she doesn’t have one, which surprised the enquirer but made me happy. So I’m going to invite her to dinner one night (if it’s okay to fraternize with my instructor before the course is over) and chat her up a bit, I have a feeling she’s got interesting stories to tell. I like her a lot because she seems like a normal genuine person, without a lot of the ego trappings of these other wandering teachers.
Well I’ve got about two more months of this course and hopefully closer to the end I will have some idea of what I might like to do next. Stay in Istanbul? Go to another part of Turkey (Ankara? Izmir? Antalya?) Or go somewhere else altogether? I’m going to look into maybe getting some tutoring work while I’m here in school, just for a little extra spending $. Plus it would give me a chance to actually talk to someone in Turkish again.
BTW we had daylight savings time switch last weekend, so until this coming sat there is an 8 hour time difference from NY to Istanbul, and then it will go back to the normal 7.
Hugs all ’round,
Rebecca
