Picnic

The Muslim Sacrifice Holiday was at the beginning of this month, so we got a 5 day weekend and tons of family togetherness. I'm pretty impressed by how much we maximized our time. The big highlight for me was our picnic on Monday. There is a picnic grounds out by the zoo, and we had never been there, so we decided to check it out, keeping in mind that it could be a great place or fairly creepy place, but there was no way of finding out without going ourselves.

It turned out to be full of families and pretty fun, although I'm thankful we didn't have to use the "facilities" there. That may have been not so fun.

Moonpie had a great time discovering her independence with her new walking skills and exploring nature, which were mostly eucalyptus leaves and sticks on the ground.

She even made a little friend names "Asia" who came over to steal some of her toys, but ended up staying to play. They were talking back and forth in some really expressive baby language and seemed to understand each other perfectly. So, so cute. I even did a really Turkish thing and gave someone else's child a cookie. The parents didn't seem to mind since they were happily swinging in their hammock and paying us no mind at all.

After lunch we took a walk and found a grove of these trees. They are "oleaster" or silverberry, or wild olive trees, but are being cultivated as agricultural research next to this picnic grounds. They look like olives and taste kind of similar to dates, but not as good. They are common in the Mediterranean region, and through my research I learned that they are probably the trees mentioned in the Bible when Paul talks about wild olive trees in Romans 11. I still have lots to learn about Turkey!

                                     

And that was our picnic!

Raising a baby in Turkey - Part 2: Baby love

My last post about an American raising a baby in Turkey was about a diametrically opposed culture clash between Turkish and American ideas of what's best for a baby, so I thought I'd look at a more positive difference this time.

Turks love babies. I mean, pretty much almost every Turk goes gaga over every baby. It's amazing. They don't seem to lose their enthusiasm. When I go out with Moonpie I get stopped probably at least 10 times by people who just want to oodle over her. I can't just run into the grocery store "real quick" because the cashier will literally stand up, walk around the register and kneel down by Moonpie's stroller to play with her and try to get her to smile for a few minutes before checking me out. I am not even kidding, people.

Kids barely older than Moonpie come over to look at the "baby". Yeah, I don't like it when two-year-olds are touching her face, but hey. At the park last week a pair of 10-year-old twin girls wanted to slide with her down the slide and push her around the park by themselves (I said no, for the record). It's just hard to explain the universality of the baby love in Turkey. 20 year old men go crazy for babies. Moonpie's sock once fell off in an Adidas store and once one staff member realized what we were looking for we had 5 guys looking through the whole store. We couldn't find it, so we left, but then one of the guys came running out after us waving the pink sock and put it back on Moonpie's foot, all the while raving about how cute she was. True story.

We went to a restaurant with my parents and I wish I had taken a picture of the three waiters hovering around Moonpie's highchair, occasionally reaching in to give her a spoonful of food if I was otherwise occupied for a second. I think my parents were both mystified and horrified. People (friends and strangers) have given her chicken, cookies, pudding and ice cream without my permission, and a woman on the metro tried to give her a chocolate bar when she was like 5 months old. In America people would hesitate due to the possibly presence of allergies, or, I don't know, respect for the parents, maybe, or common sense? I digress.

I'm not even going to mention the over 50 female crowd. There is a word in Turkish - "Mashallah" - that basically is meant to protect the person spoken to from evil powers and such, and it's said to babies and kids (and me, not sure why, usually seems to be because I'm tall). Anyway, Turkish women say that word often and go absolutely nuts for my baby, even when they have their own grandkids. They just can't get enough. I think it's so sweet. I love it when people oodle over my baby.

The hard part about this for me is that strangers try to hold her, as in try to rip her out of my arms. Random woman at the bank, random woman in the checkout line, cleaning lady at the hospital, just people everywhere. This is the hardest part about this cultural difference. I know they aren't trying to be creepy, but it still creeps the heck out of me. I just say, "No, baby doesn't want you to hold her. She'll cry." They usually back off.

I'm not saying Americans don't love babies, but it's a different kind of love. Americans definitely don't go as crazy over strangers' kids. There's not really a concept of "stranger danger" for kids in Turkey, for better or worse. Americans admire kids from afar, with words like "cute baby" or "oh, look at the baby". There isn't a lot of reaching into the stroller, touching the face, giving of chocolate bars or grabbing out of the mother's arms going on in America. 

Sure, I feel protective about people touching her face (germs!) and giving her food, and we decided as a general rule not to let strangers hold her, but it feels great to have people making such a fuss. She looooooves the attention, too. She's such a flirt. Even at three months she was flashing her toothless grin around seeing what kind of reaction she could get. I just chalk it up as part of our multi-cultural life!

Raising a baby in Turkey - Part 1: It's getting hot in here. Take off those clothes. No, really.

Turks and Americans have some different ideas about raising babies. I thought I would share some. I'm going to be using sweeping generalizations, so please note that not ALL Americans and ALL Turks may be represented in my observations.

Turks believe that being cold, slightly chilly, or even barely warm will make you ill. Touching a cold wall will make you ill. Moving air will make you ill. If you eat ice cream in any month besides July or August you will probably die. You should not walk on exposed tiles in any weather at any time. They could be harboring a temperature below 90 degrees Fahrenheit and make you ill. I've also heard that stepping on an exposed tile floor will injure a woman's reproductive health, but I don't know how widely that is accepted.

