LALE ARTICLE FOR JAN 2010

MEMORIES OF ISTANBUL: Taking it easy with Vegetables!

(Photo by Mariette Rijnsdorp)

We are an unusual family in Turkey – not only are we foreigners, but vegetarians to boot. While I never cease to be impressed by the volume of fruits and greens that Turkish families consume, a totally meat-free diet is somewhat of a mystery to the average Turk (and to many Europeans it has to be said), so investigating markets and building a relationship with our local suppliers of nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables has been a must for me.

Like many expats, I adore the street markets with their rows of shiny aubergines and pyramids of spotty burbunya beans and enjoy the banter and barter with the wily and witty traders: calling me ‘abla’ and giving me samples. However, it is not every week that I feel up to the hustle and bustle. My local supermarket is a great standby, but I am concerned about the freshness of produce and prices. This is where the scrutiny of local women’s practice comes in. I use a medium-sized store that is one of a chain of Turkish supermarkets frequented by the largely conservative population of Ferahevler. At first a casual consumer, I have become persuaded of the merits of loyalty as I witness the dividends for ‘regulars’.

The British way to approach the produce section of a self-service supermarket is to discretely move about; apologising for any trolley contact, politely awaiting one’s turn to select from the shelves or timidly queuing to have goods weighed. Eye contact is avoided. If we could become invisible we would.

My Turkish neighbours, however, approach the situation rather as they do driving a car. Trolleys are barged into tight corners, elbows are employed to great effect in gaining access to boxes of fresher produce underneath, questions about quality and pricing are shouted across the store to the Men in Orange who grumpily pick up the squashed fruits left in their customers’ wake.

But I have noted that while the Men in Orange are typically quite surly, they frequently come under the influence of a magical charm that transforms them into willing hands picking over damaged veg to select the most succulent specimens for their customers. The charm is the ‘kolay gelsin’ phrase.

The same women who ‘kolay gelsin’ the stackers also seem to get favours at the weighing area. Once they have ‘kolay gelsin- ed’ the young assistants, their bulging poşets of parsley and overflowing bags of beans get a mysterious priority over my modest kilo of onions or sack of five apples. This is the other difference of course – volume speaks volumes. Turks like to show off their bulk buying.

It has taken me some time to catch on. My text book ‘merhaba’ or reticent ‘nasıl sınız?’ hardly raises an eyebrow. But the day I witnessed a confident shopper strut across to the lemons and announce her arrival with a loud ‘Kolay gelsin!’ it finally sunk in.

“Kolay gelsin!” is one of those ubiquitous phrases that the Turkish language specialises in. Along with the “geçmiş olsuns”, “kutlu olsuns” and the other members of the “olsun” family they pepper the language. As a foreigner it always helps to pad out the halting grammar with these ready made utterances that lend some authenticity while also helping out our patient local population.

The knack comes in remembering which to use where and in dealing with the reaction when you toss one in to the dialogue. My “kutlu olsun”, for example, was not an appropriate response to the death of a (mercifully) distant relative and I was surprised at the “geçmiş olsun” I received for my bashed up car when I recently had an accident. Like driving in Turkey, phraseology is a knack one needs to acquire.

But leaving the olsuns aside, if you really want to build a relationship or earn a smile from the myriad people you meet in business, service and retail around you “Kolay gelsin” is the essential accessory and educated choice for the Turkish language. You politely acknowledge that someone is at work and you appreciate their labours – literally you hope that their work comes easily to them. I had to learn to use it.

I waited until a quiet Saturday morning to test drive the phrase. A rather weedy tomato plant donated to me by the local nursery when I bought geraniums earlier in the season had produced a surprising 3 kilos of tough skinned fruits that needed to be used. ‘Chutney’ was the obvious course of action but I needed apples – preferably a softer variety such as we use for cooking in the UK. It was time.

The Men in Orange had that sleepy expectancy about them that weekend mornings bring. With as much confidence as I could muster, I swung into fruit and veg and let it go: ‘Kolay gelsin!’ I could not have expected a better response had I been Lady Di resurrected from the grave. The gruff, moustached veg man turned to face me with an amused beam:

‘Saĝol’, quickly followed by: ‘How can I help you? What can I get you?’

Rather taken aback I mumbled about soft apples for cooking, but not those expensive, hard Granny Smiths.

