English books in Turkey

I love books, but getting books in English here in Turkey is a bit of a challenge. In the US I bought a lot of used books. We do have a Kindle, but I still find it difficult to pay 10-15 bucks for an e-book. I know I can sign up to borrow books on the Kindle, but I'm such a slow reader that I would never finish the books in time. I takes me a good 6 months to read a book. Before you judge, let me say that I'm usually reading 3 books at a time. I don't know why I do this. I just do. Psychoanalyze me if you must.

As far as new books go, there's always Amazon UK or even Ebay UK, although they usually end up costing an arm and a leg because of shipping. A few bookstores here also sell new English books, but, still, the price is pretty steep. Still, it's a nice option to have. For those in Turkey, Remzi Kitabevi seems to have the best selection, and they have stores in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

On to used bookstores, called "sahaf" in Turkish. There are actually used bookstores with a decent selection of English books here in Izmir, and if I'm just looking for some casual reading, that is the place I go. The books there are usually 3-5 bucks. If you live in Izmir or Ankara, here is a website that lists the used bookstores for those cities: Used bookstores

Now with Moonpie in the picture I'm thinking more about building a children's book library since she won't have access to a real library in English like I did when I was a kid. There is a library of leftover books from the old NATO library in Izmir. It's called Kent Kütüphanesi, and it's located across from the Alsancak train station. However, most of the books there are older (from the 70s and 80s). Still, it's a nice resource to have. Here's a website where you can search their catalog (it's in Turkish).

Enter resource #1 - Better World Books. This is a website that sells new and used books, usually for a slightly higher price than Amazon, but they offer free shipping to anywhere in the world. This is amazing for me. The books take a good month to arrive, but Moonpie usually isn't in a rush, so we've placed a few orders now. To me the slightly higher prices are worth not having to lug suitcases full of books around the world. And as a bonus, they are a "social enterprise", which means your purchase with them also supports literacy initiatives around the world.

And my new favorite resource #2 - Nadirkitap.com. This is a Turkish website, so if you don't live in Turkey you'll probably not be very interested. Basically, used bookstores all over Turkey have put their inventory online, and you can order through this website. There are also quite a few English books, and you can use the advanced search option to find them. Not an amazing selection, although I did find five books that I had on my wishlist. Most of the children's books were 3-5 lira, which is about 1-2 dollars, and you'll pay another 5 lira or so on shipping, so it's a pretty good deal all things considered. And again, these are books I now won't have to lug (or ask someone else to lug) from the other side of the world.

If you know of another resource for English books outside of the US or UK, please leave it in the comments! 

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.

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!

Marie Gets Stitches

Well, not really stitches - skin super glue. The nurse said they don't really do stitches anymore unless it's really, really bad.

On Sunday I was carrying a huge tower of two (2) ceramic bowls into the kitchen and was distracted by the thought of taking a Tylenol (called Minoset here in Turkey) for my headache when said "tower" fell over onto our marble counter top. Marble isn't a very forgiving surface for ceramic dinnerware. One of the bowls ricocheted off of the marble and sliced my leg on the way down to its final resting place, the floor.

My thoughts at the time were:
1. Good thing Moonpie wasn't in the kitchen.
2. Oh man, I bought those bowls when I first moved to Turkey (insert brief moment of nostalgia here).
3. Hmm, my leg is sliced open.
4. Good thing I bought a new set of dishes last week!
5. Hmm, my leg is dripping blood.

 Priorities, people.

 I wasn't going to go to the ER because I'm American and I've been conditioned that unless your bone marrow is showing, it's not an emergency. But, after cleaning up the mess in the kitchen I realized that my little band-aid wasn't doing the trick, and the butterfly bandages I managed to find scrunched at the bottom of the first aid box just looked comical compared to the size of the wound I was trying to close with them.

The Wound

So, to the ER we went, baby, diaper bag and all. The hospital is a 5 minute drive from our house. We left at 4:00pm and were back home at 4:22pm. No joke. We walked in the door and I left my passport with Mr. Stitches while two nurses took me back to a triage room. I took off my band-aid and after looking at it for a few seconds they decided it was a job for skin glue. One nurse held me together while the other one glued me back together, at which point Mr. Stitches came back and found me. They put some adhesive bandages over the glue and I was good to go! We asked again to make sure, but there was no charge since I have the national social security insurance. I'm definitely not in America anymore, Toto.

And would you believe this was my first time having super glue or stitches (besides surgeries)?
When's the last time you had stitches (or super glue)?

Featured Expats Blog!

Marie in Stitches is now a featured blog on Expats Blog.com! Notice the nifty badge to the right confirming this!

You can check out my page there at this link http://www.expatsblog.com/blogs/6768/marie-in-stitches

If you click on this link from my blog, though, you'll basically be redirected back to...my blog. Still, if you feel inclined to write a review over there, please do so.

Plus, if you do head over they have a whole bunch of really cool blogs from all around the world!

Enjoy!

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!

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

Legal Immigrant

Well, I hit the ground running yesterday! Part of being a foreigner here is renewing my residence permit every year so I remain a "legal immigrant". My permit expires Thursday, so I knew I would have to go down to the central police office and renew my residence permit sometime this week. Yesterday, I emailed our HR department to ask if they could send over my renewal paperwork right away. I got a phone call an hour later from a colleague who also needed to renew hers saying that they were sending the paperwork for both of us over and we could go together. For some reason you have to go the same day as the contract renewal letter is dated, so we had to go yesterday. So, we trekked down about 1:45. I have to submit a new picture every year, as well as various copies of my passport, so I went to get my picture taken first. Every year I say I’m actually going to have a nice picture taken, but every year I end up going while I’m jet lagged/sick/extremely overheated at the end of August, and I always look depressed and/or deranged in my photos. Yesterday it was the hair that gave me away. I wanted to explain to the police officer that I had just come back yesterday, as he could see from my paperwork, and that’s why my hair is bad in the picture. He didn’t seem to care, though, so I let it go.

