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...

Backside issues

There is something about learning which word to use for the nether regions that brings you to a critical moment in a new language and has a real impact on your fluency. Mis use of the cruder terms in inaproppriate situations is a frequent misdemeanour among non native speakers. For example our sweet yoga teacher, who actually speaks very good English, last week asked us to 'put your foot up your arse please'. Now, not only were we startled at the use of the term, but also hesitated for a moment in our trajectory to the 'dancer' position wondering if this was anatomically possible - even for an experienced yogy(or indeed a dancer). We know her well enough to point out a phrase with better karma.

My first brush with the requirement in turkish came when Ruby the lab had a problem under the tail. The vet's assistant assured me that one of the vets at the practice had a good grasp of English and when he called me back would be able to decifer my embarrassed attempts to describe concisely why I needed an appointment. I started politely - 'it's her bottom' ('Mrs Debra, I don't understand'), her backside ('pardon?' ) 'under the tail (the ear is hurt?), errm... ok, since this is a vet now I start with more biological terminology: 'anus', 'colon' ('I don't underst...'), 'back passage' (silence), 'poo, faeces?' (nothing). Of course then I was forced to go into the more medium grade school boy epithets, but to no avail. I was by now finding it too hilarious to continue so we decided I needed to bring her in and, well, point it out.

I realised I needed to tackle the problem straight on and ask for a lesson on back end turkish from my teacher. She took it seriously as always - 'Kopeğin kıçı, but the suffix depends on what is the problem - is it indeed ON the dog's bottom or IN the dog's bottom'. I was trying to write it down in my phrase book for use at the clinic; my class mates had to be picked up off the floor. 'Where are you going to put that suffix??'

Does any other culture find these words as difficult (and hilarious) as the English? Does every nation have so many possible terms and so many connected jokes? My turkish is simply not good enough to know this yet.

But I was glad that I had the appropriate term to enlighten Raffy's dry slope ski teacher on Thursday. Seeing Raf looking very tight lipped coming much too fast down the astroturf conveyor belt I drew nearer to hear the dudey-looking guy instruct him (in English) to 'keep your backside ooopppen, now close your backside up'. Well, I guess on the real slopes he may need to kick in the turbo, but I think the snow plough may be more useful .....

Feeling Foreign

Feeling foreign is a strange fenomenon (that is actually the correct spelling in Spanish). Some days I confidently hop on and off the dolmus (mini van bus service) and make my way about town like an Istanbulite, exchanging 3 word phrases in Turkish here and there with supreme ease ('Metro please'; 'How much are your bananas?'; 'Nice weather we are having'). Hah... this is quite easy. I am almost a turk. Other days I am buried away in my study with Westnell work and Radio 4 'listen again' online and I only speak English to the kids and other parents as I pick them up from scouts. Istanbul? Are we really in Istanbul?

Then there are those days when I really know I am not from round here and have no clue about how to behave. I have just had two of those days in a row. Here is what happened on the first one. On Tuesday I organised a year 4 parents' get together at a cafe in a small forest village near the British school (I am class parent). It was the first time I had called a meeting and since I am a newcomer compared to most of the other parents, I was trying hard to get it right. I had struggled to find the appropriate venue that was strategically located, but also big enough to accommodate us all. I thought it was all very clear - Yasemin at the cafe was fine with 20 women driving 4 x 4s up to her restaurant and gabbling away in English for an hour while sipping tea from tulip glasses. I mentioned that they would want to eat cakes and since they don't sell them at the cafe she was fine about me bringing some brownies (there has to be chocolate). She mentioned that they have typical deserts - baklava soaked in litres of syrup and milk puddings. I had, I thought, made it clear that while typical turkish deserts are very tasty, probably not many women from the British school would partake of rice pudding at 2pm just before the school run. Baklava is one of those things that you are quite keen to try when you first arrive, but soon realise that your teeth ache from the mere sight of its sugary, fatty layers. I would have understood if she had declined to make space in her (quite empty) hostelry for such an occasion, which would obviously be somewhat unique for this country business, but she seemed enthusiastic when I made the arrangement and quite fascinated by my proposal.