Americans, on the other hand, believe in moving air. Oh, we love it. Especially people from Phoenix. We move our air around as much as possible. We set up fans upon fans upon fans strategically placed near air conditioning vents to accelerate already moving, cold air to make it faster and colder. We hate stagnant air, closed windows, and heat in general. Just move that air, baby. We also love, love, love cold tile. It keeps us cool, after all. We don't cover it up. We don't place a barrier between it and our feet. We lie down on it and roll around on it and generally try to transfer our body heat to it and other cool things.  All of these things are considered insanity for Turks, ways to insure a quick and sudden death.

In Turkey, sweat is bad because if air moves across it, YOU MIGHT COOL DOWN! Americans (at least in Phoenix) soak ourselves in water and then sit in front of moving air, preferably cold moving air. You get the idea.

So, Turks believe that babies should be wrapped in blankets. Lots of blankets. Fleece blankets. With hats. And socks. And multiple layers of clothing. In the summer. Or winter. Doesn't matter, really. Americans believe that babies should be kept as cool as possible without being freezing cold. Americans believe that being too warm can cause health problems, contribute to SIDS and just in general be very, very bad for babies.

This clash can cause problems for the American (and British person, I've heard) raising their baby in Turkey. Both groups are trying to do what's right, but the understanding of what's right are very, very different. Thankfully, doctors in Turkey are increasingly trying to educate people on the dangers of keeping babies too warm, so I've just been able to say, "The doctor said to keep the baby cool." Thank you, doctor, for saying that.

My in-laws are driving me crazy! A must read for ALL in-laws

Hehe, I got you with this title. This is not a rant about my in-laws.

I have stumbled across a book that I would like to recommend to the entire world. Ok, just people who are or have ever been married, or related to someone who is or has been married, have kids who are or have been married or parents who are or have been married. That is probably 92.8% of the world's population, taking into account that that statistic is totally made up.

It's called Don't Roll Your Eyes: Making In-Laws into Family by Ruth Nemzoff. As people who know me or read this blog know, I'm in a cross-cultural marriage, so my in-laws have a different culture than I do. Before we got married, perhaps the number one question I heard was "How do you get along with his family?" accompanied by a cringe from the questioner. Turkish (and Greek, and Italian, and maybe all) mother-in-laws have a really bad reputation. Even Turkish daughter-in-laws rarely get along with their mother-in-laws, so throw in the cultural difference and people figured I was toast. And I have to say honestly, it has been a bumpy road so far for all of us. I'm not going to go into details because that won't be helpful. Reading Moonpie's birth story might give you an idea. But what is helpful is this book I'm reading. And she points out what I pointed out in my previous blog post - ALL marriages are cross-cultural. ALL marriages are the coming together of people from different backgrounds, and the coming together of two different, sometimes VERY different, families. It was really nice to read that and confirm what I had suspected.

This book is just so, so helpful. She addresses each chapter to different relationships, first parents in relating to their children's spouses, then adult children relating to their spouse's parents, then siblings relating to their sibling's spouses, then both sets of parents relating to each other, etc. She gives lots of examples, which won't ring true for everyone, but demonstrate principles to live by. Her main point, if I may summarize it, is that we are all different, and that is not a bad thing. Especially in in-law relationships we need to leave room for difference while giving each other the benefit of the doubt, and we need to turn the other cheek. A lot.

This book is by no means written from a Christian perspective, but it honestly gives better practical advice that I've read in any "Christian" book or website, which usually mention Ruth and Naomi. I wonder how many situations that story actually applies to in terms of losing all male relatives, converting to your mother-in-law's beliefs and moving with her back to her hometown where you marry one of her relatives and become an ancestor to the Savior of the world. I also wonder if the story of Ruth and Naomi was meant to be a model for in-law relationships, or rather a demonstration of God's generous redeeming grace. Anyway, I digress...

Another of her main assumptions is that you can't change other people, but you can change your attitudes and responses. If you really want to change your in-laws, you probably won't like this book, and if you just want to rant and rave about how crazy they are (I have been guilty of this), it also won't be your favorite book. It is a really challenging, but really rewarding book.

I think even people who think they have a great relationship with their in-laws should read this book. As she pointed out, big life events in a family like marriage, birth, illness, death, and divorce all ripple through a family and can change dynamics, possibly souring what was a great relationship if unspoken expectations aren't met. I wish someone had given me this book before we got married.

All this to say, I won't force you or twist your arm, but seriously, read this book.

                                                             

Kazakh Cultural Center and a taste of Kimiz (Fermented Mare's Milk)

Some friends of ours, a German-Turkish couple, had asked us a while ago if we wanted to get together, as we do from time to time, but the past few weekends were too busy for either or both of us. Finally, last weekend we were both free, and they said they had heard of a place to check out - a Kimiz Farm. I had heard of kimiz before. It's apparently a very traditional Turkish drink that is still a big part of Kazakh culture. (All pictures taken with our new Samsung NX1000. I just want to point out that Moonpie is not blurry. You may continue.)