‘Yes madam, these Goldens are good. What are you cooking?’ as he fondled a prize specimen for my attention.

‘Well, a kind of jam, errm with onions and tomatoes..’ How to explain the sweet and sour taste of chutney? ‘Soft and cheap – I need a lot.’

Then things really got rolling. Now I was talking their language. Shouts went out across the salad section to the Head Greengrocer.

‘The foreign lady wants a lot of soft, cheap apples for cooking!’

I should have known better. The volume question: I meant about a kilo and a half. Before I could protest my Orange Man had sprinted up the stairs to bring down a heavy crate of ‘reject’ apples. Proudly showing me they only suffered from the odd bruise here and there, he and his manager had spied their opportunity to off load. I could have 2 kilos for the price of one. But I didn’t really need that many, I weakly protested.

Now the morning was hotting up. Sensing a deal in the making, other shoppers began to hover around me, picking over my apples. But no amount of frantic ‘kolay gelsins’ from these women were parting my man from his crate of produce for the yabancı lady. The manager acted decisively.

‘Don’t bother with the little bags, get her a big poşet and empty in the whole crate!’ he ordered, glaring at the predatory Turkish ladies.

By now I realised it was pointless trying to take less; I would lose my reputation as a prudent purchaser. It was a done deal. The over 4 kilos of apples were tied into a carrier bag. As the ticket proclaiming the bargain price of ‘3.90 TL’ was slapped on I could feel the murmurs of envy and appreciation from amongst the throng of fellow bargain hunters. Here was a foreigner who knew how to shop!

I would lose face in the neighbourhood if I didn’t rise to the challenge.

‘Anything else lady?’ enquired my attentive assistant gesturing at the giant hard quinces (ayva). I teased him with a thoughtful pause, ‘Not today, thank you.’ (Secretly I was panicking: ‘Not a clue what to do with those; please don’t give me 4 kilos!’).

With a flourish of my eco-shopping bag, I gave a parting, triumphal

‘kolay gelsin!’ and staggered home to spend the entire weekend making apple chutney, apple pie, apple juice, apple cake......

Ruby and Us

On the back of the book and film about the errant lab 'Marley', I could probably launch a diary about our life with Ruby or 'La Rubia'. To be fair, she isn't really in anything like Marley's league where dog naughtiness is concerned. Nevertheless, as a pup there was a catalogue of destructive scoffing incidents: before reaching a year she had eaten the front half off 4 Victoria sponge cakes, destined to be a magnificent ballerina birthday spectacle, chewed the face off a caterpillar cake (friend's daughter's birthday) , knocked over a child carrying a tray of carrot cake in order to gollop down half of it. This was alongside assorted garbage clearing and cow-pat slurping orgies. There were of course the usual muddy-paws-on-'Sunday best' puppy stories (imaculate girls in matching camel coats) and numerous shredded tights (friend on way to work). Nothing too remarkable for the experts in puppy mischief, but I could recount a rather less common incident where she bobbed up and pulled a friend's long hair so that her head was yanked back alarmingly - I suppose it was dangling there appealingly.

These days most of this youthful high spirit has been replaced by a semi comatose state only infrequently punctuated by the odd misdemeanour such as the scone-athon of a few months ago when an afternoon's baking - quietly cooling beside the stove - was devoured in minutes (actually only 22 scones as she couldn't reach the back ones).

Almost any good ' lab' story has to involve the perpetual quest for food. There really is nothing that gives them so much pleasure; even some eager bottom sniffing by the neighbour's handsome male (dog, I hasten to add!) pales next to the possibility of knocking him out the way to get to his food bowl. Fresh-by dates are of no concern; in fact the more rancid or decomposed the item, the better. The snuffling snout makes a perfect canine vacuum and ever-open jaw is a highly eco friendly waste disposal unit. For lazy housekeepers they are the perfect tool.

Lovable - there is no doubt. She is a soul mate - always there in times of trouble and sickness to comfort and console and astoundingly emotionally intelligent since even the slightest sniff while peeling onions alerts her sadness detectors and she is there at our side wiggling and wagging for all she is worth.

