TURKEY NOVEMBER 2013 - 3 - COMMUNAL LIFE MEMORIES TO COME TO LIFE

COMMUNAL LIFE MEMORIES TO COME TO LIFE

11.10.2013

Finally I make it home one more time, my fourth visit home this year, a first in 15 years. Most likely, I won't be able to come back until next fall for a full year. My entire family is home waiting for me, my mother, both of my brothers and their wives, my only niece and her husband to join us later on, after the opera they had bought tickets for ahead of time. I am pleased to hear that Melike, my niece has become an opera aficionada, dragging her husband down the same path. It looks like he has enjoyed it as much. After sharing memories of the months we have been apart, they all leave past midnight, I am exhausted and pleased. Alas, in 3 hours I am fully awake with jet lag not able to go back to sleep. Thus, my day starts at 4:30 am, a good thing in a way since I promised my family I’d prepare brunch for them, not so good for the evening I have been planning for my dearest of the dear friends, with whom I shared a full ten years together in the same neighborhood in such a way many people can never imagine sharing their lives with other human beings.

But I survive... By 6 am the cheese and spinach borek (spanakopita in other words in Greek) is ready to go in the oven. I go through all the vegetables in my mother's fridge and sort and rinse whatever I can serve to eat raw, and chop whatever I can mix in with the eggs to make a vegetable omelet for my guests.  By 7 am, I am ready to go out to do more shopping for the missing items that I need for a festive brunch. By the time, I return and rinse the rest of the vegetables I just bought, I have a rich mixture of chopped dill, parsley, mint, spinach, red and green peppers, black and green olives and mushrooms as well as several herbs, some of which I brought from home (that is, my home in Iowa City): All of this will go on top of an egg mixture I will lay over a thin film of olive oil to make into an omelet. My brother Mehmet is on a diet consisting mostly of proteins and vegetables. He claims it is working for him for his weight, I hope not at the extent of his cholesterol… I call him around 8:30 since our rendezvous is at 9. I get a loving scolding from a voice that sounds like coming from a cave deep in a mountain. I chuckle to myself. For me, it’s been ages since the day started, for him, he is still deep in the night. Isn’t this what we do in most of our communications with others, seeing the world through our own experiences that shape and color our “lenses”?

Around 9 am they start trickling in, and boy, are they happy with what they see on the table: Gevrek (Turkish bagel, unique to Izmir), varieties of cheese and olives, greens (arugula, parsley, dill, mint), tomatoes treated with olive oil, salt, lemon juice, dried basil and fresh mint, cucumbers, red and green pepper slices and borek... My brother Mehmet brought a special fresh cheese called "lor" in Turkish, it is neither salted nor sweetened. We love eating it mixed with either strawberry jam or honey. I guess, I take this from my mom: I love bringing people especially loved ones around a table donned with lots of good and healthy food. I’ve done it all my life living in Turkey role modeling after her. I exported this tradition to Iowa City, I think in a way, I moved my mother with me across the ocean through this tradition. What I like about this the most is the smile this very act brings to faces. I savor that moment. Making people happy doesn't cost much, really, just a bit of effort invested into making them feel precious is all that is needed... I am happy, I can do that, and I hope I will be able to do that for a long time...

After brunch, my mother's helper starts cleaning up and my brother and I head toward the farmer's market. I get ecstatic when I go to farmer's markets in Turkey. Even the largest farmer's market I have been to in San Francisco is dwarfed by any major farmer’s market in Izmir, Turkey. They are so vast and rich. There are some vendors in each market, who move from one market to another along with their goods. Due to rapid turnover, even their merchandise is very fresh. But, what is best in these markets are the actual farmers, mostly female that bring their produce to select markets that I like visiting. Those are the ones that bring the greens that I like to steam into outstanding fresh, delicious and healthy salads that are treated with olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Nowadays, peasant women have started setting up cooking desks as well just like in American farmer’s markets. They cook their traditional pastries, some cook Turkish meat balls along with rice, some sweets. That has brought a different kind of life to the market I must say. To tell the truth, aside from my people, farmer's markets of Izmir is what I long for the most throughout the year, when I am away from Turkey in Iowa City.

My brother and I shop separately. He teases me with my "need for social interaction" when I chat up vendors or others I come into contact with as I roam the city. Most people do not converse with other people as much as I do either in the USA or in Turkey. However, I enjoy that thoroughly, this is the only way I get to know people to the extent that I do. This is the only way I can learn about politics in Turkey through real people roaming the streets. Perhaps, I have developed such interviewing skills based on the patient population that I see, who tell me the deepest secrets of their lives, I might be conveying some element of trust to people. No matter what, each attempt to converse with a person that I don't know pays off tremendously: a life story unfolds before my eyes, never fails, each time....

I load our market cart: every family has at least one large cart of this sort in Turkey, which is filled at least once a week, at times a second time midweek from a neighboring market. I buy 2-3 pounds of beets. Tonight one of my themes will be having a "beet panel" on the table. A lovely friend of mine gave me a bunch of recipes with beets being the main ingredient off of New York Times magazine the week before I left Iowa City. I would like to surprise my best friends with new recipes they’ve never tried before. The beets will be either graded raw or roasted or steamed before turning into novel salad dishes: I will surround the crystal candle holders that I will light to honor our friendship of anywhere from 25 to over 50 years with 4 dishes of beet salads.