Some flags of places where Turks live

For people who aren't aware (as I wasn't until I got interested in all things Turkish), there is a large group of Turkic peoples in the world who live in areas stretching from China to Turkey, and most places in between, including Russia, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and some others that don't come to mind at the moment. Oh, Azerbaijan. They all speak fairly similar languages, share similar cultures, and quite of bit of ancestry. They were historically tribal nomadic people who migrated probably from somewhere around Mongolia out into a huge part of the world I just mentioned. Anyway, this is by no means a completely accurate or complete overview, I just wanted people to know why Turks would be interested in Kazakh culture.

Hello there!

Anyway, the "farm" (it's more like a cultural center) is about 1 hour from our house just outside of Kemalpasa. As soon as we got there we had to stop and show the kids the horses. They have horseback riding, but both of the little tykes were too little, and none of the adults wanted to risk crushing a pony, so we skipped that. Then we learned that they had a cultural talk in the replica traditional "otagi" basically like the traditional Mongolian ger.

Moonpie and friend

We went inside and were greeted by a Kazakh woman who immediately asked what part of Germany I was from. Um, actually, I'm not, oh nevermind. She kept stopping the talk to ask if I had understood her, which was pointless because I wasn't listening to most of it as I was trying to keep Moonpie and our friends' two-year-old from poking each other's eyes out or slamming each other's fingers in the conveniently low to the ground right at baby level windows in the "tent" (it was made out of concrete in the shape of a tent). Anyway, I did glean some information, like traditionally Turks didn't eat vegetables because they were nomads, so they got all of their nutrients from horse meat, sheep meat, yogurt and kimiz. Wow, I thought, kimiz must be awesome. My interest was building by the minute. I also learned that they burned dried dung for their fires (I did not know the Turkish word for dung until this day) and it was very important for each nuclear family to have their own tent. No sharing. I think that was a great idea on their part. Anyway, it was all pretty neat, and although I didn't understand the whole talk, I enjoyed looking at the items and decoration in the room.

Really nice motifs

On to lunch and the famous kimiz. They brought out the kimiz before the meal, and only my German friend had tasted it before. She didn't seem very enthusiastic, but I thought, wow, this must be great. If you drink this you don't have to eat vegetables.

You drink it out of little bowls instead of cups, so I poured some into my bowl. Mr. Stitches advised me to go easy. I took a sip. YOW! WOW! That stuff has pop. I could not keep a straight face for any of my sips of kimiz. That flavor really pops around your mouth, and not in a good way. My German friend's husband thought that maybe they were ripping us off and just selling us sour yogurt souped up with vinegar.

Awesome Kazakh (and Uzbek) food!

Kimiz was not a hit, but I did finish my bottle because we had paid the equivalent of 3 dollars for it. My theory was that it would go down easier with food, and I was right. The food, by contrast, was amazing. I enjoyed every single thing, and I would go back just for the food.

Moonpie found a pine cone

Here's their website which includes an informative video. Although it's in Turkish, you can see the gist of the place.

For those in Turkey and wanting to visit, it's called Kimiz Ciftligi and it's on the road between Kemalpasa and Torbali, closer to Kemalpasa. Their phone number is 0232 878 14 43.

My Big Fat Turkish Birth

In honor of Moonpie's approaching 1st birthday (has it been a YEAR????), here is the story of her birth, sans (most) gory details.

Her due date was August 23^rd, or 26^th, depending on who you asked and when. I was going with the 26^th, since that was the first date we were given. I thought, “Surely she will come early. I came two weeks before my due date.” So I was all ramped up to give birth the first week of August. And the second. Third. Fourth. 

Her due date came and went. Nothing. Not even a smidgen of a contraction. I left work on August 12^th, and promptly planted myself under the A/C in our living room 24 hours a day, going between the couch and my yoga ball. My mother-in-law came to cook a meal for us the following week. She probably thought she would come once, then Moonpie would be born. Nope. She came back like 4 times. That was awesome of her. I got really into rodeo, which they were showing on daytime TV for some reason, and this cleaning contest show. My husband thought I was losing my mind. 

That bottom line shows contractions. Totally flat.

My husband’s cousin got married on August 30^th. We thought, “Oh, we’ll have a newborn then, we won’t be able to go.” We didn’t.

My husband’s aunt and uncle who came into town for the wedding came to visit us September 1^st. They joked about how they thought they would be able to visit the baby, but there I was, still pregnant. Haha.

I had started saying things like, “I’m going to be pregnant forever.” I was having a check-up every week, then twice a week. My whole pregnancy we had never caught Moonpie's face on an ultrasound. My doctor finally was able to show me her face in 3D on August 31st. You know what I said? "I don't want to see her face. I want to see her." Such a magical moment, I know. My doctor scheduled a c-section for September 4^th.

My water broke at 2AM on September 2nd. We went to the hospital at 3AM. In retrospect, I wish I had just laid down and gotten some more rest. They didn’t do anything at the hospital except confirm that my water had broken and wait for contractions to start (they didn’t). My in-laws showed up around 4AM, and just crashed on the empty hospital bed next to me. So basically it would have been better to stay at home until a decent hour. Lesson learned.

The next day was a lot of waiting for contractions to start, getting medicine to do that, contractions not starting. By the afternoon my doctor just called it – if your body still isn’t doing anything in an hour, we’re doing a c-section. I had heard you can go 24 hours after your water breaks, but my body wasn't doing ANYTHING. Nothing. 