However, if truth be told we have often queried just how much cognitive cerebral activity goes on it that all too caressable head. We have recently been able to put our hypotheses to the test. In the after Christmas, over-indulged lull we sat as a family to watch a National Geographic programme about dog behaviour (are you detecting that we were at a bit of a loose end in a muslim country on boxing day?) There are people with Doctorates whose life's work involves training dogs to watch their eye movements. These are academics with letters after their name (and they don't spell D.O.G.). We were enthralled to witness mutts knocking over the correct cup concealing a treat, which was indicated by their PhD candidate's exaggerated pupil activity alone - and getting it right every time. Ruby didn't watch - she was busy on the sofa with her doggy dreaming involving yelping noises and paw twitching. Perhaps she should have been more observant...The children decided we had to try this.

The following video clip is an enlightening illustration of training in action. Warning: this video contains scenes that may be of an upsetting nature for intelligent Alsatians or border collies called Shep.

In short, while she was a very willing research subject, Ruby seemed not to have grasped the most basic of concepts - ie that once the so-desired treat is placed under a plastic beaker, it has not FAILED TO EXIST. In my child development training this was known as 'object permanence' and is the first sign of intelligence in babies - they realize that when things disappear from view, they are STILL THERE and they look for them. Not so our 5 year old lab. There was really not much point in making googly eyes at the correct beaker when she had lost interest because it was GONE. All that was left of the desirable edible was a plastic thing and what was the point of that? Ayelen went on to patiently take the cup off (FOOD BACK) and as soon as Rubes lurched forward to gollop it, she replaced the cup (FOOD GONE). Interest also gone. Poor Ruby. They did of course take pity on her because there was much puzzled furrowing of golden eyebrows and disappointed hang-dog looks and gave her a treat anyway (maybe she isn't so stupid after all!) But I don't think any of us will be getting our Dogtorates any time soon. Least of all Rubes.

The strange life I lead

Ayelen and i have just returned from a girls trip to the UK. We enjoyed each other's easy company so much and did lots of fun stuff together. She is on a high now the eleven plus is over - she looked so small trotting off with the admissions officer to take the 5 hours of tests spread over 2 mornings, but she did her stuff and now we wait till March to know the result...

I did that bizarre mix of unconnected but vital things that ex pats often do in their home county visits -all at break neck speed according to list made on the flight over - bought Christmas crackers, parsnips(!) and puddings and other paraphernalia, drank mulled wine and listened to carols and marimba music in our towns late night Christmas market, picked up my mother's ashes and a document to say i can take them out of the country to sit on our hall table in Istanbul, swore an oath on the bible in the Crown court to prove I am my mother's daughter, took my own daughter to take tests for the next step in her life, had my hair cut, visited our new tenants in the farm house who are eighties pop stars and have turned our living room into a song writing and sound studio (Johnny Hates Jazz - hit single ' Shattered Dreams') . looked at the drainage situation in the orchard and walked with friends in the Devon countryside. Is there such a thing as normal life? Who lives one?

Going public…

I have taken to writing monthly articles for the International Women of Istanbul's http://www.iwi-tr.org/ magazine the 'Lale' (or 'tulip' in Turkish - this being the symbol used in much Ottoman imagery and ceramics). I know this is a blog cheat, but I may post a few of them here to make it look as though I am a more regular blogger! Here is one I prepared earlier but it is still true ......

I felt an insistent tugging at my shoulder. I had never believed this moment would come. Standing pinned between two young Turkish men, I was barely able to move to see who was assaulting me. During my travels in Latin America, I had been constantly on my guard, but in Istanbul the possibility of being robbed on a crowded minibus seemed remote. I jerked around to see the perpetrator – a comfortably-seated plump woman with colourful scarf and long skirt. ‘Bayan!’ she grinned at me – ‘Let me take off your coat!’. I had spent most of the journey on the stifling dolmus with my bag trapped on the floor between my feet and, unable to move my arms, attempting in vain to work off my heavy coat as the windows steamed up and my face grew redder. The men around me conceded to the older woman and granted her space to undress me – ‘The scarf as well, give it to me.’ She spread my clothes neatly on her lap and remonstrated with me for not having forced my way into a seat as she had done.