Hmmmm.... We duly congregated around a pan of brownies and several glasses of tea on the appointed afternoon and all seemed to be going quite well until Yasemin came on duty, parted the crowd and made her way to face me across the long table. The chattering stopped. Her eyes narrowed as she addressed me in rapid Turkish: 'How much baklava do you want? What about the milk puddings?' Err... I saw out of the corner of my eye some screwed up faces ('milk pudding - yuk!') but also some sympathetic ones from women who had obviously been on the wrong side of custom before. 'Just buy a few portions of baklava - we can give it to the teachers', came one helpful response. I ordered some portions (lucky teachers). But it became clear that I had insulted Yasemin deeply by not ordering 20 portions of rice pudding or a whole tray of baklava (around 80 pieces). If the ground would only have opened up (well it nearly did in Ankara..) or the school secretary rung to say the children had plague.... maybe I would have been saved. But it did not. The final insult came when we asked for the baklava as 'paket' (take away). Were we not going to eat it within their sight? I have barely felt as chastened since the days when I visited elderly aunts for tea and could not face seed cake after a long journey in the back of a Morris Minor with no windows open.

The second reminder that I am an English woman abroad came the same day later in the evening. I had again used my very best beginner's level Turkish to arrange for a man called Aslan to come and clean one of my carpets, and my neighbour's. I felt quietly confident as he had been to the house before and we had exchanged pleasantries on the phone. I had seen his machine and his work. At my house all went well and the rug was cleaned thoroughly. Aslan was accompanied on this visit by a little wizened man with a beard whom he eventually introduced as his father in law. He appeared to be mostly decorative rather than functional as he perched on the edge of an armchair. But at 5pm Aslan abruptly reached for a blanket we keep on the sofa and asked if it was clean. Well, not really.. but what? Did he want to vacuum it too? Had the dog been near it? Well yes... probably drooled on it a bit. No that won't do then... I was perplexed.. and Ruby hovered uncertainly near her blankie, tail between her legs.

I guided the two men and their machine to my neighbour's house. Her toddler son was entranced by the proceedings and particularly by the granddad. 'Hoh, hoh hoh' the little boy announced . He had only seen Santa once in his life but was convinced that this was his reincarnation. I suppose many infants wonder where Santa goes for the rest of the year. Here was the answer. He is in the upholstery cleaning business. He has a day job. Fortunately the men saw the funny side of it and were delighted with the little boy.

But the elderly man was still unsettled. Finally I asked Aslan to explain. It was prayer time and his devout father in law needed a mat. Dogs are very unclean creatures. Even Ruby. How could I have been so stupid? The muezzin had been rasping incantations from the 3 local mosques - all in competition 5 times a day - since we have lived here, but this was the first time I had met a practising muslim in Turkey. Almost all turks I meet are vehement Kemalists (after Kemal Ataturk the founder of the Republic) and strident secularists. The huge furore about whether girls should be allowed to cover their heads in the universities here is a manifestation of this. But these quiet working men - perhaps from outside Istanbul and its cosmopolitan ways - were diligent in their work and their religion and I had served them tea in glasses but not understood their spiritual needs.

I bustled Santa back to our house, found a freshly laundered towel and continued to do Raffy's spellings with him in whispers in the kitchen while our living room became a make shift mosque. I found it soothing to have this gentle man saying prayers in our home. 'They must have felt comfortable with you', a friend remarked today when I told the story, searching for understanding. She is a German woman who has lived in Turkey most of her life and is married to a turk. She has seen a lot. I took this as a compliment.

When Aslan comes back to extract 12 years of dust and memories out of our old sofa, I will remember this, serve them tea and make sure we have fresh towels available. I wonder if Santa likes milk puddings..