At the time I was really upset about this. I really wanted to give birth, but it wasn’t happening, and I was getting pretty tired, so I might not have been able to anyway. I was crying. Actually, everyone was crying. Oh, did I mention that there were 9 of husband’s family members with us? Yes, yes there were.

They took me to the OR around 2:30 in the afternoon, and Moonpie was born at 3:05PM. They didn’t let my husband come (we knew that beforehand), so I was alone, and I felt really alone. I was just crying and holding on to God, and I knew He was with me. The nurse asked why I was crying, but the doctor answered for me - "She didn't want a c-section, and she wanted her husband with her. But it's going to be ok because you're going to see your baby really soon." Then they gave me something in my IV that made me throw up into my oxygen mask. I told the anesthesiologist, “I’m going to throw up.” And she said, “Don’t worry, everyone feels like that.” Then I threw up, and she was like, “Oh, she’s throwing up.” Someone helped me and cleaned my face off because my arms were velcroed down for some reason, so that was nice of them. For some reason I felt a lot better after that.

When the doctor first saw her she said, “Oh, she’s dark! You got your wish!” (I had said I wanted her to look like her daddy. She is now basically blond. My husband likes to rub this in my face.) Her first little cries were amazing. Truly amazing. I’ve never been so happy to hear any sound ever. I just said, "Thank you, Jesus." 

They brought her up to my face and I kissed her little face all over. Her eyes were open and she had a really surprised expression on her face, like she wanted to say “What the...?” I don’t have a picture, but I’ll remember it forever. Then they whisked her away, and I fell asleep while they were stitching me up.

I went back to the hospital room with 9 of my in-laws, plus my husband and daughter waiting for me. She was screaming her head off. I was euphoric. I wish I could always be that euphoric to hear her screaming. Anyway, they gave her to me and I nursed her right away. She did great – she knew what to do. And I had like 5 people telling me what to do, so that was taken care of.

My husband’s family being there was really touching. It was amazing to see all of the love that Moonpie entered into in the minutes after she was born. She was literally surrounded by people who love her. But... my husband and I both agreed that if we do this again, we will try really hard to make it a little (lot) lower key and less crowded. I'll let you know how that goes.

So, my little Moonpie is nearly 1, nearly walking, talking in her own Moonpie language, and absolutely beautiful. Happy Birthday, babe!

Ramadan in Turkey and Baby Sleep

I haven’t had much else on my mind lately besides sleep. I want some. I want Moonpie to have some more, and not in the “so I can watch a movie and put my feet up” sense. I really think her mood and possibly health are suffering due to a lack of sleep. Mine definitely are. In a major, major way. I’m not complaining about Moonpie. I know she’s not deliberately plotting ways to make me lose my mind (although that did cross my mind the other night at 2:37AM). She just needs a little more help to fall asleep and stay asleep, and I’m not sure what that help should be, because nothing I’ve tried seems to be actually helping her.

Got this image from http://www.emirdagcity.com
They usually aren't this cute, though.

And then we have the delightful tradition of the Ramadan drummer – we are now in the month of Ramadan in Turkey (and everywhere else, actually), and here there is a tradition of having someone walk through the streets banging a drum to wake people up in time to eat before the sun rises, since people are theoretically fasting during daylight hours. Ramadan is a month in the Islamic calendar, which is lunar, so Ramadan rotates through the entire calendar year. This year it’s smack in the middle of summer, which means people who are fasting are fasting for 16 hours or so on the hottest days of the year with no water. It also means that the drummer comes around at 2:30AM. Sometimes Moonpie is already awake at that time, but sometimes...she's not. And then she is. And I get stark raving mad angry at those drummers.

I understand why they have the drummer, (here is a nice video on BBC and here is an article) and I usually think it’s nice when people hold onto their traditions, but I have to admit I would like to see this one tradition go. My in-laws, who do fast, also think that having the drummer is ridiculous. They just set their alarm clocks J I’m just an outsider looking in on all of this, so I can’t make a full commentary. I just know that I want my baby to sleep, and I don’t want someone banging on a drum at 2:30AM!

Cross-Cultural Marriage Series Part 4: Starting from Scratch

For the final part of this cross-cultural marriage series, I am going to get all philosophical on you. When I was brainstorming this series, I naturally asked my other half what HE liked about our cross-cultural marriage. And do you know what he said?

“I like that we had to take everything we thought we knew, throw it out, and start from scratch together.”

I couldn’t have said it better. When we grow up, we learn things from our family, friends, neighbors, and people in general around us about how the world works or should work, and this forms our culture. It shapes how we understand the world, how we believe we should act, what we value, eat, drink, pretty much almost everything we do. It also informs our expectations in our marriage. When I married my Turkish husband, I began sharing my life, and possibly more difficult – my living space – with someone who thought differently than me on a lot of issues. I gave some examples in the first post – from when one should eat ice cream to when one should go to the doctor, that first year we were discovering differences almost every day. But beyond these there were bigger issues, like what is really important in our lives and how we spend our time and money.

Instead of getting in a cultural tug of war, we look to our mutual “most important” – God, His Word, His grace. Since we committed to follow and serve Christ together on our wedding day, we realize that we have to evaluate every other thing, including our cultural values, in light of Him.