The main dish tonight will be Hungarian chicken paprikash that I never served to my friends before. I will also make an international rice dish that I created splicing different elements from different cuisines: dill from an Iranian rice dish, parsley from Hungarian rice, chick peas from Cretan rice, orzo from Turkish and mushrooms and mint will be my improvisation out of nowhere. My friends will bring typical Turkish mezes/tapas to be topped with Gaziantep baklava that my friend Suzan, who is flowing in from that province will bring. I can feel already that it will be a phenomenal evening that will take us on a time travel. We will all feel young, recalling toddlerhood and school ages of our kiddos if not our own, too with some. Our children have all grown into remarkable adults, beyond their professional accomplishments, with their humanistic cores and skills. We know that Gulce and Ekin, age 24, both professionals, one a reluctant investment banker in London (she got in not quite knowing what she was getting into and is now waiting for her “term” to be done); the other a lawyer in Istanbul working toward international relations at an international firm will be coming. We know that Umut, a sales manager at Siemens in Austria, and my daughter, medical student in Iowa City, USA will not be coming. Baris, the last of our 5 kids among the four families may or may not come. My heart still desires all of us get together, some time, if not tonight, in the near future.

Finally, my cart all full, I call my brother to see what he is up to. He is done shopping as well. We head home to start cooking: of course, I will put both Firuza, my mother's helper and my mother to work with sorting and rinsing the vegetables. Poor Firuza, will clean after me the entire day as I create dish after dish, perplexed, in disbelief, not quite understanding why there is such fuss in the house right after my arrival, despite my jet lag... She doesn't know what they mean to me. She doesn't know what I mean to them. She doesn't know what we all mean to each other. At some point, she taps on my shoulder and stops me for a moment and says quizzically: “Abla (big sister in Turkish), you are a professor, how come you cook in the kitchen like this?” She cracks me up, in Kyrgyzi cultural mind-set, I guess (not quite different than rural Turkish culture, really), she believes a professor has to have maids serving her wherever she goes. She will learn though, what our little commune consisting of 13 individuals, 8 adults and  5 children created over ten years, perhaps the most important 10 years of our lives. And for that commune, this professor could do anything. My heart is light, full of love, excitement, and pleasant anticipation....

TURKEY NOVEMBER 2013 -2- HAVES AND HAVE NOTS

11.8.2013

HAVES AND HAVE NOTS

Arrived in Istanbul. On Air Canada, on a flight sparsely sold out. I had two seats to myself, most people had four, those who were lucky enough to be assigned a seat in the middle four-seat section. I wasn’t that lucky, but couldn’t complain, either. The only remarkable thing about this flight was the design of the business class section. The seats were arranged in a Christmas tree fashion. Each seat having its own "cubicle" that made up the branches of the Christmas tree. The outward end of the cubicle had a foot rest, the inward end housed the actual seat. Thus, everybody had their own private cubicle with no opportunity for conversations with fellow passengers, I thought, since the way the seats/cubicles were situated put each cubicle on an oblique plane with any other seat/cubicle, which then put at least 2 yards distance between people. Communication then would require screaming across the aisles! The seats were designed such that, one could slide it forward toward the foot rest piece to complete a flat surface to assume a fully supine position late at night. No more connection with other human beings, though, I thought one more time. Perhaps I am a bit prejudiced, but I have this bias that business class customers are already confined from the rest of the common people, either by choice or situationally. Now more confinement from even peers... Having just read Ernest Hemingway’s “Haves and have nots”, I know there is a lot of loneliness in reaching the steps where one can afford business class tickets all the time. How far will the "haves" go for comfort, more differentiation, more luxury, more alienation before they see what the cost is, before they cannot tolerate the loneliness and lack of connection with other human beings any more...

After I returned from Turkey, I met with a group of friends in which there was a young man, who works in a private consulting company. As an insider from the business world, he gave us astonishing information on the business class flights. I could never ever imagine, a business class ticket may be sold for $75,000, yes, it is not a typo! Seventy-five thousand dollars. Imagine, how much profit is expected from flying a business agent across the ocean at that price... And business world keeps whining about their insurmnountable difficulties when it comes to debating whether we should help out single mothers with children or not when one business class ticket may put food in the stomachs of thousdans of hungry children for a year!

TURKEY NOVEMBER 2013 -1- TAXI DRIVER THE SURVIVOR

11/7/2013

TAXI DRIVER THE SURVIVOR

On the road again. Before even reaching the airport, a compelling story presented itself to me, I feel I should share with the reader. I arranged a shuttle to come pick me up from my house. My luggage is already on the stoop. As I am trying to get my final items together, I catch a glimpse of a red car pulling in onto my driveway. Usually what happens next is, the driver comes to the stoop and starts loading my luggage in the cab as I put on my coat and shoes inside. However, that doesn’t happen this time. The driver doesn't appear by the stoop even after I go out. I look toward the cab, trying to find an explanation. The driver is a woman. I don't even know why I am slightly surprised. I smile at her so does she at me. How could I know a nonstop chatter was waiting to burst just with the trigger of an exchange of smiles?

I will soon learn her name is Asila (of course i wouldn't publish her real name here just as I will change everything in this note just enough so that readers may not identify her). She is a redhead, most likely my age, my size, olive skinned; deeply set small eyes with her bangs giving her a mysterious appearance. Yet, the moment she starts chattering, two things become very clear: She is anxious, covering up her anxiety with her chattering. And, she might have a rough past; she has no teeth, is it just poverty or something else eroded her teeth too prematurely, something that endangers the children I see in my clinic day in day out, something that destroys families, lives, relationships, minds and bodies... Could she be a victim of methamphetamine addiction, on which I am specializing in a way?

