The earth continues to tremble from time to time. It's not very nice, but it's a fact of life. Ron and I are continuing to go about our business as usual, but it feels like we're the only ones. Last night, it turns out, most of our neighbours took off and huddled in the local park around a fire. Our landlords, the Akgüls, whose apartment is taller and built on a less solid foundation, spent the night in their car. They said their place was really rocking and they didn't want to hang around. But why has everyone come home today? Is it any safer in the daytime? Is an earthquake any less likely to strike when the sun is up?
Today the man who is sort of the building president - I guess he heads the condominium association - came to our door and said, "There are rumours that there is a much bigger earthquake coming. We're all leaving, and I think you should, too." But in this country of buildings that drop bits of themselves on your head when the earth is absolutely motionless, I don't think I want to be outside much without a hard hat when the earth is hiccuping. We're planning on staying put in our top-floor apartment in this solid little building.
We're trying to figure out why everyone is so frightened in this country of truly brave people. They really are tough, and brave to the point of heroism when required. And they've worked themselves up into a mighty state of hysteria, it seems to us.
What do you think? Should we stay in our apartment? Should we go somewhere else? Where?
Friday, October 21, 2005
Thursday, October 20, 2005
The earth moves again
Another earthquake last night - 5.9. The TV this morning is full of pictures of cold people who spent the night in the parks. We said something like "Oh bleep, another one," and went to bed. Do they know something we don't know?
I'm surprised at how panicky the Turks get with earthquakes. I guess it's not just the Turks - I was talking to someone the other day who works at the large NATO base here. During Monday's earthquake there was a big tough British Special Air Services guy who was running around saying something like "The sky is falling!" and everyone wanted to run outside and go home. Their boss had to point out that the building they were in was built to withstand a nuclear attack, so get back to work.
It's really cool here now - very cool indeed in an apartment that's not heated. Our air conditioner also heats, but it uses so much power that we can't have anything else on when we're using it or it blows all the breakers. Now I'm wishing we'd brought more warm clothes.
The trees don't seem to be losing their leaves, although people tell me they do between December and February. Right now they seem to be enjoying the cool weather and turning greener. The dandelions are everywhere, and the bougainvillea is blooming like crazy. It's like a second spring.
The mandarin oranges are in season now and they're unbelievably good. They're called mandalina in Turkish, and they eat them when they're still green. We drove through some citrus groves yesterday - big oranges and grapefruits - and they look just about ready to pick. Then, they tell us, strawberry season begins about the end of December.
The drive yesterday was thanks to one of those crazy coincidences. Ron and I decided we needed to do some shopping and also needed to explore a bit, so we headed out to the nearest main street and caught the first bus. It carried us off into terra incognita, but a short walk from its terminus brought us to the continuation of our main street and we caught another bus that brought us to the southern suburb of Balçοva. We knew there was a big supermarket there so we headed off in search of it. We found one - not the one we were looking for, but a suitable one - and bought up all the stuff we needed that we can't get in our local shops. At the checkout we bumped into one of the women I'd met at church on Sunday, an Englishwoman married to a man whose family has lived here for 300 years although he has French citizenship (more about that in another blog, I think). They live in a lovely house between the water and the afore-mentioned orange groves. Lovely visit, great adventure.
If the buses are running I'm off this morning for my first haircut in Izmir. More adventures coming, I'm sure.
I'm surprised at how panicky the Turks get with earthquakes. I guess it's not just the Turks - I was talking to someone the other day who works at the large NATO base here. During Monday's earthquake there was a big tough British Special Air Services guy who was running around saying something like "The sky is falling!" and everyone wanted to run outside and go home. Their boss had to point out that the building they were in was built to withstand a nuclear attack, so get back to work.
It's really cool here now - very cool indeed in an apartment that's not heated. Our air conditioner also heats, but it uses so much power that we can't have anything else on when we're using it or it blows all the breakers. Now I'm wishing we'd brought more warm clothes.
