Differences

Rotary's Youth Exchange motto is "It's not worse, it's not better, it's different." In that spirit, I will now give you all back home an overview of exactly what's different. Get ready.

Sighs and Sounds:

Instead of saying "ugghhh" or groaning, people say "ooooff" and rather than object with a, "hey!" when jostled, it's more of an indignant "yaaahh!" Frequently, they're combined to create "ooof yah!" which I've really picked up.

To say "no," you can just click your tongue and flick your chin up at the same time. This is very common.

When offered a food, people often refuse by hitting their upper chest with their hand, palm down. This is often accompanied by the aforementioned head flick, as well as "yok, sagol, afiyet olsun" which means "no, thanks, enjoy your food." It's very common at school, where kids are always sharing snacks from the cantin.

Instead of saying "pppssst" to get a person's attention, people use more of a "sshhhhhhtt" noise. Also common.

The inflection is a little different when you ask someone if they want something. That is, where we might say "do you WANT some?" going up on "want" and "some" towards the end, in Turkish, you say "isTAR misin?" going up on the "-tar" sound/more in the middle of the word.

In Turkish, U.S.A. is A.B.D., which is interesting for me to hear, as I'm so used to "yoo ess ayy" meaning my country. Now instead, I hear "ahh beh deh." Speaking of which, as you have just seen, the pronunciation of individual letter names is pretty different. So when people ask me to spell my name, instead of saying "ehn, ayy, tee, ayy, ell, eye, eee" I say "neh, ahh, teh, ahh, leh, eee, ehh," both of which would be written as "NATALIE" (in Turkish, dotted "I" is pronounced "eee").

Objects

The power outlets, rather than being two slits shear against the wall, are round wells, about an inch and a half across and recessed about an inch deep, at the bottom of which are two round holes of equal sizes into which the plugs go.

The toilets have a similarly recessed well of water at the bottom, instead of a smooth incline to the bottom, and are operated by two big plastic push-switches mounted on the wall above the toilet, one to flush and the other to stop the flushing (which stops on it's own whether or not you push it, never fear). They seem to be more water-efficient.

Light switches are always on the outside of the room by the door and are also push-switches, not little flick-able appendages like the American ones. I have closed myself in many a dark bathroom, groping around like a fool, before I remember that the switch is outside. This seems a little bit silly, as it also allows for people to accidently turn off the lights on you when you're inside, which has also definitely happened.

Kids in school hate using pens and rarely use regular pencils. Mechanical pencils are the word in old Turkiye. But these are not the screechy and poorly-made scribblers that cause so much consternation to me as an American student. These are utensils of the utmost capability and form. The one I borrowed from my friend today had a lovely, large, twist-up eraser on top and the finest of rubber grips over it fine maroon plastic. It didn't squeal once. Kids like to get really nice mechanical pencils and usually keep them ofr a few years of school. It seems much easier than dealing with noisy pencil sharpeners or leaky pens.

Converse shoes are everywhere. I think at least half, if not two-thirds, of the people under 30 whom I see on a daily basis are wearing Converses. The most popular color is creamy white canvas with one navy and one red stripe on the edge of the rubber sole. Red-white-and-blue shoes, especially in patent leather (if they're not Converses), are extremely common and popular.

There is more on this topic and an almost-finished post about my weekend—they will appear tomorrow! Sorry it's been so long.

Love,

Natalie