So, that first year, I had to let go of things I thought were my “rights”, but really turned out to be materialism and selfishness because the Bible says things like “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” and “Wives, submit yourselves to your own to your husbands as you do to the Lord.” He had to let go of the macho male attitude that most other Turkish men have because the Bible says things like “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” He is really, really good at doing this, by the way, whereas I have a ways to go in loving my neighbors and submitting.

I love that our cross-cultural marriage doesn’t let us go with what feels right or what everybody else is doing. When we encounter a big difference, it’s a chance to look to God and see what really is the right way to go.

Marie's 10 Tips for Living Abroad

There is lots of advice out there for the nuts and bolts of living abroad as a foreigner – visas, insurance, airlines, baggage, taxes, costs, jobs, and the like. I wanted to write a list dealing with tips for emotional and mental success for people living abroad more long-term.

So, here is my two cents’ worth of advice after living in Turkey for 6 years and messing up a lot along the way:

1. Expect things to go wrong, at least at first. When I first moved here a lot of things went wrong. Turkish bureaucratic processes aren’t exactly streamlined, although they are getting better every year. I frequently hear newbies say, in all seriousness, things like, “I guess I can live without hot water.” Or “I don’t think I really need heat in the winter. I’m from Nebraska.” But, really, you do need hot water, and heat, believe it or not. You will get it done eventually. It will be ok. Until something else breaks. I wrote a post about waiting for repairmen here. 

2. Make friends. Now, these might not have been friends you would have chosen back home. They might look weird, or even (gasp!) BE weird, at least weirder than you. They might smoke pot or not smoke pot (depending on which is weird for you), or grow pot in pots (true story) or have 13 cats (true story) or hate Americans (true story).  It doesn’t matter at this point. You need friends. 

3. Let yourself be angry. You are totally right that everything is inefficient and have a right to ask why the heck is everything just so bleeping difficult? I would also suggest familiarizing yourself again with the concept of culture shock and its stages.

Go on an adventure!

4. Make yourself not be angry for a little while. Take time to enjoy your new home. You probably moved here to have an adventure, or do something exotic or different. Take time to do those things.

5. Get more friends! You really, really need support. Living in a personal bubble may have worked back at home, but things are going to go wrong (see #1), and you are going to need to give and take support. I can write this because I was, and at heart still am, the queen of the personal bubble. I just want to do everything alone, by myself. But when your bank account is frozen for no apparent reason on the day you need to pay your electricity bill, and you get bad news from home and need someone to talk to, you really are going to need friends.

6. Keep in touch with friends and family back home (and not just in the “I’m on a wild adventure and your life is boring” way.) I love Skype and FaceTime. I want to give a big hug to the people who invented video calling. Apparently, one of them is Swedish. Another big point for Sweden. 

7. Go home when you need to. You’ll feel deprived and sad otherwise. “When you need to” is different for everyone. It might be every two years, or from summer to summer, or for a funeral or birth or your friend’s amazing Super Bowl party. A coworker of mine really did go back and surprise his friends by attending their Super Bowl party. I thought that was awesome. If you can, have an emergency ticket fund stocked and ready to go. Then whenever you really need to go, just do it. 

8. Get some bacon (or Reese’s Pieces or Dr. Pepper) for crying out loud!

Bacon.

9. Learn the language of the place where you live, even if 93.6% of the people there speak English. Without knowing the language you’ll be floating on the surface of life instead of being in it. Life will happen around you, but without you. Granted, some people love being expats who float on the surface with their other expat friends and English speakers. I know lots of people here who have made life work without speaking more than 10 words of Turkish. That’s just my advice. You miss a lot without the local language.

10. Make a huge effort not to complain about your new home too much, especially to local people. By all means, have a few friends (did I mention friends?) with whom you can vent. It keeps me sane in the rest of my life just to have someone saying, “Yes! That’s insane!” But I try really, really hard not to complain too much otherwise. It’s really annoying for local people to hear from batch after batch of foreigners coming through for a year at a time complaining about anything and everything. You are a foreigner in some stage of cultural shock/adjustment. They’re just living their lives. 

Hope this helps someone, somewhere adjust to their new, exciting life abroad. For those of you living away from home like me, please add more tips in the comments!

Cross-cultural Marriage Series Part 3: Variety! And more variety!

This is kind of predictable, but with a cross-cultural marriage you get a lot more variety. It’s most obvious with what we eat. I’ve definitely jumped on the eggplant wagon since getting married. Those things are tasty! Our newest eggplant discovery is eggplant soup. Delicious! Maybe I should start posting recipes on here? Let me know if that’s a good idea by posting a comment.

Moonpie munching on artichokes. In a laundry basket. On our balcony.

Turks, especially where we live, love to eat outside in the summer. This usually takes the form of eating on the balcony. Someone commented that there is a “balcony culture” where we live, and it is so true. In the summer you can see many families eating together on their balconies. Incidentally, people also love to eat outside in Arizona, although usually more in the spring than the middle of summer. There’s no balcony culture in Arizona, but there is The Backyard Barbecue! We have sort of combined the two into a balcony barbecue thing we do every now and again. We use an electric grill, so not quite the same as my dad’s awesome propane “grill the heck out of everything simultaneously” grill, but it’s still not bad. We also usually have avocado on our burgers, which my husband has discovered because of me and now loves, as does Moonpie. I already included a picture of grilling burgers in my 4^th of July post, so I won’t delight you with another image of raw meat.