The trees don't seem to be losing their leaves, although people tell me they do between December and February. Right now they seem to be enjoying the cool weather and turning greener. The dandelions are everywhere, and the bougainvillea is blooming like crazy. It's like a second spring.
The mandarin oranges are in season now and they're unbelievably good. They're called mandalina in Turkish, and they eat them when they're still green. We drove through some citrus groves yesterday - big oranges and grapefruits - and they look just about ready to pick. Then, they tell us, strawberry season begins about the end of December.
The drive yesterday was thanks to one of those crazy coincidences. Ron and I decided we needed to do some shopping and also needed to explore a bit, so we headed out to the nearest main street and caught the first bus. It carried us off into terra incognita, but a short walk from its terminus brought us to the continuation of our main street and we caught another bus that brought us to the southern suburb of Balçοva. We knew there was a big supermarket there so we headed off in search of it. We found one - not the one we were looking for, but a suitable one - and bought up all the stuff we needed that we can't get in our local shops. At the checkout we bumped into one of the women I'd met at church on Sunday, an Englishwoman married to a man whose family has lived here for 300 years although he has French citizenship (more about that in another blog, I think). They live in a lovely house between the water and the afore-mentioned orange groves. Lovely visit, great adventure.
If the buses are running I'm off this morning for my first haircut in Izmir. More adventures coming, I'm sure.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Earthquakes & other moving events
I'm weeks behind in this blog, thanks to a faulty ethernet port that was keeping me from connecting well to the Internet. But that's fixed, thanks to a techie friend-of-a-friend, and not too soon, either.
Today I woke up with a jolt. Actually I'd been thinking about getting up for some time (it was 8:45), but the bed was warm and comfortable and it's getting pretty cool in the apartment these days. But then the earth moved, and moved, and kept on moving, and I thought I'd rather be close to my Ron just then.
That was the first shock. It was 5.7, according to the TV. Throughout the morning we cocooned in our cozy living room and watched the reflections in the glass door of the china cabinet move and listened to the glasses jingle as more little jiggles happened. Then, just before 1 p.m., there were a couple more big ones - 5.9 and 5.6 - and things began to settle down.
The news says there was almost no damage, and the only injuries were to people who jumped off their balconies in panic. I can understand that. There's something crazy-making about the solid floor moving under your feet. And I think about Kashmir, where the aftershocks of their quake are bigger than what we're going through here.
The Kandilli Earthquake Observatory has a page listing the most recent seismic events in Turkey here, although it's not updated as often as one might like. The USGS page is more up to date.
Meanwhile, we've been having a good life here.
1. First ruins - Sardis
On the first day of Ramazan, Oct. 5, we had a free day so we rented a car and headed off into the countryside east of Izmir. We drove for about 1 1/2 hours through a former river valley (the seacost here is rising rapidly, so the river has diverted to the north), the home of the Lydian civilization that flourished about 700-500 BCE. The Lydians invented coinage to make it easier to handle the plentiful gold they were graced with. I found it interesting looking at the rocks around there, rocks that reminded me of the Kootenays with their rich red and green iron deposits, sulphur showings and quartz veins. I could almost see a sign over the mountains: "There's gold in them thar hills."
We stopped our eastward travel in the little village of Sart, the former metropolis of Sardis. The ruins of the Greco-Roman city are supposed to be fantastic, complete with amphitheatre and synagogue and all sorts of interesting things, but we got diverted to the temple of Artemis at the other end of town. It was quite wonderful and enough for one day. We poked all over the ruins and marvelled at a civilization that would throw such resources into a temple. And - to my great delight - we were adopted by a charming (and clean!) kitten who toured the site in my arms or frolicking at my heels. Fortunately she abandoned us for a German tour group just as I was about to make my plea to bring her home.
After deciding to leave the rest of the ruins for another day, we headed back west and a bit north to the city of Manisa, which has the last mosque designed by the great architect Sinan around 1580. We never did find it, but we took a long drive through a mountaintop park, looking for a shortcut to Izmir that doesn't exist. It was wonderful being high in the mountains again. I miss the high places.