For ten minutes she tells me how difficult it was to find my house and how she went the wrong direction and how police helped her find my place, on and on and on... In fact the address was so clear including the directions that I gave the call taker at her company. I am now intrigued by her enough that I want to learn more about her, who is she, where has she been, where is she heading? She has been working with this company for only the last 8 months. She tells me she likes it except for when people argue. She is in a way so personable, I can't understand why one would argue with her except for perhaps telling her "Can you please shut up?" if one doesn't care about "Who is this woman?". She tells me about a young woman for whom Asila was a bit late and took a wrong turn that made her even later, which made the customer even more upset. On top of all, she was also concerned that she was going to have to pay more than she had previously paid on this trip. Eventually, Asile decided to take over the extra charge and they settled down with what the young gal was willing to pay. Asila was still upset about it, though. A harsh sigh, almost a whip lash in the air, is clear indication that she has not forgiven her customer.

I ask her if she works days or nights, or both. She works only days since she can't see well at night. Her mother ordered her a pair of glasses that will help her see better. At age 50s, her mother ordering her glasses, how similar to the clients I see in my clinic. Constant “taking the wrong turn” both literally and metaphorically, how common in my clientele. In a way, as a child abuse pediatrician, I am feeling sad for this woman and want to not go any further with getting to know her better. But then, the anthropologist side of me is curious beyond measure. Furthermore, there is no stopping to her chattering anyway, whether I want to listen to her or not, I am doomed with no way out for another half hour!.

And, besides that, it is so clear she wants to talk, now that she's found a pair of caring ears to listen to her story, she goes on... Her mother is in her 90s with a painful physical condition on top of Parkinson's, which debilitates her mental faculties. Asila has to go to her mother every day to put on a narcotic pain killer patch on her in addition to giving her narcotic pain killer pills. Otherwise, her mom wouldn't remember taking them. She then throws in a fact about she, herself also taking narcotic pain killers. I feel uncomfortable asking her for what, she doesn't volunteer. With her usual chattering about everything but mentioning this just tangentially makes me wonder if what caused her loss of her teeth prematurely was replaced by prescription drug abuse.

I ask her if she has any children to change the topic. She does, a daughter very close to my daughter's age. She is out of state. I ask her what she is doing there. Instead of answering what I asked, she starts telling me about a very familiar story: The daughter has a child from a previous relationship, her boyfriend has two, and now they have a baby together. She doesn't have a car, when she needs to come visit her mom, Asila has to drive up north and bring her to Iowa. "It costs half a tank of gas you know", resentment in her voice. It will come back again and again when she talks about her daughter. I wonder if the daughter is the naughty one or the mother, or perhaps both, don't I see this intergenerational transfer of negative behaviors, they call it epigenetic nowadays.

At some point she volunteers that she is studying criminal justice and counseling at one of the online colleges. I get excited, "OK, perhaps, whatever happened in the past, she is holding onto life to recreate herself!" although in the back of my mind is also “Could this be wishful thinking?” To encourage her to talk more, I tell her, I work in a similar field and I work with social workers. She doesn't ask what I actually do, which is unusual for someone who indeed studies what she just said she is. Instead a frustrated if not angry "I detest social workers, they just took the children of some people I know and put them in foster care. And you know what the foster mother does? She tells this 6 year old girl she is an adult. She is now talking all about penises and vaginas. It is not her place to teach her these things, it is parents' job" comes out in one breath.

She is like a machine gun, clearly there must be more to this, looking at the emotional charge this should-have-been a benign conversation caused. I ask her how she knows these people. She tells me she let them stay with her for couple of months. It became four, she put a deadline, but before they left apparently social services got involved and they came to Asila's house to see the conditions of the house since the family resided with her after all. She volunteers "Well cleaning the house is not my thing. I clean it of course when it really has to be cleaned. They came and told me I was a hoarder and had a mental health problem. My mom laughed at this, she told me I had no mental problem" I hear the pain of the little girl in her. At this age, still looking up to her mother to understand herself? What led to her being stuck in whatever phase of her growth, who knows...

She then tells me she used to work at a major hospital as an administrator closely interacting with social services "They used to work with abused children..." Do I imagine the darkness that takes over her face when she says that? I ask her whether she retired, the most benign question I can think of to learn about why she left that very prestigious institution. The answer is simple: "They fired me!" Wow, almost brutal honesty. All I can say is "I am sorry." She continues "I got diabetes then. I was confused, I made mistakes and fell asleep at work one day. And there was this social worker...", she gave me the name, even, and went on and on and on that the social worker, younger than Asila, couldn't tolerate that people would go to Asila with their problems with their children "...because they needed a mother's point of view." It looks more and more she has created excuses in her mind to justify others being responsible for her failure in the past.

Concerns are chasing one another in my mind: "Narcotic pain killers, hosting a family whose children were abused/neglected, falling asleep at work (was she abusing prescription pain killers then, too, or was she under the influence of something else?) that led to being fired..." She declares humbly, "Since then I have been doing this and that. I like my job, it is good." I tell her it is great that she likes what she is doing, that is important as we turn left into the airport complex. I know, I scratched just the thinnest layer of what this redhead with no teeth has been holding in for how many decades. I wonder why she trusted me to open up like this? I wonder if she does this with every customer or did she trust me because I volunteered to sit by her in the front seat rather than sitting in the back seat, which would be my seat as well with male drivers. I wonder if this "session" will be of any help to her? I wonder if our roads will ever cross again? I give her a hefty tip and leave with a tangy taste in my heart. I look at her, it looks like there is the same tanginess in her heart, too....

TURKEY AUGUST 2013 -13- A STAGED TRADITIONAL TURKISH WEDDING IN OTHER WORDS MODERN KIR DUGUNU

8.12.2013 A STAGED TRADITIONAL TURKISH WEDDING IN OTHER WORDS MODERN KIR DUGUNU

Mission accomplished! The wedding is over, a great success, all went according to Melike's plans, and she is probably peacefully asleep in her husband's arms now as I type up these lines. I  replay everything in my mind over and over as I try to get all the details of the wedding in my blog:

Sunset at the wedding site

I am a "hala" (paternal aunt), enjoying Melike's happiness first and foremost, of course but also a relentless academic, who can’t avoid but look at everything around me through the eyes of an anthropologist, even if I am not one. Having spent significant chunk of my life in other lands, observing other cultures, I think, this has become second nature to me if not by training but by experience.  

