rebecca soble

This is my third year in Turkey but it will be my first full Ramazan (Ramadan), as in both previous autumns my visits home overlapped with this special month of the year, though not intentionally.  So this year I’m gearing up for the full experience.  Though let me clarify that “the full experience” will not include me actually following the Ramadan practices (though I might once or twice, when I’m not working) but observing and experiencing what happens around me.

For those who don’t know the practice, observant Muslims follow Ramadan by not partaking of any food, drink (including water), cigarettes, gum, or sex during daylight hours for the course of the month, and tend to be more observant of the five-times-per-day prayers as well.   Each day starts in the wee hours with the banging of a drum in the streets to wake people up to eat before sunrise.  They get up early enough so that they can eat slowly and thoroughly, at least I hope they do.  And then after a day of sacrifice, everyone comes together for the iftar, the meal that ends the fast after sunset.  This is a celebratory and festive meal, best partaken with lots of family and friends to support each other through the month.  For the people who have to break their fast alone, I imagine it isn’t as enjoyable an experience.  Because the Islamic calendar does not coincide with the Gregorian calendar, the month of Ramadan moves through the seasons over time.  In recent years, Ramadan has been in the autumn, when the days were relatively short, making the fasting a bit easier.  This year, coinciding exactly with the month of September, the fast-day is getting longer and I’ve already heard several people comment about how it gets longer and harder every year….

Of course, there are a lot of non-observant Muslims who won’t be following Ramadan (just like there are plenty of Catholics who don’t observe Lent and Jews who skip Yom Kippur – and Emrah is Alevi, so he doesn’t observe Ramadan either) but I’ve been asking around in preparation and several of my students will be fasting.   For the ones whose lessons are in the 8-10pm time frame, they’ll have time to eat something before their lessons (the sunset time will start around 7:45 at the beginning of Ramazan and gradually get earlier over the course of the month) though it obviously can’t be a complete iftar meal because of lack of time, but I’m a bit concerned for the ones whose lessons are in the 5-8 time frame, the very end of the day when they will be at their most hungry, thirsty, most caffeine-and-nicotine-deprived.  Not really conducive for learning, so I might have to modify my lessons a bit.

Out on the street, it will pay to be a bit more careful in traffic, as drivers who already have a rather high baseline of impatience and scofflawdom (if that isn’t a word it should be) will be even more so, especially later in the day.  Also I wonder about the overall levels of productivity and whether Ramadan is visible as a blip in the quarterly GDP of predominantly Muslim countries.  Do companies make allowances for fasting employees?  What about ones who work with dangerous factory equipment or need to make split-second important decisions or be very detailed about accounting figures?  How many more mistakes will there be, and will any be life- or business-threatening?   I actually have no idea what percentage of people observe Ramadan in Istanbul, I would guess a lower percentage than in the rest of Turkey, but still a significant number.

At the end of the month, there is a 3-day holiday called Şeker Bayramı (Sugar Holiday) which apparently is a big hooplah.  I have three days off from work so I’ll have to find somewhere to go, something to do.

Well that’s about all for Ramazan, starting tomorrow morning.  I’m clearly not a food photographer, but here is a picture of the dinner I ate tonight:  mucver (zucchini patties), cold carrot salad (sauteed with olive oil), and wheat grains.  I had been eating the wheat in a cold yogurt soup and had some leftover.  Plus yogurt and cold tea.   Hugs to all my friends and family!  xoxo!

A little of this, a little of that… a roundup of the last month-ish. Mostly working … a fair bit of walking … not enough knitting! Now that the weather is nice, all I want to do is sit outside in parks or outdoor cafes, watching people and ferries come and go and KNIT KNIT KNIT. And drink tea.