One of the great pleasures that day was quite unexpected. Ron needed to stop for a little midafternoon snooze, so I wandered down the roadside looking at rocks and anthills and other wonders. Finally I came upon a pomegranate tree full of ripe fruit. I've never really enjoyed pomegranates before, but I picked one and started sucking the seeds. What wonderful, refreshing tart juice! And it was great fun having a seed-spitting contest with Ron when he woke up.
2. Ramazan
The month of Ramazan (Ramadan in the rest of the Muslim world) started Oct 5. That may have been why the other drivers were worse than usual during our expedition that day - they were suffering from caffeine and nicotine withdrawal. They certainly were grouchy.
I'm not sure how many Turks observe Ramazan, but I think the majority does in our neighbourhood. From sunrise to sunset they eat and drink nothing. They also don't smoke, and are supposed to refrain from swearing and sexual relations. An hour or so before sunrise (actually closer to 3:30 a.m.) drummers make their way through the neighbourhood beating their drums so loudly that the car alarms go off, waking people up so they can have a good breakfast before dawn. It's amazing how quickly it becomes possible to sleep through all that. When we did get up to have a look we noticed quite a few lights coming on around us. And then at sunset a gun goes off to let people know they can eat again, and all the wonderful smells that have been building up around us give way to the sound of clattering dishes. There's a beautiful bread that's baked only at this time of year (a huge flat loaf costs .25 YTL) - delicious when fresh from the oven, but as soon as it's cool it begins to go stale. People seem to focus on food at this time of year. The month will end Nov. 2 with Seker Bayram - sugar feast - when the kids come door-to-door looking for candy (and the drummers turn up looking for a handout too).
Even if they don't really fast during Ramazan, most people seem to give up drinking alcohol. We've noticed quite a number of bars shut down for this month. The one near us is using the time to refinish its furniture. Some little restaurants close, too, and the number of street sellers seems way down.
3. More ruins and a concert
Saturday the 8th we enjoyed a most wonderful experience: a concert in the ancient amphitheatre of Ephesus. We haven't done a real tour of Ephesus yet, but this was a suitable introduction to it. The amphitheatre was probably the same one where the image-makers of Ephesus threatened to riot against the apostle Paul, who was ruining their business. It could seat about 20,000 in its heyday, and even now, with the most dangerous ruins closed off, it holds about 15,000. It was close to full for this concert, Verdi's Requiem performed by the orchestra of a university here augmented by a German orchestra, with a 150-voice German choir and 4 Izmiri soloists. Beautiful performance of wonderful music, and the acoustics are so great in that place that we could hear every note. Wow!
4. A brush with officialdom
A while ago we got a notice that we should do something or other or be fined. We showed it to our landlords and they seemed really concerned. Apparently it said we should tell the local officials who we were. We hadn't realized that every Turk registers their location with the police and tells them when they move. The previous tenant of our apartment had registered in a new location, so the police wanted to know who was living here now.
The Akgüls got the forms we needed to fill out and helped us complete them, then took us to see the muhtar, the head of the district we live in. We were welcomed into his tiny office and sat while the Akgüls carried on a spirited discussion with the muhtar - a dignified older gentleman - and his assistant. This ended when the room filled with police officers, one of whom had shiny gold buttons and trim and was greeted by the muhtar with kisses on both cheeks. Turns out this was the new chief of police of Konak, the part of Izmir we live in (Izmir is kind of like Metropolitan Toronto used to be, with lots of separate municipalities forming one big city). He was visiting all the muhtars of his area, finding out what their concerns were and how things were going generally. So we were all ushered out of the little office into the park outside, and white plastic chairs appeared, and we all sat around in a circle making polite conversation. If it hadn't been Ramazan there would have been glasses of tea for everyone, but the chief said he was fasting so we didn't have refreshments.