My two brothers with their abla (older sister)

I am observing different sections of the attendees as much as I can identify their origins, their group identifications, and their potential paradigms through how they dance, what they like to sing, what they wear, how they address each other, whether they touch each other (if they do how closely) or not, whether they have eye contact or not, on and on and on... This will go on throughout the night. The wedding format is one of a "country wedding" or "kir dugunu" in Turkish. "Kir" is one of the expansive words in Turkish. In one context, it may refer to picnic place, in another to expansive meadows, in yet another to countryside, among other references to wild and natural spaces. 

With my two sisters-in-law before the wedding

When I first heard this term, kir dugunu, I was delighted (soon was clarified by others to be a false understanding) that it would be simple and natural, but still beautiful displaying the extraordinary beauty of the simple. The wedding unfolding before my eyes is indeed beautiful, but anything but simple and natural. I can’t help noticing and feeling disappointed that every single moment of the bride and groom's movements are either choreographed, or dictated by the cameramen, video-recording the entire wedding. It is as if the wedding is staged so that it is filmed, cameras primary, the wedding secondary. As a result of all of this, my poor Melike has to carry a photographic smile on her face throughout the night that will rarely leave its place to her natural, innocent, and beautiful wide variety of mimics and gestures. I wish, from the bottom of my heart the cameramen had left them alone and just recorded the entire night in its own flow and whatever spontaneity was left to exist.

Wedding ceremony conducted on a dedicated stage 

I recall my daughter telling me "country wedding" concept having become one of the "in" commercialization methods of tradition. Furthermore, I discover from Kezban that this fashion had started after one of the soap operas played with the kir dugunu concept in one of its sections that eventually led to a whole industrial sector springing out of nowhere, producing and pumping all kinds of goods and ideas to support and maintain the concept, thus, its market share. When I look at my surroundings with this new awareness,

With my youner brother and his wife

I can now see what kind of a new industry must be supporting all this totally scripted production. I am sad one more time that we are losing our authenticity and adopting American ways in every walk of life, at least in urban settings. Yet, I can’t help but wonder whether the Turkish society has yet again played a trick on globalization and interjected tradition into commercialization. One may certainly argue: is it commercialization of authenticity or authentication of commercialization? If anybody knows the answer to chicken or egg question, perhaps the answer to this question is within that mind, too

Some of the many delightful moments of the wedding involve meeting people from my past that I hadn't seen for decades.

My older brother and his wife, the parents of the bride

One of my high school friends approaches me at the beginning of the wedding with a tall, handsome young man, almost reminiscent of Bratt Pitt! It turnes out the handsome man is my friend's son Utku, who was also one of my patients at my practice until 4-5 years of age, until I left Turkey 16 years ago. He is now a confident, lovely man, who is comfortable telling me "as soon as I heard Resmiye would be at the wedding, I decided I would come, too!" His mother, who is one of the wedding organizers, just by chance, is also ecstatic with our reunion. She tells me "He grew up with stories of his 'auntie Resmiye'. I wasn't surprised when he perked up about coming to the wedding along with us when I told him, you'd be at the wedding", so heartwarming. I give him my card so that he may contact me when he comes to St. Louis to complete the last two years of his college studies at the University of Illinois. I am pretty sure, he will come visit us.

The groom's grandfather offering a golden bracelet as a gift to the bride: tradition prevails!

Some of my cousins from my father's side that I hadn't seen for a long long time, appear before my eyes. I discover the daughter of one of them is in New York City, whose mother also receives a card with my contact info to connect. I hope I can bring her in for a weekend visit, too. All in all, this trip to Turkey was full of a combination of tradition, evolving Turkish culture, and anthropology, which I didn't mind at all, in fact thoroughly enjoyed. I can't say, I was able to silence my inquisitive and analytical and somewhat critical mind as much as a trained anthropologist might have done, but all in all, in all that analytical observation, I still enjoyed my time in Turkey in this August of 2013, thoroughly.

One of spontaneous, caring emotional moments from the wedding, my mother teary and Melike connected with her

TURKEY AUGUST 2013 -12- DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY? WHERE IS IT?

8.11.2013 DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY? WHERE IS IT?

Between hannah festivities and the actual wedding of my niece, they left one day for resting! How thoughtful… We will start the day with a breakfast. One of the best parts of Turkish cuisine is its breakfasts. When I first moved to the USA, lack of access to proper Turkish breakfast items was a killer in terms of our adaptation to our new home. Our olives and various kinds of cheeses, with savory pastry and breads that go along with them were not easily available. Neither bagel and cheese, nor other sweet American breakfast items were cutting it for us. Until internet shopping was invented! Then, Turkish, Armenian, Palestinian food stores all over the country came to our help and America became truly home.