Adventures between Christmas and New Year

The annoying rattle of the door handle that leads from our hotel room into our children’s shakes me from slumber; at first I think it is a wakeful child pestering us. From the fug of sleep I realise the bed is moving and a low rumbling from deep below is building up: a heavy lorry passing? It only takes seconds for me to catch on but even then I do nothing. What should you do when the ground is shaking beneath the 15 storey building you and your children are sleeping in? It is only a few minutes before stillness envelops us again but now Dave is awake too. We sat up in our kingsize Hilton bed wondering if this was the build up to a bigger shake. ‘Yes’, the concierge replies calmly when I call down to the front desk, ‘It was an earthquake. Nothing to worry. Don’t coming downstairs madam. No problem.’

We silently (and dozily) contemplate this information. How many times have we heard that before? The Turks are eternal optimists: ‘Problem yok’ (‘no problem’) is their mantra. By saying it we ensure there will be no problem (even if we think there may actually be a tinsy winsy leak in your plumbing/ hole in your tyre/ extra charge on your bill) And its true: their benevolent attitude does often pay off, and they probably know more about their earthquakes than we do. Nevertheless, we read the fire safety instructions and locate the nearest stairs on the map; in case. Ayelen gets up to go to the loo and asks what’s up. ‘Problem yok’ we reply. See? Even we have the hang of it now. The boys turn over in bed.

There are no horns blaring outside, no sirens, and no swarm of masses seeking cover. I peek outside: the city of Ankara is frosted with a layer of sparkling ice and it sleeps soundly. There are no holes in the ground.

‘Problem yok’ we agree and go back to sleep.

At breakfast the next day there are mostly business people discreetly taking the healthy option: no one holds back from their plates of olives, cheese and cucumbers. And no one says the dreaded word. We are glad as we don’t want to spook the children. Is this what it’s like the day after an earthquake? Can’t have been much of a deal. Maybe everyone slept through it.

The children in question are happily carbo loading for the long car journey to our final destination of Goreme, a small village at the heart of an extraordinary valley that was sculptured by lava and moulded by water 50 million years ago in an area known as Cappadocia. All the boys needed to know was that its surreal landscape was featured in a major Star Wars movie (which one? Answers on a postcard for all those fans…..)

We endured unpleasant foggy and icy conditions on the road the day before and are keen to clear some kilometers in daylight. Firstly, in an attempt to understand something of the fascination that the man has for the Turks, we make a very brief and very cold visit to the truly monumental mausoleum in Ankara where Ataturk (founder of the Republic) is buried. We then rev up the Volvo ready for the next leg. The outskirsts of the capital are as depressingly run down and industrial as any other city’s but there are no obvious signs of earthquake damage. Nevertheless I am glad not to have another night here.

After 200 km of climbing and twisting roads, the low cloud and sleet that have enveloped us disperse suddenly and we are on a flat plain with a straight road, a stunning landscape and bright blue sky. With shaking cities far behind us, it finally feels as though we are on holiday. Ah, the joy of the open road. Our mood lightens and I pick up some speed for the home stretch. The amazing volcanic rock structures and underground cities of this most unique place are almost within our vision. So is a hand written rather small sign saying ‘radar’. I decide it is quite impossible that this could be a speed control sign – out here? In the middle of nowhere? On an empty road with no speed limit indications? Nah!..Problem yok (negative). But of course Turkey is also the land of the random and unpredictable …problem var (positive) - in the shape of 3 rather bored provincial traffic police with a new toy.

It wasn’t the on the spot fine of £40 (reduced rate for cash) that bothered me as much as the sheer injustice of it. ME! The careful advanced skills driver who never cuts people up, never pulls out at junctions without looking or drives the wrong way down a dual carriageway as is the wont of the average Turkish driver. I tried the ‘no understand Turkish’ routine but I probably just gave too much away and the senior police officer very politely tried out his best few words of English. As always in Turkey, the social interaction is so agreeable that you find yourself going along with it just because you are making friends (even with traffic police – imagine!)