We got to the office and got our number at around 2:30. I got number 500, and there were 44 people in front of me, my paper number informed me. Bad sign. So, we decided to go back out and sit in some A/C for an hour. The only problem is that to get into the police compound you have to go through two security checkpoints. My colleague is getting married in 3 weeks and had just received a package with her wedding shoes in it, which she brought with her. So, at every checkpoint the guards made her open the box and they went over the shoes carefully. In total, I think we went through 6 checkpoints yesterday. At least it was her, not me, who mentioned that maybe she shouldn’t have brought the shoes in retrospect. I’m glad we were together, though, because she had her Kindle with her and we played word games while we waited until her battery ran out.

Anyway…we got our paperwork turned in at 4:45, and it just so happens that my husband works next door to that building. Convenient! I just waited 30 minutes or so until he got off work, and we headed home. I should get my documents in about 2 weeks, so that’s all taken care of. I wasn’t expecting it to happen so quickly, so that was definitely a nice welcome home!

A Foreign Fourth

July 4^th as an expat is always interesting. And by interesting, I mean "dull". I always want to do something, but I usually end up just making a flag fruit pizza and singing the Star Spangled Banner by myself. It’s just about as boring as it sounds. This year as July 4^th was approaching, I kept wishing that there were some picnic or barbeque I could go to.  Then, the day before, I decided to take the bull by its redcoat tails and organize my own bash. I texted two American coworkers, and they were both excited too (I had saved them from their own fate of lonely high notes), so it was set! One girl brought her “native” boyfriend, who was at first apprehensive about being around “all of those Americans”. I guess we’re a scary bunch, or she had exaggerated the size of the party to him. There were three Americans and two “natives”, including my incredibly supportive husband who was just as excited as I was about the party. He even hooked up his laptop to the TV so we could watch youtube videos of fireworks. On the menu were “grilled” burgers,

baked beans (with bacon bits!!!), chips, homemade lemonade, and, of course, a flag fruit pizza.

I had brought over some little flags a few years ago, and we did get a little flag waving in during the fireworks finale.

Everyone had fun, and no one was singing off key alone. This land was made for you and MEEEEEEEEE!

Kleenex vs. Reality

Welcome! If you're reading this, thanks.

I have many moments when I think "Yeah, I've got this down. Oh yeah, I've adapted to this place. That old me that first came here was so naive. Ha! I am so wise. My wisdom overwhelms me." Then, usually what happens after these thoughts is I get annoyed when I overhear someone whispering about that foreigner over there (that's me. It's always me. Even in my hometown, if someone is talking about the incredibly foreign looking person, it's me.) Or I get stonewalled by some bureaucratic process and hit play on my now memorized mental rant about the inefficiency of EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS PLACE. So, maybe I haven't adapted so much. Maybe I don't want to. I have been realizing more and more, though, that I really do compare my adopted home to a version of my original home that, if I could paint a picture of it for you, you might describe as heaven, but a little better. Everything works smoothly in this idealized land. Everyone is polite and waits their turn (post office, people?), but no one waits too long (banks, anyone?). Busses never break down and always run on time, and people only ride busses if they want to save the environment, because gas is free and cars get you everywhere you want to go in 10 minutes. Students are respectful, teachers are wildly educated, schools are clean and churn out overachieving critical thinkers by the thousands every year.

Now, if you are reading this blog, it means that you know me, and you know the place I am describing - the place I am from. Let's call it "Kleenex, Barizona" for the argument's sake. Everyone is polite? I can remember some not-so-polite behaviors. What immediately comes to mind is a woman who spit a mouthful of her pancake breakfast at the bus she had been kicked off of because no food or drinks are allowed. I've never seen that in my new homeland. Yeah, I was on that bus. It took an hour to go anywhere, but I was riding the bus to save money on gas. Yes, my friends, it wasn't free. I have waited for an hour or more at many a post office, bank, government office, and on and on in "Kleenex". My students in the Land of Facial Tissue weren't really that respectful. In fact, I had one threaten me. I've never been threatened here. And not to say this is good or bad, but I haven't had to be trained to recognize homicidal tendencies in students' writings here like I was in "Barizona". I've never even been afraid of a student here. My first week of teaching in "Barizona", a student asked me if he could write a descriptive paper describing the experience of carrying a gun on campus. (My answer was, "Um, no.")

I am generally against comparing the two places, because every place and person is so different, and comparing leads to generalizations that are neither true, healthy, nor useful. But, it is useful for me to remember that the version of my hometown that I created in my mind on the plane on the flight over to my new home is wildly sensationalized. All of the bad aspects were sucked down the airplane vacuum toilet - never to be seen again. (Aside - there is still a part of my mind that believes that the vacuum toilet sprays its contents into the atmosphere over the ocean, and I always say a little prayer that some poor, unsuspecting sailor won't be caught unawares. Can anyone confirm or deny this thought with scientific data? Thanks.) That was a wild aside. In any case, I'll just keep trying to keep everything in perspective. Bureaucracy is bureaucracy everywhere. Being a foreigner involves a lot of paperwork, and yes, I did choose this. Repairmen don't come when they say they will no matter where you are, used car salesmen's job is to rip people off everywhere, and I'm sure in London, Siberia and Nairobi alike car repairs don't work on the first try. So, these are my thoughts today as I wait for the plumber to come for the second time in one week. Do any of you fantasize about life being greener on the other side of the ocean? Can anyone confirm or debunk my vacuum toilet fear?