My Second Bayram

So! Bayram. Sleeping in. Doing nothing. Life is good. We hopped in the car on Saturday morning, popped by the post office where everyone mailed packages (Doğan is getting the equivalent of one of my suitcases! Oh my! Gifts for his host family, I think). I mailed one to my family, and the man there wanted me to send my letter seperately. We had a heated argument (well as heated as an argument can be when one of you only speaks a little bit of the language) which ended with me folding my letter into a t-shirt. Really! Stick the letter that goes along with the package in an envelope to mail seperately! It's ridiculous!

Then we continued on, over the bridge to Asia, out of İstanbul, past İzmit, and up, up, up a hill! I will admit that when we arrived I was kind of in shock. I stood staring for a good two minutes before I realized that I must look like such a spoiled city girl and quickly helped unpack. My first thoughts were "Oh.My.God." And upon leaving my last thoughts were "Just one more day, please!" There was no electricity, as promised, so we had a fire going all the time to keep warm. It never dropped below 0, but the humidity makes it feel like it did. We used oil lamps (I didn't know you could still get those!) to see after dark, although we did turn on the generator to charge things like cell phones. Reception here is amazing. I mean, even on this random "mountain" with like, four houses on it (two of which were ours) we still had no trouble with phones. I'm thinking kind of sporatically, so I'm sorry if this entry is hard to follow.

Melek's whole family was there. Picture!
Melek's brother, Melih, is taking the photo. I'm sitting at the end, the empty seat beside me is his. On my other side is his wife, Lutfiye. Beside her is her aunt, Güler, then my host grandmother, Güner. Front and center is Yunus. He's a year younger than my brother, and knows how to say things like "I can eat strawberries" in English. In purple is my host mom, Melek, and beside her is Gülin, Lutfiye's mother. Past her is Deniz, who everyone calls Bam Bam or Bambino, because his birthday is during Bayram and that's what Yunuz called him when he was first born. Here we are eatting a traditional Turkish breakfast, which is bread, cheese, tomatoes, peppers, and lots of olives. Plus, reçel (jam, sort of) and nutella. I am, as always, being fed waaay more than I need, especially since there are 3 doting grandmothers present, rather than just the usual one. I think I ate half of their feta that morning.

We didn't have a trash can, we just threw stuff in the fire. Every time a plastic cup or fork or whatever went into the fire all I could think was "This is killing my lungs. When I die an early death, I'll know why." At one point they threw some copper wiring on the flames, which turned them a really pretty turquoise (that's how I knew it was copper, yay science class!). But it was when they threw an old pair of rubber boots on the fire that I left. And went for a loooooong walk (gosh, but it smelled in there once the rubber caught on fire!) to get away from the house. I decided to be adventurous and when I came to a fork in the road, instead of taking the lower road, which lead to the house, I took the higher one and walked for an hour in complete silence, save for the rustling of leaves. It was amazingly calming. Until I spooked myself when I bird flew out of a tree right in front of me. I opted to try an even less-used path, and every footstep I took was greeted by some sort of movement in the bushes. This was really nerve-wracking, but I was determined to keep going. After ten minutes, however, I came to a huge mud puddle that spanned the entire path, with enough shrubbery on either side that I would have to wade into the forest around the path to continue forward. I took this as my cue and headed back the way I came, not entirely disappointed.

The rest of my time was spent playing cards or reading Glamour (which Mattie had given me when she slept over) or writing in my journal. Sometimes I just sat by the fire and thought. Oh! Dreams! I should mention those. I had a themed dream night in which all of my dreams took place at the various schools I've attended. It was very weird because everyone was all mixed up. My İstanbul friends were at Cape, and my Hat High friends were at İstek and my kindergarden was in the drama room at Hat High... You get the idea. Anyways. The real reason I was going to mention dreams is because I hear Turkish in them. I'd say about 1 in every 5 dreams I remember includes Turkish. I've only ever spoken in Turkish once in a dream (I asked to go to the bathroom, grammatically incorrect..) but it's in the background. Like when I'm walking somewhere in a dream, the people around me will be conversing in Turkish. I don't know if it's actually Turkish, because I don't understand all of it. Last time the girls in the bathroom in my dream were talking about bread. I kept hearing them say 'ekmek'. It's sort of entertaining to see which words pop up, actually.

ANYWHO. When it was time to go, I was disappointed. Time had flown by, and I really enjoyed hanging out with everyone. I had been speaking a lot, because between everyone if I didn't know a word (I can never remember store) chances were someone else did. So I think my Turkish improved over the last five days. I have a question that I've been dying to ask, but I want to ask one of my classmates, because I think it would make them happy for me to ask entirely in Turkish, and if I don't understand the reply, they'll be able to translate it to English for me. There are three different ways to say Thank You, and I never know if I'm being polite enough or too polite or even if it matters. So. Any classmates reading, Bende soru var. Expect to hear it on Monday.

Melek and Yunuz and Lutfiye were walking down the hill, and asked me if I wanted to join, rather than ride in the truck. I agreed, and we ended up finding a whole bunch of Tree Strawberries. I don't know what they are in English, but that's my translation of the Turkish name. They neither look nor taste like strawberries in my opinion, but they're quite interresting, and I'm glad I chose to walk. It reminded me that every chance could lead to a new experience and adventure, no matter how small the option may seem.

-Maeghan

PS. I've been singing Christmas songs, and I think my host family thinks I've lost it. Walking around the house humming cheerily is not a normal occurance...