Turkish Breakfast...on our balcony

Another big food culture thing here is Turkish breakfast. Now, I have to say, when Americans first move here we usually aren’t too enticed by the Turkish breakfast. The thought is usually that one has given up a breakfast food called “bacon”, which is not readily available here, and has been offered instead a breakfast food called “cucumber”. No thank you. However, I have found that once you take Turkish breakfast as a whole, it is really quite good. The flavors meld together into a perfect mix of yumminess. The traditional Turkish breakfast includes eggs in some form and meat in some form. If you’re lucky, this will be beef sausage. If you’re not, this will be bologna. Then you have the cheese, tomato, cucumber and olive plate, which is rounded out with a big basket of bread and something to spread onto said bread. If you’re lucky, this will be jam. If you’re more lucky, this will be honey and cream. There are variations on the way the eggs are cooked, types of cheeses, types of meat and sometimes there are different veggies or bread products, but basically that’s it. Oh, and of course, the tea. You usually have tea with breakfast and maybe coffee after. It is way more delicious than it sounds. It really grows on you!

And when we get tired of all this, we just make ourselves some blueberry pancakes!

Cross-cultural Marriage Series Part 2: Pick a language, any language

"Dil" means "language" in Turkish

Moonpie was nice enough to contribute the picture to the left to this post. She's so advanced. She is already bilingual as evidenced by her agile switching between “Baba” and “Dada” (no “Mama”? Really?) In a funny twist, “mama” is Turkish baby talk for “food”, so that could function really well for her. But no “mama” yet.

Anyway, I love that we have more than one language in which to communicate. Probably the most common question that we get asked is “Which language do you speak at home?” The answer truly is both! We go back and forth and back again. Sometimes we have conversations where I speak English and he speaks Turkish, and sometimes we have conversations where I speak Turkish and he speaks English. Sometimes we both speak English, then switch to Turkish, and the other way around. Now, right about now some of you are probably feeling really sorry for Moonpie to be growing up in this muddled linguistic environment, but kids almost always figure it out and do just fine. “They” say (whoever “they” is) that bilingual kids generally talk later, but catch up and surpass their peers in three or so years. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Here is a typical phone conversation:

Me: Merhaba

Him: Merhaba, nasilsin?

Me: Oh, I’m fine. Sen?

Him: Iyiyim ben de. Ne var ne yok?

Me: Did you take the car today?

Him: Yeah, I did. Were you going to go somewhere?

Me: IKEA’ya gitmeye dusunuyordum but that’s ok. It’s not urgent.

Him: Ok, yeah, I’ll leave it tomorrow.

Me: Tamam. Optum.

Him: Love you

Yes, you see IKEA in there. I love IKEA here. It’s a bastion of normal products at normal prices, a stronghold of plain and simple in a wide open field with glitter and oversized and overpriced ready to attack you from every side.

Compare:

     

 








 and

Anyway, this was a post about language. We use both. I love it.

Cross-cultural Marriage Series Part 1: Throwing our differences in the culture pile

When you have the extra layer of cultural difference in your marriage, it can be a great reason to give each other the benefit of the doubt that the difference (i.e. weirdness) you encounter is because of a cultural difference and not just because the other person is just weird. I suspect that some places where we differ might possibly be a matter of personal quirks, but since we have the cultural difference, if it doesn’t really matter we just throw it in that pile. Problem solved.

These are some examples of actual conversations:

You can't tell, but this is milk.

Me: “Do you want some milk with your cookies?”

Him: “No, of course not. I’m frying fish tonight.”

Me: *blink*

Him: “You shouldn’t have any either.”

Me: “Do you want some tea?”

Him: “Yeah, we’ll have tea.”

Me: “Now?”

Him: “Now?”

Me: “Now.”

Him: “But we’re eating dessert.”

Me: “Do you want some ice cream on your brownie?”

Him: “It’s winter.”

Me: “Yes. So, ice cream or plain?”

Him: “It’s winter.”

Me: “It’s soooooo hot. I’m turning on the a/c.”

Him: “Can you hand me a blanket?”

Me: “Aren’t you hot?”

Him: “Yes.”

Wouldn't only two pillows look boring?

Him: “Why do we have 6 pillows on our bed? I don’t use any.”

Me: “Well, I use two.”

Him: “So why six?”

Me: “It just looks nice.”

Him: “Who’s looking at our bed besides us?”

Me: “No one.”

Him. “Right, no one.”

Him: “Why do you use rags to clean the bathroom?”

Me: “Why don’t you use rags to clean the bathroom?”

I could give SOOOOOO many more examples. When situations like this come up, once we realize what’s going on, we just look at each other and say “cultural difference”. We literally say this out loud. Most of the time, if it’s not something of mountain-sized importance to us, we just shrug our shoulders and it stays there. I love this about our relationship.