Anyway, the general consensus of the muhtar and the chief of police was that we should register with the police at the foreigners' office downtown. So off we all went to the foreigners' office, but when it turned out that we were happy with being tourists and didn't want permanent residents' permits, they weren't interested. I guess most tourists stay in hotels and the police get copies of the hotel registrations, keeping track of foreigners that way. After that I got us registered with the British consul so at least someone will know who and where we are, in case of emergency. The earthquakes have made me glad I did thatç
There's lots more going on, but this is enough for you to have to read for now. Stay tuned. And have a look at our October pictures here.
Today I woke up with a jolt. Actually I'd been thinking about getting up for some time (it was 8:45), but the bed was warm and comfortable and it's getting pretty cool in the apartment these days. But then the earth moved, and moved, and kept on moving, and I thought I'd rather be close to my Ron just then.
That was the first shock. It was 5.7, according to the TV. Throughout the morning we cocooned in our cozy living room and watched the reflections in the glass door of the china cabinet move and listened to the glasses jingle as more little jiggles happened. Then, just before 1 p.m., there were a couple more big ones - 5.9 and 5.6 - and things began to settle down.
The news says there was almost no damage, and the only injuries were to people who jumped off their balconies in panic. I can understand that. There's something crazy-making about the solid floor moving under your feet. And I think about Kashmir, where the aftershocks of their quake are bigger than what we're going through here.
The Kandilli Earthquake Observatory has a page listing the most recent seismic events in Turkey here, although it's not updated as often as one might like. The USGS page is more up to date.
Meanwhile, we've been having a good life here.
1. First ruins - Sardis
On the first day of Ramazan, Oct. 5, we had a free day so we rented a car and headed off into the countryside east of Izmir. We drove for about 1 1/2 hours through a former river valley (the seacost here is rising rapidly, so the river has diverted to the north), the home of the Lydian civilization that flourished about 700-500 BCE. The Lydians invented coinage to make it easier to handle the plentiful gold they were graced with. I found it interesting looking at the rocks around there, rocks that reminded me of the Kootenays with their rich red and green iron deposits, sulphur showings and quartz veins. I could almost see a sign over the mountains: "There's gold in them thar hills."
We stopped our eastward travel in the little village of Sart, the former metropolis of Sardis. The ruins of the Greco-Roman city are supposed to be fantastic, complete with amphitheatre and synagogue and all sorts of interesting things, but we got diverted to the temple of Artemis at the other end of town. It was quite wonderful and enough for one day. We poked all over the ruins and marvelled at a civilization that would throw such resources into a temple. And - to my great delight - we were adopted by a charming (and clean!) kitten who toured the site in my arms or frolicking at my heels. Fortunately she abandoned us for a German tour group just as I was about to make my plea to bring her home.
After deciding to leave the rest of the ruins for another day, we headed back west and a bit north to the city of Manisa, which has the last mosque designed by the great architect Sinan around 1580. We never did find it, but we took a long drive through a mountaintop park, looking for a shortcut to Izmir that doesn't exist. It was wonderful being high in the mountains again. I miss the high places.
One of the great pleasures that day was quite unexpected. Ron needed to stop for a little midafternoon snooze, so I wandered down the roadside looking at rocks and anthills and other wonders. Finally I came upon a pomegranate tree full of ripe fruit. I've never really enjoyed pomegranates before, but I picked one and started sucking the seeds. What wonderful, refreshing tart juice! And it was great fun having a seed-spitting contest with Ron when he woke up.
2. Ramazan
The month of Ramazan (Ramadan in the rest of the Muslim world) started Oct 5. That may have been why the other drivers were worse than usual during our expedition that day - they were suffering from caffeine and nicotine withdrawal. They certainly were grouchy.