My maternal aunt Filiz, her daughter Muge, and grandson Bora had stayed at my brother’s house after the hannah night. Thus we made a plan to have breakfast at my mother’s/my house to start the day and left the rest to the spur of the moment. My aunt is a pharmacist, the only college graduate in my mother's family of their generation. Her daughter is a chemist, who is working on work place safety project, recently, I found out. Other than my core family, they are the only people I feel close to in my entire extended family, with whom I can share both intellectual and personal experiences. I got up early to make sure our breakfast was rich and healthy. Since nobody went to bed before 1-2 am the night before the breakfast started around 10 am and lasted until noon.

our breakfast table was something like this

After breakfast we start discussing what we could do for the rest of the day. When my brother Mehmet and his wife Kezban come up with the offer of going to Karaburun for a beach day, I am ready with my bag as Kezban will later put it "in 30 seconds". We leave home in 15 minutes to head to a beautiful beach, secluded by an island right across from it, dividing a wide opening to the Aegean into two narrow canals. The water is crystal clear. Behind the narrow beach is a cafe, where we claim a table for drinks and snacks, and shade. Kezban's sister Sehnaz and her husband Ertan and their two adult daughters join us at the cafe. Sehnaz and I have a unique history. I not only know her from our community organizing days through common friends, but and as a result of that I later on, became the pediatrician for her children, who are now sitting across from me, elegant, intelligent, beautiful women.  I first took care of Cansu, who is now a high school teacher and has become an activist herself! Later, I also took care of Goksu, her sister. They tell me the only reason they are at the beach is to see their "auntie Resmiye", that’s how they addressed me throughout their childhood.  It is such a delight to have political adult conversations with both of my girls that came to my hands as newborns and grew up in and out of my practice for years before I left Turkey. They leave with the promise that we will stop by at their summer house for a cup of coffee on the way back.

Karaburun as we are leaving for Izmir

I had also called my best friends, who have a weekend house in one of the villages in Karaburun, where they not only spend most of their summer days, but also almost all their winter weekends as well. I am delighted to see them join us at the cafe after I have my first swim reaching out half way to the island (couldn’t dare heading to the island by myself in the choppy waters). I call somebody a best friend when you don't see them for years, perhaps, but once you get together, you catch up in a few minutes and move on as if that space in time never existed. That is the kind of friends Yildiray and Aysegul are for me, whom I have known for 25 years; we raised our children (Umut and Zeynep) together for ten years until I left Turkey for the USA. Umut, now is a rising star at Siemens working in Austria, and an eternal brother to my daughter. Yildiray is a physician specializing in occupational health, his wife is a special education teacher for autistic children. Whenever I see them, I like to discuss with them the politics in Turkey, since I trust their interpretation of events to the fullest.

Yildiray and Aysegul, being part of the same activist movement I was in, three decades ago, have started organizing the farmers in the Karaburun peninsula, who will have a demonstration against the government and its policies, which is full fledge exploiting the environment and selling public forests and beaches, and islands to their supporters left and right. I am proud of my friends. They tell me all about what happened during the Gezi Park protests that spread to the entire country after the police attacked the peaceful environmentalists in Istanbul in late May. They tell me about waking up at 2:30 am following the Gezi Park crackdown with the noise protesters had created in their residential neighborhood. I asked why at 2:30 in the morning: because the youth is online until late at night and social media had mobilized masses with some lag time. Following the crackdown, the Turkish media, almost fully controlled by the government and its partners/supporters was in deadly silence until a week after the protests. The only communication mode and information source was the social media for a long time.

police brutality in ankara the capitol 

They tell me how they rushed outside to join the young protesters and started walking toward the main road. After a while they headed downtown Izmir to discover there were thousands and thousands of people on the roads. This was only the beginning... They tell me about their own observations of police brutality, how police were cornering people in small groups to be able to beat them up to potential death, if not that, surely to significant injuries. They tell me about men with bats in hand hunting for protesters, especially female protesters to beat up. They are believed to be fundamentalist religious warriors, paramilitia, supporting AKP, Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party. We talk about what little we could do from the USA to contribute to the protests. We discuss how creative the new generation that we, the generation of 68 and the next one had lost hope in due to globalization and consumerism's take over. As much as we appreciate their creativity, my friends are as much worried about the lack of political leadership to bring all this reaction under one banner to tackle down the current rule and bring true democracy to Turkey. Our discussions generate more questions than answers, of course... However, it is still refreshing to hear my thoughts and concerns reflected back at me by my trusted friends, which bring a heightened awareness and knowledge to the table, on my part.

police brutality on protesters

My brother and I talk a lot about Turkish politics, too. The so called "Ergenekon" crisis created by the government "came to an end" after many years of litigation before I left Turkey this time around. AKP created this conspiracy theory that the military, the academics, artists, journalists, the only common denominator among which was vocally opposing government policies had created a terrorist organization called Ergenekon and they were all were working on a plot to topple down the government. As a result of this theory, scores of men and women were incarcerated and kept in jail without a trial for years, some close to a decade. My brother tells me about the government agents hacking accounts of people and inserting provocative, conspiratorial files into their accounts to make them look like they were indeed part of a large conspiracy. He tells me, the defense had proven that there was electronic evidence that such material was inserted into accounts several years after the claimed dates of events (such as the files claimed to have been written in 2003 displaying the formatting of windows 2007, etc). Still, the judges were ignoring such evidence. This is how democratic Turkish political system is and free the judicial system is.  

In my disbelief about "How can that be?" after his initial frustration with me such as "abla, you have become too Americanized, how can you believe that law prevails in Turkey with so many violations to democracy?". After calming him down with "Ok, brother, explain to me how this can happen, since they do claim Turkish state is a state of law". He then tells me very familiar stories on: judges who did consider such evidence, being excused from presiding over the Ergenekon trials and being exiled to the most remote provinces of the country, their promotions being delayed; attorneys defending Ergenekon defendants being harassed, even being incarcerated with imaginary ties to Ergenekon, themselves, to deprive those defendants of their rights to an attorney; prosecutors recognizing all false allegations, keeping their charges to lesser ones also being exiled, on and on, and on...

