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