‘Pencereyi acar mısınız’ (open the window please) was one of the first phrases I learned for dolmuş rides in an attempt to persuade my fellow travellers that some fresh air would not kill them off instantly. In winter, nauseating waves of hot air blow out from the heating system over swaddled passengers whose stale breath is caught in this little tin box. It takes a lot for a Turk to feel overheated. This is where Brits differ – for us, cold air kills germs and is character building. It’s what toughens us up and got us where we are today. It’s also the only thing we know in our climate!

It is also not British to interfere in other people’s affairs and in the UK this incident with the motherly old lady would have left everyone dying with embarrassment. As a foreigner in Istanbul, however, I enjoy this friendly kind of meddling. It makes me feel part of the city and allows me to pretend I have an extended family. It is also one of the reasons that I use public transport. While it is very civilised to be in one’s own climate controlled space with music on hand and capacity to determine the velocity of your vehicle (which on a dolmus has only two settings – suicide and stop), I also feel too insulated from the reality of the world around me.

For my very first otobus ride the manager of my compound led me by the hand– pointing out the stop and waiting with me till the large municipal bus arrived ( ‘don’t forget - number 25c’). I observed other passengers press an akbil into the slot (the handy little disc that is charged up with credit for as many trips on municipal transport as you can manage). It was all very refined as I slid into my seat, steadying myself on the reliable safety bars.

Dolmuş are another matter altogether. These are the small, privately owned minibuses that conveniently pause at bus stops but also on street corners and wherever else you might persuade them to screech to a halt as you call out ‘inecek var!’ (‘Someone wants to get off here’!). Like hungry wolves they gather in packs at the bottom of hills near tea houses and kebab stands. Their drivers lean on the doors of their vehicles smoking and laughing until they lurch into their springy seats and hurtle off in hunt of prey. The willing victims go like lambs to the slaughter: happy to risk hanging precariously onto the back of someone’s seat, or leaning against the door, in order to enjoy a bumper car ride for a few lira that speeds them rapidly to their destination.

Dolmuş, like their drivers, come in a number of varieties. The overall concept is similar: a minibus with a light on the top that advertises the line the bus runs and a notice in the front window listing key stops along the way. The earliest model is the instantly recognisable faded blue or cream variety. These are the old guard and frequently driven by gruff war-torn men sitting on bouncy seats that threaten to spring them out of the bus altogether and whose diet is mainly composed of nicotine. There are also upgraded variants in beige and a bright blue stripe. These boast air conditioning and are often driven by sparkier, younger pilots who politely go about their business. Then there are the crème de la crème – the turquoise or bright green newcomers with tinted glass, wide windows and something of an attitude. The passenger seats are well upholstered and floors lined with clean rubber mats. Climate control is sophisticated and the drivers carry an air of importance.

The difficulty is that you cannot choose your model – you just hop on the vehicle that comes your way and hope Allah will bless you. In the end it depends on the driver. Having studied their habits over the past 18 months, I have observed some interesting quirks revealing their personalities and the passenger’s likely destiny. Regardless of the age of the vehicle, some drivers take a pride in their profession: coin trays are tidily separated into compartments for each type of coin with a clean towel to wipe their fingers after handling dirty currency. Some have neat holders for their mobile phones and organiser trays for other tools of their trade such as window wipes and sun glasses. These drivers tend to make courteous announcements of their destinations, invite passengers to pay with a ‘buyrun, efendim’ and do not drive off while you are still boarding. At the other end of the spectrum are the drivers whose work station is a haphazard box of assorted coins and other debris threatening to tip over at any moment as the driver takes a corner while people are attempting to alight. Their approach is to do battle with traffic and passengers alike. They spy their victims boarding in their wide rear view mirror and bark at them to pay their fare – there is nowhere to hide in their ship. The steering wheel is usually covered in tape, as is the seat. The hub caps often bear spikes – just so other motorists know where they stand.

There is also an entire Dolmuş Passenger Culture. The most important person on the dolmuş, aside from the driver, is the passenger standing closest to him. This person will have the fares from other passengers impatiently forced upon him and be required to pass them, along with their mumbled destination, to the driver so he can decide the appropriate fare. It is then beholden on this individual to pass back the correct change to the right person. I have spent some rather active journeys as the co-pilot trying to keep a handle on this situation. There are many challenges in deciphering destinations and remembering who needs which change. It frequently develops into a Chinese Whispers game for passengers trapped at the back of the bus whose coins have to change hands several times on the way to and from the driver. However, I felt immensely proud of myself when I managed my first trip in this important role! Most passengers move away from the hot spot as soon as possible. For me it is good practice for my Turkish and develops a sense of passenger camaraderie regardless of how flustered I get.

