It's Been One Month Today

I can't believe I've already been here for a month. Never in my life have I been away from home for a full four weeks. It feels very strange. I have many memories of home, and I'm still having very vivid dreams about America. Almost every morning, I wake up and have to remember that I'm actually in Turkey, and for a whole, entire year. I have a recurring dream in which, having been in Turkey for a week or two, I then find myself back in the U.S. for a pleasant week, after which, I know in the dream, I will return to Turkey. This visit usually includes a spirited reunion with all of my cousins, a jaunt to downtown Madison (where I always go to CVS, for some reason? I think it's because I've been craving a little shopping simplicity after living in this wild urban marketplace), and a trip down to my house in Buffalo Bay. I think that the strange context--being aware of my life in Turkey, but not actually in it--comes from the still-surreal feeling that I will be here for a whole year. Or at least nine more months. It freaks me out sometimes to know that I can't just visit, can't see anyone from home, can't talk to anyone in person or hug them or anything, no matter how much I really want to. I mean, coming back early is option, but not really. Not only would it be hugely expensive, it would be hurtful to my host families, a letdown for both Rotary Clubs, an outrage to my parents, and a major personal failure for me. I want this exchange! I know that the whole thing, the full year, is the real experience, homesickness and all. Even when I wonder what I've done, why I'm not enjoying my simple senior year back home, I remind myself that being here is 100% my deal. I thought it up, made it happen, it was my choice. Obviously, the day-to-day reality of living in Ankara, Turkey is very different than the world-wind montage I have vaguely envisioned. But I'm really appreciating it so far. I think this last train of consideration makes me sounds really homesick and feeling trapped, but I'm not at all. I feel great, most days. I wanted to give you an idea of the bizarre psychological situation that I've found myself in--or rather--that I've chosen.

School is going well. Even though I don't do much real school work, I have a little routine that is pretty productive. For the classes where I can't understand anything (everything besides English and math) I do one of about three things. Sometimes, I read The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire, a great book by Lord Alfred Kinross, who also wrote a really good biography of Ataturk, of which I read the first third or so. I am reading this pretty carefully, underlining, etc., as it is basically my stand-in for a whole host of actual Turkish history classes. Also, at the request of my teacher, I recently ordered, through my mother back home, a 19th and 20th c. Turkish revolutionary history book, along with a book of conjugated Turkish verbs. Besides read, I write a lot of postcards. I'm sorry I haven't sent any out yet, but it's hard to get a ride to the post office, and I feel weird asking my host-dad to post a huge stack of 35 or so cards! I think I'll work on this tomorrow, as we are going down to get my residency permit. I also sometimes work on translating the two 2nd graders' Turkish workbooks I got, but it's tricky. There are a lot of idioms in the little poems and a second grader really does know a lot of vocabulary. Other than that, I doodle sometimes. It's not to bad really. There are nice little breaks every forty-five minutes, and because I'm not rushing through some huge school to get to my next class, they feel very leisurely. Normally, kids just wander to the canteen or the bathroom or hangout by the window or the hall between the two 11th grade classrooms and the two 12th grade classrooms. It's nice. I have a friendly report going with most of the kids in my grade and I know a few in the grades above and below, too. I've been invited to a barbecue, to the movies, and to generally hangout. I am liked, as far as I can tell, by most of the student body, the teachers, and the administrators. So things are going well!

In both math classes, I really do pay attention, as I am basically learning by watching the examples and doing them myself. At this school, and, I guess, in many schools in Turkey, they don't use calculators. All of the kids, therefore, are frighteningly capable of long-division and instant factoring. It's hard to keep up, even though I have already learned a good portion of the material at some point in high school.

I've realized, especially upon my move, that what I thought life would be like here is really nothing like the reality. Of course. At my last house, it was a little more, hmm, "Turkish-feeling." I was with an older couple, no kids, living in an apartment in a crowded, dusty part of Ankara-proper. They spoke no English, we have tea every night, I cooked a ton of fresh Turkish food, and I went to a lot of bazaars and rode a lot of mini-buses. But now, I'm sort of out in the suburbs, a little, by about twenty minutes. The whole ride in, you can see all the hills, the apartments, and most of the full city, so it doesn't feel as remote as, say, Madison to New Haven. But it's certainly not bustling. I have a housekeeper to do my laundry and make my bed, I don't really cook any of my own food, and I am living in a very modern, large house, certainly newer than my one in Connecticut, although with less of a view. We have a manicured backyard and a hammock in one of the few overhung timber and stone patios, which I had the pleasure of falling asleep in this afternoon, after reading a little Updike (who is really the perfect author to help me escape back into Americana). We have a huge wrought-iron, remote controlled gate with a big iron, cursive "A" on it (for Atilla) and a driver from my host-father's work to take us places. Many days, Çınar and Söğüt (chee-NARR and SO-oot) my brother and sister, have piano lessons, which can be heard though out the house. During Çınar's, especially, it sounds like I am a few rooms down from an opera, as he and his teacher often sing. A few songs I usually here are the theme from Amelie, Moon River, and Strangers in the Night, which is always sung. Beautiful. I'm certainly not "roughing-it." I guess what I'm trying to demonstrate is that, contrary to the wild and antiquated and decidedly Middle Eastern Ankara that a part of me was expecting, I've found myself in the Turkish rendition of the Sound of Music. It's like I'm Julie Andrews in Austria if the holocaust hadn't ruined everything.

It's certainly one sort of Turkish experience. I'll let you know how the rest unfolds.

Love from Afar,

Natalie