I'm not sure how many Turks observe Ramazan, but I think the majority does in our neighbourhood. From sunrise to sunset they eat and drink nothing. They also don't smoke, and are supposed to refrain from swearing and sexual relations. An hour or so before sunrise (actually closer to 3:30 a.m.) drummers make their way through the neighbourhood beating their drums so loudly that the car alarms go off, waking people up so they can have a good breakfast before dawn. It's amazing how quickly it becomes possible to sleep through all that. When we did get up to have a look we noticed quite a few lights coming on around us. And then at sunset a gun goes off to let people know they can eat again, and all the wonderful smells that have been building up around us give way to the sound of clattering dishes. There's a beautiful bread that's baked only at this time of year (a huge flat loaf costs .25 YTL) - delicious when fresh from the oven, but as soon as it's cool it begins to go stale. People seem to focus on food at this time of year. The month will end Nov. 2 with Seker Bayram - sugar feast - when the kids come door-to-door looking for candy (and the drummers turn up looking for a handout too).
Even if they don't really fast during Ramazan, most people seem to give up drinking alcohol. We've noticed quite a number of bars shut down for this month. The one near us is using the time to refinish its furniture. Some little restaurants close, too, and the number of street sellers seems way down.
3. More ruins and a concert
Saturday the 8th we enjoyed a most wonderful experience: a concert in the ancient amphitheatre of Ephesus. We haven't done a real tour of Ephesus yet, but this was a suitable introduction to it. The amphitheatre was probably the same one where the image-makers of Ephesus threatened to riot against the apostle Paul, who was ruining their business. It could seat about 20,000 in its heyday, and even now, with the most dangerous ruins closed off, it holds about 15,000. It was close to full for this concert, Verdi's Requiem performed by the orchestra of a university here augmented by a German orchestra, with a 150-voice German choir and 4 Izmiri soloists. Beautiful performance of wonderful music, and the acoustics are so great in that place that we could hear every note. Wow!
4. A brush with officialdom
A while ago we got a notice that we should do something or other or be fined. We showed it to our landlords and they seemed really concerned. Apparently it said we should tell the local officials who we were. We hadn't realized that every Turk registers their location with the police and tells them when they move. The previous tenant of our apartment had registered in a new location, so the police wanted to know who was living here now.
The Akgüls got the forms we needed to fill out and helped us complete them, then took us to see the muhtar, the head of the district we live in. We were welcomed into his tiny office and sat while the Akgüls carried on a spirited discussion with the muhtar - a dignified older gentleman - and his assistant. This ended when the room filled with police officers, one of whom had shiny gold buttons and trim and was greeted by the muhtar with kisses on both cheeks. Turns out this was the new chief of police of Konak, the part of Izmir we live in (Izmir is kind of like Metropolitan Toronto used to be, with lots of separate municipalities forming one big city). He was visiting all the muhtars of his area, finding out what their concerns were and how things were going generally. So we were all ushered out of the little office into the park outside, and white plastic chairs appeared, and we all sat around in a circle making polite conversation. If it hadn't been Ramazan there would have been glasses of tea for everyone, but the chief said he was fasting so we didn't have refreshments.
Anyway, the general consensus of the muhtar and the chief of police was that we should register with the police at the foreigners' office downtown. So off we all went to the foreigners' office, but when it turned out that we were happy with being tourists and didn't want permanent residents' permits, they weren't interested. I guess most tourists stay in hotels and the police get copies of the hotel registrations, keeping track of foreigners that way. After that I got us registered with the British consul so at least someone will know who and where we are, in case of emergency. The earthquakes have made me glad I did thatç
There's lots more going on, but this is enough for you to have to read for now. Stay tuned. And have a look at our October pictures here.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
You can tell you need to get out more when...
... the big excitement in life is a new garbage can.
Yesterday the Konak Belediyesi - the administration for this part of Izmir - replaced the garbage bins on the street. We have big bins in front of every few apartment buildings, emptied every morning into an ordinary-looking garbage truck by men who physically lift the things and dump them. Until yesterday they were great heavy metal battered stinky blue things, and the emptying was accomplished with a lot of clattering and banging and shouting and smells. Yesterday a truck came along and put out a bunch of nice shiny new green plastic bins, and took away the old ones. Today I didn't even notice garbage collection. It's soooo exciting!