Dolmuş riding is a necessity for many Turks. It is a fast, efficient and very cheap service. My regular journey from Tarabya to Metro City costs 1.45 TL. Parking alone would cost at least 5 TL if I took the car. And it is much more of an adventure. The final word on dolmuş culture should rest with the motto inscribed on the back of many vehicles ‘Allah Korusun’ – literally meaning ‘God protect us’! Not a bad idea when you travel this way….

Not every entry a piece of art.....

PREAMBLE (SHAMEFACED): I have to accept that if I am to blog I cannot make every entry equivalent to an assignment for my creative writing class. The problem is my model blogger is my (ex) wonderful creative writing teacher from Chester (ex teacher, not ex wonderful) who writes inspirational and artistic pieces every time. I am more mundane... But short can also be good : another of my lessons for life, as anyone who has heard me recount a funny story will know (lesson not yet learned).

The International Women of Istanbul (IWI)  printed a piece of mine in their magazine about my very first day in Istanbul and it reminded me, as I edited it, that our family has really come a long way since then. The thing that fascinates me about opening my eyes and ears in a new country is the way that everything startles your senses - everything you smell, touch, taste,see and hear makes you feel alert and alive - although its not always pleasant. You cannot believe it will every be commonplace and form the well worn backdrop to your more stable inner world.

On my first morning in Istanbul I was overloaded with the unfamiliarity of everything - from the higgledy piggledy buildings with barnacles of air conditioning units stuck to them, to the shape of the bread and smell of the Bosphorus winds. It felt as though my whole body was being reprogrammed to some new scheme. Nothing was familiar or could be done on auto pilot - buying water, how to post a letter, where to buy a phone and how to use it.... Every small purchase or objective achieved was a challenge - sometimes a triumph , sometimes a knockback disaster of frustration. 

This reminds me of Raffy sniffing the non meat shepherd's pie I whipped up from an Unidentified Frozen Object (probably soya mince) this evening, while trying to watch Obama's inauguration. It was a new concept reflected in both my cooking and the 'remaking of America'- a combination of known elements  (tomato salsa, mashed potatoes) with unknown consituents (the UFO) into a wholly novel dish. Every faculty was awake to this new sensation and informed a discerning opinion from my youngest son : 'this is disgusting'. 

Hopefully the verdict won't go the same way with the new US President.

CANINE ISTANBUL

The street dogs of Istanbul are notorious and omnipresent and have been around since Ottoman times. Today's packs are descendents of classic woolly Anatolian sheepdogs mixed with European breeds that roamed the streets of old Constantinople. They are a mottly bunch also interbred with abandoned pets of all kinds of descent. Front end lab, back end...hmm who knows? We see them staring mournfully at us from every street corner and rubbish skip - a dirty white pelt with a sooty nose and a tail that looks too long for the body. Not totally cute, but you get fond of them.

Some are fierce and scare the daylights out of poor Ruby: the gormless lab whose 'lets make friends' attitude doesn't always pay off with the leader of the local gang. But a lot of them are soft and lonely and crave some human attention. Many of them get it, as Istanbulites are frequently kind to their canine neighbours. The Ottomans saw them as street cleaners - part of the recycling process. Today they are part of the furniture although there are also stories of cruelty and not all are as well fed as our pups. On our first trip to the city - in searing August temperatures - we were amazed to see a woman recklessly stop her car on a busy roundabout to give a dog a drink of bottled mineral water. Actually, now we have seen drivers hurtling the wrong way down dual carriageways I suppose we would rethink 'reckless'and see this as quite routine. Funny how your definition of 'normal' shifts....

I digress....now we are practically Istanbulites ourselves we have aquired some canine contacts too. We are particularly friendly with 3 orphan pups whom we have watched grow up in their little camp beside the wall we clamber over to enter the forest near our house. They are the typical model but with some patches of brown and black that make them distinguishable one from the other and lend them the names the kids have given them - 'patch', cinammon' and 'siyah' (turkish for black)They have survived the first 6 months of life and a harsh winter courtesy of cardboard boxes for shelter and margarine tubs of puppy food provided by kind people living in the apartment block across the treacherous dual carriageway.