So..off we went again. This time we make it to destination. We are treated to the red-gold strokes of late afternoon winter sun on the most unimaginably beautiful and unusual landscape. A wide valley chopped up by ridges and plains, adorned with teethlike cones of ‘tuff’ rock described as ‘fairy chimneys’ for the tourists. The holes inside many of the towers are entrances to homes or churches. The rock itself is a golden sandy hue and today the whole enchanted scene is sprinkled liberally with glistening snowfall: icing on the cake. After so much time in the car the children are delighted to jump out and clamber around this magical place.. And there deep down in the valley is the little town of Goreme and our home for the next few days – reassuringly low rise and solid looking.

It proved to be as good as it looked and even better than the guide book descriptions. We explored underground cities 50 metres down inhabited from at least 7th century BC by trogolodytes hiding from warring invaders. We marveled at churches used by early Christians as hiding places before they became a legitimate religion and Byzantine cave churches and monastic centres with frescos dating from 9th century. There were also beautiful carpets to buy, wood fires to build and balloon rides at sunrise. By the time our 3 days was up, we had forgotten completely about our first night in Ankara and were filled with the glow of adventure.

Safely back in Istanbul on New Year’s Eve a friend remarked – ‘You were in Ankara? There was an earthquake there– 5.5 on the Richter scale the papers said.’ We scoured back copies of the Turkish Daily News and there it was on the front page: ‘our’ earthquake was a follow up from one the previous week that had measured 5.7. Over 300 buildings damaged and people out on the streets in some districts of the city. Hmm.. now we had an experience to brag about to other expats. It also made me think how isolated the wealthy are from the hardships of the average turk. As in the 1999 earthquake near Istanbul, poorer districts with badly constructed dwellings do not withstand the tremors as well as modern reinforced buildings like the Hilton.

The concierge had reassured me that the building was good up to 9 (meaning on the Richter scale). One of our boys, misunderstanding this comment and thinking he meant the tower block was only safe up to floor 9 later remarked, ‘but what good is that if you are on 12 (meaning twelfth floor). Perish the thought! Rest assured, we will be the ones asking for rooms on floors 1to8 from now on - or the underground cave dwellings!

Christmas

Post christmas snowfall - taken from our balcony

Christmas

Making gingerbread houses (copied from Dartington Primary!)

Christmas Istanbul

Dave had a long holiday because this year the Muslim calendar dictated that the celebration of kurban bayram fall at the same time as Christmas. The traditional celebration for this festival is the slaughtering of lambs by slitting their throat, representing the sacrifice of a ram by Abraham in place of his son Isaac. Village streets in provincial Turkey are said to run with blood from the multifarious sacrifices in staunch muslim communities. The imam (religious leader) presides over this quaint custom and the meat is distributed to the hungry. The urban secularists may prefer to go for a celebratory dinner in a nice restaurant in chic cosmopolitan Istanbul in which case they can donate the equivalent of £100 to a charity fund for orphaned children managed by the armed forces (why am I suspicious already?). This apparently has the same charitable and religious significance.

Christmas in a muslim country is never going to be easy. Unless, of course, you are the kind of person who disapproves of all the tat, commercialism and overspending of a UK Christmas (which also apparently has the same significance for most of us). I thought I was a disapprover. I imagined I would be relieved to be exempt from the peer pressures of other parents at the school gate: don’t you love that question: ‘All ready for Chrismas?’ The only people who ever ask it are setting you up totally. While you mumble about only having 20 more gifts to buy they will be glad to enlighten you: ‘I’ve done all my cards and gift wrapped all my presents with bows and ribbons and little hand made gift tags”. I believed I would rejoice that this year I wouldn’t have to face crowded high street chain stores stuffed with underpants bearing ‘stop here santa ‘ legends or be part of the count down frenzy at Tesco.com.