Mail from America and a new series

Sad and unused mailboxes

Our mailman rang our doorbell today with a stack of cards from America. Always a fun day when cards arrive! Actually, he used to leave them downstairs with the rest of the mail. Funny thing – everyone has their own mailbox at the apartment entrance, but no one uses them. The mail is just left in a pile in a slot by the door, and you have to sift through it all to find out if any of it is for you. Usually someone (I don’t know who) would take my cards from America out and put them into our mailbox, presumably because they looked special and they didn’t want them to be stolen (I don’t know who goes around stealing cards, but that’s very nice of them). 

About 6 months ago I ran into the mailman while taking Moonpie out for a walk. He said, “Hey! Are you Marie? In Stitches?” And I was like, “Yes, yes I am.” He said he was so curious about this foreigner to whom he was delivering brightly colored envelopes from America, and I said, yes, it is I. Sending cards isn’t really a thing here, so I imagine those bright reds, purples, and blues stand out in his stacks and stacks of bills and bank statements. After he saw me that day he started hand delivering our American cards to our door instead of leaving them down by the main entrance. He also loves seeing Moonpie. Today she was munching on some cheese when I answered the door, and he really got a kick out of that. We also saw him on our walk today. He was sitting down resting a few blocks away, but he came over to pinch Moonpie’s cheeks when he saw us. People here really like babies, but that’s another post. I know what you’re thinking – everyone likes babies. But Turks are real, bonafide baby lovers.

Anyway, why all the cards, you might ask? This past week we just celebrated our third anniversary, and my family is just awesome like that to rain cards on us. 

In honor of our anniversary, I thought it might be the perfect time to reflect on the things I love about our cross-cultural marriage. I brainstormed with my husband (who I really need a blog pseudonym for), and I think I’ll do four posts over the next couple of weeks. There are lots of things I love, but these four just make life really fun.

 Pentalingual anniversary napkin (If you haven't noticed by now, I make up words)

Disclaimer: this isn’t meant to be a how-to or you should/you shouldn’t advice kind of thing. Every person and thus every couple is unique. That being said, I’ve found with other friends in cross-cultural relationships that there are definitely shared experiences.  Please chime in with your comments!

Lake Bafa

On our recent vacation we went to a nearby lake. We live on the coast, but neither of us were feeling like a beach holiday. So, we packed our car and drove the two hours to the lake shores. Our hotel was delightful, and the lake was pleasantly clean and untouched. The hotel buildings were situated in a huge olive grove, and our window looked right out onto the lake. I would take the peace and quiet of that lake over crowded beach towns any day. I have found a new favorite.

 

Anyway, another appeal of this area is that there are about a dozen historical (old, ancient, and pre-historic) sites within an hour or two’s drive from our hotel. On the first day we visited a site on the opposite side of the lake. The modern village is built directly on top of the ancient city, so to walk around the ruins you just walk around the village and try not to step in cow pies. I did not succeed.

The next day we visited two different sites, Miletus and Priene. Miletus is in the Bible, so we thought we’d check it out. It’s in Acts 20, where Paul stopped there and sent for the elders from Ephesus to come to him. Today the port is all silted up and the ocean is miles away, but back then it was a port city. In fact, the lake where we stayed also used to be a port, but with the silting it was cut off and became a lake. Anyway, Miletus is an extensive site, and not much of it is excavated. However, Priene was the best part of the trip for me. The ruins there were cool. It was the first city built on a grid system, so I felt a little at home there J There were also humongous lizards everywhere, which really creeped me out, and I know this is 100% because of Jurassic Park where the little cute lizards end up killing people. In reality, they are totally harmless (says my husband).

"I am cute, but I will spit venom at you and eat you."

But the best part of Priene was the modern village next to it. We stopped there for lunch, and there were women making dolls. Village women making dolls of village women. The dolls were so pretty and unique, true folk art. I decided to get one, and while I was talking to the ladies, they said, “Oh, there’s an American professor here today downstairs in the carpet workshop.” American professor? Carpet workshop? My curiosity had been piqued. After lunch we went down to the said carpet workshop, and low and behold, there were carpets and Trader Joe’s snacks. Evidence of an American.

Anyway, we looked at all the rugs and decided to get one for our living room. Then the esteemed professor came in, and we chatted for a while about the workshop and his art show in Istanbul. The workshop is run by the township, and all of the proceeds go right back to the weavers and the workshop, so I felt good about buying a rug there. I had always avoided buying rugs because they are usually huge schemes for ripping off tourists. Take a look at their website  

http://www.prienehali.com/2011/02/gullubahce-gullubahce-beldesi-1920.html

Our trip was off the regular tourist path, so I almost felt like a local. Not to mention I was traveling with a local, who I am also married to. Hey, maybe I am a local! Almost…

Milk and Mechanics

This week I faced new challenges! I did things I had never done before! I realized this week that no matter how long I live here, I will never get past the challenge of doing something for the first time, because there is always something new to do! My first challenge will sound like, well, not a challenge, but it pulled out a feeling in me that I hadn’t felt in a while.