They adore Ruby, whom they see as a surrogate mum, and while they retreat into the woods at the site of most humans, they bowl over each other to get to us in that typically puppyish way involving big paws and long tails tangling with each other until they are a mass of writhing tummies angling for the first tickle.

The 2 boys are very timid. The bitch, who is lighter and smaller and obviously the runt, has always been sociable and bold. I am ashamed to say that Ruby's interest in them is largely dedicated to trying to steal their half eaten scraps of food and bones. She cheerfully ignores their playful advances in her attempts to trample them down en route to a good scoff.


Who is the starving street dog here? Far from being hungry and poorly cared for these pups are watched over by local people who even arranged for a vet to vaccinate them before winter set in. They have fresh water and food every day - even after snow fall. They are free to bound about the forest chasing each other and the lizards. No cooped up apartment block for them with a turn around the block once a day.Maybe not such a bad life....

We wondered whether we should bring them in to our home during the harsh winter - but to what end? Piles of poo for us and street dogs gone soft - how would they ever be returned to the wild after being domesticated. And who would want them as pets? So we enjoy the trip up the hill to visit them and are rewarded by seeing how quickly they are growing into their huge paws. Soon they'll be bigger than Rubes and we wonder how the pack will organise itself between the two males. My greatest fear is that they may stray onto the busy road, but they - like us -have to learn to cope with the fairground bumper car tactics that constitute the rules of Turkish driving. Good luck to us all!

The Wild Side

Having just got back from a swift trip home to Devon, I can make a comparison with the home country and securely use the old traveller's cliche to say that Istanbul is a 'city of contrasts'. Having to explain your new life and the place you live to people who haven't been here (yet!) is always a challenge. Where can you possibly start and what do people really want to know about? Not really the tourist attractions and what we did on holiday, but how is daily life? What's different to the UK and specifically to rural Devon? Well, here's what's different.

Two weeks ago we had no school on Monday and Tuesday because we were under a foot of snow , by Friday it was 20 degrees centrigrade and sunny and only the soggy Fenerbahce scarf on the lawn indicated we had made a snowman. In the morning I can be 15 minutes drive away from home in the glitziest shopping mall you can imagine, surrounded by famous brand names ( that I have no desire to buy) while designer dressed cosmopolitan Turks throng Starbucks and Gloria Jean's buying cappuccino at around £3 a cup. In the afternoon I can walk in my wellies 5 minutes up the hill from our compound past the huge Toyota showroom into what I imagine is the kind of terrain best known to old Istanbul - or Constantinople. The city is built on forest sliced through by the Bosphorus strait and more recently decimated by the dwellings needed to both horizontally and vertically house 15 million people; but there are still large areas of pine, oak and beech state-owned forestry that give a clue to how the city once was. No one from the chattering middle classes uses the forest much (they are in their expensive health clubs) but Ruby and I regularly meet with the other population of Turkey - ordinary folk and street dogs.

More of the dogs later (they need a separate entry). My fellow forest walkers at 8am tend to be traditional Turkish women wearing the original headscarf - long and triangular and tied at the back, rather than the trendy shiny numbers with fancy pleats and ties that the politicised younger women wear. They are often older women with long grey coats or full skirts and thick sweaters against the cold. They have weathered faces and gnarled hands but are surprisingly nimble at shinning up the strawberry trees to gather berries. According to the season, they also gather blackberries or dig up wild flowers or herbs - often to sell I suspect. In the bigger forests they are huddled with their families picnicking on Sunday. Sometimes they are just taking their constitutional walk and admiring the view down over the city. We exchange greetings and are on our way. I see these same women tending lines of vegetables in market garden plots near the children's school. They are hard working country people who can carry huge sacks on their backs and are used to harsh conditions - they seem a million miles removed from their city cousins who currently fight for the right to wear the headscarf with their fashionably fitted suits in the workplace and university classes.

Just as the division between conservative and secular versus religious and radical is confusing to us in western Europe, the existence of these stark contrasts - cheek by jowl- is unfamiliar. But both are faces of Turkey and reconciliation of these opposites is part of the quest to enter Europe. It is an interesting time to be here...