My work schedule is now at maximum (24 teaching hours plus travel time) but since all but one class is 1-1 students, every week I have a cancellation or two that eases the load. I’ve been walking to and from work more often now that the weather is warm. It’s about a 40 minute walk total over easy terrain except I’m still befuddled about the correct etiquette for passing people on the sidewalk. The rule seems to be “The foreign lady should step off the curb into the street while the three turks walk down the sidewalk arm in arm with 17 bags completely oblivious to anyone else on the sidewalk”.

A few weeks ago Emrah and I rode a new ferry (for me), from Beykoz meydanı to Yeniköy, and then had a nice twilight walk to Istinye and back. I took a picture of the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge, keeping the shutter open extra long because of the dark. And then we drank some tea.

Last weekend it was raining, so after giving up on a plan to go to Camlıca, we ended up at DenizAtı Cafe above the Kadıköy iskele (ferryboat terminal) reading the newspapers and watching the ferries. I worked on the crossword puzzle – in Turkish – and actually got five answers! The problem isn’t understanding the clues, which are relatively simple to read, but thinking of ANOTHER word that means the same thing. Emrah helped me with a few but I don’t think he’s crazy about crosswords, so I let him read the paper. And we drank tea.

This was a while ago, but a couple ex-students Zafer and Tuba (in photo) came to my place and cooked lunch – spanish omelet. We drank tea juice. Also, on the 6th Emrah and I went to a dinner party in Sultanahmet, the 25th wedding anniversary party of a couple friends of mine. We drank champagne, ooh!

Below are a couple of the things I’ve been knitting recently. First, a set of cute coasters for my boss’s birthday. They’re from the Mason-Dixon ballband dishcloth pattern (see Mason-Dixon knitting in my rather short blogroll to the right). And a pillow sham I’ve barely started, using some turkish patterns I found on the internet. I got the yarn for that from the Yarn Han in Eminönü, on a shopping expedition with Anne. The yarn for the coasters came from my local yarn shop – they’re starting to get to know me there, which means they don’t feel the need to follow my every movement while I’m in the store. Every time I buy something, they say goodbye with “güle güle kullanın”, meaning approximately “go and use it happily”.

Good news, the aquarium is alive again! This time the fish (5) are a bit smaller, Emrah replaced the gravel with a more natural variety (his theory for why the original fish died), and I’ve put in a few more plants to give them places to hide and play “obstacle course”. I’m not 100% sure fish like playing obstacle course, but I would if I were a fish.

I still spend a fair amount of time absorbing news from the internet, and I like to keep up with long-distance friends via livejournal and facebook. Whenever I look at facebook and find myself feeling envious about particular aspects of other people’s lives, I contemplate how they undoubtedly must feel different on the inside than they seem from the outside. Everyone has the mundane moments of doing laundry, the difficult moments of personal relationships, the occasional moments of extreme personal angst, right? Yeah, they’re running marathons, doing aid work in Africa, and designing their own knitwear, but for the most part, most people have pretty normal lives, right? Is it possible that my 87.8% mundane life seems interesting to other people who only see it from the outside? Is it possible that I’m living my life okay even though I’m somewhat unsocial, rather scattered career-wise, unmarried and childless, and a bit pudgy, given that I’m also mostly happy? Is it okay that I’d rather knit and drink tea on a sunny afternoon instead of collecting trash while scaling a mountain, rescuing kittens or doing a million other possible good deeds? Can making breakfast for my sweetie count as a good deed? Sometimes I wish I had an overarching purpose for my life, like Al Gore with his slide show, so I could feel useful to the world and less worried about wasting my time here on earth. But on other days I think it’s okay to be just a normal person, living as millions of other normal people do, never to make history or even a really exciting facebook profile. And the fact is that no project has come up yet that makes me want to give up knitting, walking the streets, people watching, and drinking tea.

None of these questions are rhetorical, answers are wanted. And, especially, from what you know of me (assuming you are a friend reading this), what kind of life-project could you imagine me taking on? Inspiration wanted.

Registration for commenting has been temporarily suspended as I await your answers. Big hugs to everyone. XOXOXO Now, how about a glass of tea?