academics convicted in ergenekon trial 

Ergenekon trials finally ended couple days ago, which led to another bout of demonstrations. Numerous individuals were convicted to a life term, couple of them to "two life term sentences" (!). Mehmet Ali Haberal, world renowned founding president of Baskent University in Ankara, was released due to a lesser conviction, for which he had had more than enough jail time during the stagnant trial process.Tthis is how democratic even the judicial system is in Turkey right now, under this government, which eliminated the separation between executive and judicial powers with the most recent fraudulent constitutional referendum. 

ergenekon convictions

Democracy? the west has been blowing AKP's whistle for a decade now claiming AKP is THE chance for Turkey to embrace democracy.... They either don't know AKP is abusing democracy as a tool for its own benefits, or are ignoring what AKP truly represents just because it serves the west's best interest, economically, for the time being. AKP represents Islamo-fascism as democratic and liberal Turkish people have been experiencing for a decade now, which the world has also witnessed during the last several months through government led, encouraged, applauded police brutality around Gezi Park and national uprising of late.

gezi park protests in turkey

We almost bring the sun down to the horizon with all these discussions, when my brother announces it is time to return home. Understandable since we will make two more stops before arriving home near midnight one more time. we first stop at Mordogan, a lovely fishing coastal town midway between Karaburun and the highway leading to Izmir. Kezban's sister Sehnaz and her family have a summer house at a complex in the middle of olive groves in Mordogan, where multiple family members as well as many friends of theirs from the activist movement of the 70s have secured a summer home for themselves. It is in summary, a truly communal community, the culture of which prevails over the rest of the residents. The main characteristic of the community is openness and sharing in every way. Dinner tables are set in front of homes, all of which face each other across 4 feet wide alleys. Sharing food, mezes, grilled meat, is the mainstay as well as raki toasts. The cultural reminders make me recall Nazim Hikmet, my most favorite Turkish poet's lines:  "sharing everything, everywhere, all the time, other than lover's lips...."

nazim hikmet's poems 

We pay a bayram visit to Kezban and Sehnaz's mother and father, who also have a summer home in the same complex. After enjoying a cup of Turkish coffee, each, we head to a fish restaurant. Every fish restaurant in Turkey is a festivity in and of itself. Most of them are very modest places, very consistent with the beautiful simplicity of beach life, preserved in places like Karaburun, Mordogan, Seferihisar, still resisting to savage commercialization of our beaches. The most spectacular aspect of each of these fish restaurants is their fridges in which the catch of the day is kept and displayed through transparent glass walls. My brother picks a huge six-pounder (over 2.5 kg) sea bass, which lives in the rocky shores of select coasts like Karaburun's. It is a beautiful creature, indeed and its taste, we will all testify to as “beyond this world”. I think of my dear friend Nukhet as I savor the fish, who would definitely say "it is mind-boggling" or "akla zarar", in Turkish. I smile, thinking, how world-wide even my free associations are... I concur one more time, I thoroughly enjoy being a world citizen, feeling at home in Turkey and Greece and Portugal and Guatemala and the USA, among other places I have been to, alike. 

After devouring a 6 lb sea bass, everybody is content

TURKEY AUGUST 2013 -11- HANNAH CEREMONY BEFORE WEDDING

8.10.2013 HANNAH CEREMONY BEFORE WEDDING

Hanna festivities are over! It was so much fun to immerse in modernized tradition, since pure tradition is not really my thing. My brother Mehmet and his wife Kezban came over to my mother's house yesterday for breakfast. There was a small glitch at the end of breakfast when my niece Melike, who is soon to be married called us frantically being concerned about a sensation in her eye and whether she'd be able to wear her contacts for the Hanna festivities and for her wedding in two days. Kezban, who is an anesthesiologist came to our help: She offered Melike to be seen at the hospital where Kezban worked. Pheww, that was quite a help. It turned out it wasn't anything other than dry conjunctiva.

Right after the beauty parlor visit, women all beautified

Around 11:30 am, Mehmet drove me to Melike's house where we did some more last minute cooking and greeted and hosted Melike's friends that started arriving from multiple cities for her wedding weekend. Melike's maternal uncle and other relatives also joined us throughout the day. It was a strange feeling to be hosting a wedding, for the first time in my life. So far, I always went to weddings hosted by others. Having just one daughter, who is swamped with professional engagements, no wedding any time soon for her; and one niece, no surprise that this is the first time I am somewhat responsible to make sure others are comfortable at “our” wedding festivities. I am an aunt after all, in Turkish culture considered half-a-mother.

  

My sisters-in-law and I just before leaving for the Hannah festivities

One of the details about Turkish weddings is that core family members go to a beauty parlor during the day of evening festivities, and have their hair done. I am not much of tradition, especially of this sort, but have one single niece after all, I decided to join the crew. It was fun to observe the communal spirit of women beautifying themselves asking for opinions of the group members, feeling satisfied, when everybody verified, each member had a fantastic hair-do or make up. However, I felt more like an anthropologist than an aunt when all the rest was all about how they could be their best in appearance.

My niece and I in front of the banner for her Hannah party

Finally, all of us improved in facade, returned home to have a late lunch, early dinner with all the food we fixed the day before. We had made turkish stuffed grape leaves, mixed stuffed vegetables, eggplant salad, barbunya beans, kiymali borek (pastry with ground beef and onions) and ispanakli borek (pastry with spinach and cheese, we made both), and desserts... it was great to see people enjoy our production as they scattered in small groups to all over the house with their plates and drinks. I had to take a nap before leaving for the "kir kahvesi" (country cafe) Atlihan in a village, famous for its kir kahvesi places, that are all multi-functional, nowadays I learn. They may serve as a breakfast place, restaurant, simple cafe, and lately, I guess, they also organize wedding ceremonies of small caliber.