For some reason I had gotten the urge to buy fresh milk (unpasteurized) and boil it myself at home. I had this idea that it would be healthier and better tasting. Conveniently, there is a place that sells fresh milk about a 5 minute walk from our house. So, last Sunday we decided to be spontaneous and go buy some fresh milk (I know, my life is incredibly exciting). We went there, my husband handled the whole transaction, then we came home and he showed me how to boil it and skim the fat off the top, etc. I was having WAY too much fun for what we were actually doing. I was actually giggling. My husband enjoyed it, too, because when he was a kid there was no pasteurized milk, so his mom always used to boil their milk and he and his sister fought over the skimmed cream off the top. So, we had great fun and drank our milk all through the week. Then, a couple of days ago, I said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to buy some more milk?” We happened to be coming up on the milk store (I don’t know if there’s an expression for this in English. Lactisserie? Dairist? Anyone?), so my husband stopped the car and gave me some change from our change pile in the car. But…

I panicked! What should I say? I don’t know how to buy fresh milk? What do I ask for? Is it a kilo or a liter or what? You go! You do it! My husband just put the money in my hand and insisted I go. Ask for a liter. It’s just milk. Of course, he was right. Why did I panic? It was a new thing, but I’ve done thousands of little new things here since I came here four years ago. Buying milk certainly doesn’t even make the top ten of difficult things I’ve done. I even speak the language now. Anyway, I walked in and bought the milk, and everything was fine. I still don’t know why I panicked.

Then, yesterday I had another little episode. Our car seemed to be really close to overheating a few days ago, which is strange because the weather is actually pretty cool these days, so we thought a mechanic should check it out just in case. I insisted I could take it because our mechanic is literally down the street from my workplace. In the past, my father-in-law has taken the car in because he didn’t trust the mechanic yet, and he didn’t want me to get ripped off. But now we know the mechanic is honest, so I said it would be ridiculous for my father-in-law to come all the way down when I was so close. My husband sent me a map and told me what to say (my car vocab is still developing). However, when the time came, I panicked. What if I don’t know what to say? What if I don’t understand him? What if I can’t find it? In the end, I found the place (I only had to make one U-turn), I told him the problem, he checked everything out, and of course I understood everything. Again, why did I panic? Maybe I’ve gotten too comfortable in my routine where I know what to expect all the time. I have to admit, I did feel a sense of accomplishment after both transactions. I’ve decided that new adventures are good for me. Maybe I can even welcome the next one. Has anyone else panicked over something small?

BTW – There’s no problem with the car J

Driving

I think it’s time to write about driving. Driving sounds like no big deal, but it has been a major hurdle for me. When I moved to this country 4 years ago, some friends suggested I buy a car, and I basically laughed in their faces. “No way am I driving here!” I said. I scoffed. I was a scoffer. Why, you may ask? Drivers here are crazy. Traffic is crazy. Lane lines are usually non-existent, and when present, are taken as polite suggestions. Traffic lights are also suggestions, unless there is a police officer standing at the intersection. I just heard yesterday from a local – only the stopped police write tickets. The ones driving around are also breaking the rules, so you don’t have to worry about them. Wow. Laws are there, they just aren’t enforced. It’s perfectly normal to park a car on a main road. Just stop in the right lane and get out. As a courtesy, you might put on your blinkers to let people know that you are at a complete stop on a major road full of moving traffic.

And the pedestrians. Oh, the pedestrians. First of all, they are everywhere. They can jump in front of you on any road at any time. One classic from earlier this year was a man eating pudding while crossing the road. Nope, he couldn’t wait that extra 30 seconds. He was standing between two lanes of moving traffic just eating his pudding, waiting for a space to clear. And that’s pretty normal.

I describe all of this to support my position of not driving here, ever. I haven’t even mentioned the motorbikes, recycle carts, horse-drawn wagons, tractors, trucks, busses (we saw a bus literally rip the side off of a car one day AND JUST KEEP GOING!), and the dream team - taxis, shared taxis, and shared minibus taxis. These wonderful fellows’ normal mode of operation is to cut in front of everyone available, slam on their brakes, then speed ahead until they see another passenger, at which time they repeat their dance all over again. I did not want to drive.

Then we bought a car. Then we said “It would be a good idea for Marie to learn to drive.” Did I mention we bought a manual transmission? Did I mention I never got around to learning manual transmission? My first lessons were on the nearby college campus, which is built on a mountain top and whose entrance road is a big, steep hill with speed bumps. There are also wild dogs living on that campus. Oh, and the campus busses. Thankfully, it was pretty empty on weekends, so I got some good practice in. That was in January. I’ve driven about twice a month in the city since then, and I’ve been traumatized about twice a month since January. I’m happy to say, though, that after a debacle on Sunday when I couldn’t even get the car out of our neighborhood without stalling out (our neighborhood is really hilly, ok?) we made a new game plan. For three days this week my husband has been driving us to his work, then I switch over and drive to my work alone. It’s a 20 minute trip, all flat, lots of traffic, starting, stopping, etc. It’s perfect practice for me until I can get my confidence back up. I only had one mishap on Monday morning when I tried to start in 2nd gear. Other than that, I think I’m improving ever so slightly. And I’m even starting to enjoy it. I can do things here that I always wanted to do in the States, but knew would never fly, like inventing new lanes of traffic for myself, honking my horn at annoying people, and cutting people off in traffic. Confession – I also stop in the right lane on a major road when I’m waiting for my husband after work. No one even gets upset because it’s the normal mode of operation! Hey, I might get into this.

 Do any of you have driving stories? Did anyone else have trouble learning manual transmission?