But you know what? I missed it all. I missed the lemming like surge that makes you feel part of something big. I missed the frosty nights doing late night shopping and the drinks with colleagues around log fires in pubs. I missed Christmas church services – the smells of candles, musty pews and new clothes and the age old carols that we sing only in England. I missed the huge excitement of Christmas Eve and then the lull that happens on Christmas morning when finally it is here and you can hear a pin drop in empty streets. I missed that late afternoon glow shining out from people’s living rooms as dusk falls on the big day, with trees twinkling and parents snoring.

Perhaps that’s why our family overcompensated by preserving every tradition possible. I purchased a tree complete with enormous root ball from a nursery and, with the help of our amazed compound gardeners, planted it in our living room and decorated it with all our shiny baubles collected over the years. Together we baked and decorated every kind of cookie, cake and pudding imaginable (including projects involving elaborate gingerbread houses that wouldn’t stick together). We also indulged in Dutch, Danish and German seasonal treats with our new friends. We found a church hosting an English carol service that was only an hour’s drive away in rush hour traffic. We ignored the world outside going about its normal business (can you imagine the dentist offered me an appointment on the 25th?) and holed ourselves up with Christmas music CDs and family DVDs. We drank mulled wine with our Dutch neighbours and their new born twins (we remember those times). And, believe it or not, Santa not only found us but he was also feeling quite generous this year.

Tucked up in our own make-believe world we had one of the most peaceful and enjoyable Christmases ever. There’s always next year to do something different - but I doubt we'll kill a lamb.

Resolution and Independence

"My question eagerly did I renew,'How is it that you live, and what is it that you do?'" 'Resolution and Independence' (Wordsworth 1802) ; (a question eagerly asked of many modern day ex pat wives).

Resolution

I have been a bad blogger - its a fact. Only one posting since October when I randomly began to scribble after a glass of rather rancid Turkish wine (bring wine as well as baked beans when you come to stay). It was too soon, I was in transition, I had too much Turkish homework, I had too many excuses. But here is my New Year's resolution and I'm going public: to write a blog at least once a fortnight. Now I'm nervous... The house is up and running, nearly all the pictures have been put up and fallen down again, the heating system has been activated and broken down many times (deserves its own blog entry), the children are pretty settled in school, I have walks for Ruby and know where to get organic bulgur wheat. I am learning Turkish (painfully slowly), I have made some great friends and am beginning to know their innermost thoughts (that one always takes time). Westnell is still Westnell and we chug along raising more money. I should have time! But then came Christmas, school holidays and more excuses!

Independence

It's not that I don't love the school holidays and all the fun things we do during them, but there is just so much TIME once they have gone back and so much space in my head to think thoughts that might be bloggable. Ruby and I can march ahead along the Bosphorus promenade with the wind blowing back our ears (a more fetching site in her profile than mine) and I can fashion adjectives about the turquoise waters and gargantuan tankers that sluggishly cut through them on their foggy route to the Black Sea. When the dears are with me I must focus on not stepping in the dog poo and avoiding the twins toppling into the drink as an errant fisherman whips back his baited line. With the kids, we stop at every council-created exercise park and try the twizzle-you-round-thingy ('without throwing your sister off, please!') and the 2-person-ski-move thingy ('not such big strides or Raffy will split his trousers, please!'). Inevitably we get told off for not using the equipment properly - its really for overweight adults. With the kids we can only walk TO somewhere - tea shop, video store or pizza place in Yenikoy (the latter is heralded on the fridge magnet as 'Vagabundo - pizza and pup' - sadly we have been disappointed never to see the pup, but it got their interest). On my own I can just walk nowhere..... and THINK!


No more excuses...

P.S. By the way, the Wordsworth poem is also known as the 'Leech Gatherer' - not something that many expat wives go in for here, happily.