Outdoors wedding setting in the country 

Sure enough, Atlihan kir kahvesi was ready for us all. They had put out tables and chairs donned with white table clothes and chair dresses to the ground. Although what was underneath was simple plastic, the coverings made the chairs and the entire place look very elegant. The youngest females were assigned to be responsible for the candy and cologne job. In Turkish tradition, two-three young girls stand by the door/gate of where the wedding is held and offer guests a very light cologne with lemon scent and candy/chocolate. This lemon cologne actually may be served to guests under any circumstance, even when people visit one another in their homes. It is not very perfumy, especially in hot summer days, the alcohol in it evaporating rapidly gives a sense of refreshment. I personally like it a lot. Clearly everybody else did, too, nobody refused it. Hand full of lemon cologne found its way to the guests’ necks and arms helping them cool off a bit more. Serap. my sister-in-law, my brother, and Melike's inlaws-to-become were lined up at the entrance to greet the guests. I joined the crew being the only aunt Melike had.

My brother bringing our mother to the Kir Kahvesi

I assumed people didn't know me, thus, I introduced myself to people as Melike's aunt, "hala". Turkish is very descriptive in that regard like Spanish. Every relationship has a different title, allowing one identify whether it is a paternal or maternal relative. It was cute to see the expression on people’s faces, one of “Oh my, so this is the woman” as if they had heard about me, “the woman, who is across the ocean and God knows when she will return for good” and finally here I was! This way, Mustafa, the groom's halas (paternal aunts) and teyzes (maternal aunts) introduced themselves to me, too in delight. I felt we were much more connected this time around. They seemed to be all well-intentioned, genuine people far from pretense. I liked Mustafa's family so far quite a bit.

Melike and Mutafa doing ballroom dancing

Melike had made some nice touches throughout the place in her preparations. Evil eye beads were scattered across the tables around the central bouquets. She had us tie colored chiffon scarves around the posts all over the place, which purked up an all-white space. The hannah parade was something else. All single women were invited to go inside to prepare for the parade. They were all given a short bride's head piece to wear  as well as scarves to wave during the parade. When the entire parade was ready, Melike led the crew with a semitransparent red scarf over her head and face, covering the upper half of her body. No wonder she had chosen a dark red dress, which was very becoming to her with her temporary scarf, now. One of Melike's friends was carrying the bowl full of hannah paste to be applied to Melike's hand then to be distributed to whoever wanted to apply it to their hands. Three candles lit on top of the hannah bowl were the only source of lighting all around us at that moment. As they started walking toward the stage, it turned into a traditional folkloric line dance, called halay in Turkey. After the youth all got on the stage dancing halay, we all joined in and made the line dance into an eternal circle wound into itself numerous times.

Hannah parade with all single girls and women lined up on the stage

Finally, my dear Melike was "entrapped' in the heart of the circle. Somebody brought two chairs into the circle and had Melike and Mustafa sit side by side. As one of Melike's friends was applying hannah into Melike's palm, Melike's mother-in-law snuck in a gold coin into the middle of the hannah lump in Melike's palm! All was quickly wrapped with a piece of cloth and her hand went into a red semitransparent glove. This is traditionally the time, the bride is expected (!) to shed tears since this moment supposedly represents the fact that the bride is departing from her father's home and is moving into her husband's household.

Melike trying to heold her tears back: It is the tradition for the bride to cry!

As much as I enjoy the backdrop of certain traditions with some aspects, I can't help recalling what they actually represent in political economy context: All these rituals in fact refer to a young woman being exchanged between two households in the context of feudal relationships, after which she will become “working hands” for the husband's family. For the sake of that, the husband's family is expected to pay whatever it takes to get her! To pay dowry to the bride’s father, if not in western Turkey, in eastern Turkey for sure is still a common practice. None of this applies to Melike and Mustafa of course since they are just playing with the idea of traditionalism during their wedding, but it does apply to scores of women and men in more traditional settings in the country, not only that, all around the world.

I bet in 1800-1900s, I would be called a "bad American" for having rhytym just like African Americans

Once hannah ceremony was over, we were back to dancing. Melike was in her element. Mustafa and she did two ballroom dances (apparently, it became a custom to take dance lessons for the bride and the groom to look professional during the wedding, each and every moment of which is video-recorded in Turkey, too, nowadays. In fact, there were times, I felt as if the hannah ceremony was being performed for a video-production rather than it being recorded in its natural course. Little did I know, the same will be repeated, much worse at the wedding itself. Once the traditional Turkish group dances resumed, the two sides of the families intermingled much better, dancing in mixed groups.I must say, everybody visited the stage to dance at least once, some of us, pretty much not leaving the dance floor. I wished my daughter had been there with us, she not only would have enjoyed herself thoroughly, but also would have made Melike much happier.

The bride's mother dancing with the folk dance group

When I had to leave half an hour early since my mother wasn't able to hold up any more, this was the longest she could sit on a chair for a long time, the dancing was still continuing full fledge. I learned later on that the young people, the bride, the groom and their friends went to a night club to continue dancing until 4 am in the morning. I recalled fondly, the days, my friends and I used to dance until early hours of the morning a few decades ago. That is youth, I thought. as young at heart as I feel, my entertainment engagements usually end around midnight nowadays....

Just before the hannah application

TURKEY AUGUST 2013 -10 - RAMADAN AND BAYRAM IN TURKEY AFTER MORE THAN A DECADE

8.8.2013 RAMADAN AND BAYRAM IN TURKEY AFTER MORE THAN A DECADE

Ramadan is over in the Muslim world. I have ambiguous feelings about this month and the culture surrounding it. My memories from childhood are very pleasant. My parents were the ones suffering the burdens of starvation and dehydration during those years, I simply enjoyed the enthusiasm around the festive dinner tables, called "iftar sofrasi", the unique foods that were only found at iftar tables, and of course the bayram that followed, which brought lots of allowances from grandparents, our own parents, older relatives, and even neighbors when we visited them through three days of bayram. the only negative memory I have from Ramadan is the fear the drummers triggered in me in the middle of the night. They strolled the neighborhoods to wake up people for an early breakfast, "sahur" before fasting started. Occasionally, when I got up with my parents for the sahur meal, I would look out the window to see the drummer strolling our neighborhood. His dark skin, most drummers were Roma people, fast pace in the solitude of the night with long shadows elongating in every which way, the sound of his footsteps when he didn’t beat the drum and the roaring sound of the drum scared me to death. I felt our street was invaded by some violent stranger.  When he and his team came to our door to ask for tip in the middle of Ramadan and on the first day of bayram, I would hide in fear in the most remote corner of the house and couldn’t understand why my parents were so friendly with such scary people.

Ramadan drummer 

When I reached late adolescence, the context changed totally. I was no longer a Muslim and I started seeing the Ramadan drummers as intruders to the lives of non-believers or non-fasters. I was almost looking for a way of punishing the poor drummers, who were just after a very modest income through tips. As upset as I was with the drumming tradition, I am glad I never insulted them other than telling the tip-seekers, "I do not fast, I am sorry." Had I had the wisdom of today, I think I would have tipped them anyway. I guess that is the way all over the world. In a country where at least 90% of the population is Muslim, traditions of Islam are imposed upon the minority non-Muslims, whether they are of other belief systems or non-believers. Even in the USA, although Christianity is not the choice of religion for such large majority, still, its traditions prevail.

Ramadan drummers come in teams when it is tipping time

This year is the first time in more than a decade, I spend time in Turkey during Ramadan. Thus, I have the opportunity to check my feelings and thoughts about the Ramadan traditions one more time. First of all, I now have discovered ear plugs, which did not exist in Turkey before I left the country to move to the USA. That, in and of itself takes care of a potential upset due to uncalled for drumming in the middle of the night. During the ten days of Ramadan I spent in Turkey this time, I did not wake up because of the drummers at all, thanks to my ear plugs. Perhaps because of this or the maturity that came with age, or the tolerance that I developed for attitudes and traditions that I don’t observe, I’ve been able to see the drummers, who visited every apartment building for tips this morning, simply through the tradition lens without anger or frustration. It is now, also fun to prepare a dessert for the potential guests that will visit my mother during the three days of Bayram. I smile thinking, how I never followed that tradition in my own home as an adult, since I was a nonbeliever and I took advantage of time off during bayrams and took off either up to the mountains or to the beaches. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, though, it was great fun to help my mother who would make several kinds of desserts for our guests.

Multiple trays of desserts are made in each household for Bayram 

It is fun to be with my family on a Bayram day after more than a decade if not longer. I made plans for an elaborate breakfast for my brothers and their families. It is almost expected, too, since I am now the oldest functional adult in my family, my mother being disabled. I bought the ingredients to make borek (Turkish pastry stuffed with a variety of ingredients) in addition to a variety of cheeses, pistachio helva, olives and greens. I learned from my mother how to make a unique Cretan style borek with zucchini. I had to slice the zucchini the night before so that it would release some of its juice to be drained over night. My brother Mehmet was anxious that making borek would take too long a time for Bayram breakfast: I am up at 6:30 am and borek is ready to go in the oven by 8. When I called my brother Mehmet, who lives in the same block with my mother that borek was in the oven already, I could tell I woke him up from a sweet morning sleep.

zucchini borek recipe

Both of my brothers, my older brother's wife and daughter (the younger's wife was on call) joined us for breakfast. We were all very pleased in an adolescent manner with the richness of our breakfast table, perhaps, all of us were experiencing a de ja voix from our childhood since our mother’s Bayram breakfast tables were just like this one. I am especially happy since I aimed at exactly this, to have my brothers experience a “just like Mom’s table”, it looks like it worked. Some of the items were first encounter for Firuza, she is ecstatic with not only the food, but also with having a proper and timely breakfast for the first time in a month.



Breakfast on Bayram morning with my entier family except for my younger sister-in-law



Later on she tells me she was more astonished with my cooking with her and treating her like a sister. I don’t quite understand and look at her, I bet quizzically. She explains "I told my mom, 'I had dinner with a professor', she was very impressed!". I crack up, but also feel a bit saddened. This alone is an indication for how traditional and almost cast-based the section of Uzbeki culture she is coming from must be. No wonder, she is constantly trying to take over what I do when we cook together, telling me "I'll do it, you go, sit." And the final resistance is that she doesn’t want to sit with us at the same table considering she is a servant. We finally convince her that to us, she is family and almost force her to sit at the family table to have breakfast with us. I am pretty sure, she won't believe where she will have come by the end of her time with my family in Izmir if and when she chooses to go back to Uzbekistan. I hope this experience helps her become her own person and be happy.  

Melike, my niece, who will soon be married

After breakfast, my sister-in law Serap, whose daughter Melike, my niece is getting married, and I go to their house in Bornova, about 25 kms away from my mother's house. My other sister-in-law had made stuffed grape leaves and dessert to help Serap's menu for the dinner she will have at her house for the core family members before her daughter's hanna ceremony the following day. Serap and I will cook stuffed vegetables, roasted eggplant and red pepper salads, zucchini patties, barbunya beans, cheese borek, and turkish meatballs with potatoes. Visitors tomorrow, will enjoy the variety of food quite a bit, I know. I feel at peace to be of some help to my only niece's wedding festivities. My last several days in Izmir before heading back home in Iowa City will be all about the wedding, which I am looking forward to.

My sisters-in-law just before leaving for the hanna celebration for Melike's wedding