Yesterday the Konak Belediyesi - the administration for this part of Izmir - replaced the garbage bins on the street. We have big bins in front of every few apartment buildings, emptied every morning into an ordinary-looking garbage truck by men who physically lift the things and dump them. Until yesterday they were great heavy metal battered stinky blue things, and the emptying was accomplished with a lot of clattering and banging and shouting and smells. Yesterday a truck came along and put out a bunch of nice shiny new green plastic bins, and took away the old ones. Today I didn't even notice garbage collection. It's soooo exciting!
The joys of Greek; or, Pictures I should have taken
I have never studied Greek - one of the effects of getting my M.Div. from Trinity College, Toronto and not Wycliffe. However I do have a B.Sc in chemistry in my history and a passing interest in physics. Net result: I know my Greek letters. So I was able to decode most of the signs in Chios, given enough time (not that I needed to; most were in English too). And since English has borrowed a lot of words from Greek, I could figure out what a lot of them meant.
But one of them gave me a start. Here was this big transport truck bearing down on me, and on its front was painted something like Χιοσ Μεταφοροσ: Chios Metaphoros. I'd never thought of a truck being a metaphor before.
But one of them gave me a start. Here was this big transport truck bearing down on me, and on its front was painted something like Χιοσ Μεταφοροσ: Chios Metaphoros. I'd never thought of a truck being a metaphor before.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Chios
We were in Chios last Friday and Saturday. (Here's a map of the area so you can get an idea of where we went). Turkish tourist visas are good for 90 days; then you have to leave the country and pay again to get a new stamp on your passport. Our visas expired on the 27th (today!), so it was fairly urgent that we get out of the country and start again.
The boat to Chios that we were booked on leaves in the morning, so the night before we went to Çeşme, the tourist town closest to this particular Greek island. It was really strange being a tourist again! It was the first time in three months that we'd been surrounded by languages other than Turkish. There weren't a lot of English speakers there, but an awful lot of Dutch and Scandinavians. It seems like there are package tours to the Greek Islands from northern Europe that give people a day in Turkey as an extra bonus feature.
I kept wanting to say, when touts leaped out at us from store doorways, "No, I'm not a tourist. I live here!" We did that a couple of times, which opened long conversations with the nuisances still aimed at getting us to buy something. That's a part of Turkey I don't like. But we had a nice chat with the restaurant busboy who used to live a block or two from our apartment. He really wanted to talk with us to work on his English, but his boss kept sending him back to work. Pity.
So in the morning we got up earlier than I wanted to, finally found the boat departure place and staggered on board, having our exit duly noted by Turkish authorities. Half an hour later we were in Greece.
It's awfully tempting to make comparisons between Greece and Turkey - or between Chios and Izmir - that don't flatter Turkey all that much. I'll try not to do that. Basically, it struck us that Greece seems to be looking outward, northward and westward, and is eager to be a part of Europe in every possible way. It shows most in the prevalence of English. Even in tourist spots in Turkey you won't find many people who speak English. Tour operators seldom have English-speaking staff. The customs and immigration officials we've met don't speak English. And if you don't have English-speakers there, where are you going to find them?
The problem is, Turkey didn't place much importance on teaching foreign languages until a few years ago. And we suspect that their teaching methods don't equip students to think independently and face new situations with confidence. So if you're going to Turkey you have to learn at least a little bit of Turkish, and make Turkish friends really fast because you're going to need them.
Anyway, we liked Chios. It was pretty, it was clean, it was fairly quiet and people could talk with us. Friday we walked around town a bit, eating lunch (our first meal of the day), checking out things like the Orthodox cathedral and a few stores (but Chios believes in the siesta principle - businesses shut down between 2 and 5 or so), and getting our bearings. In the evening we found a store that sells toasters - wonder of wonders - and got ourselves one (in Turkey "tost" is a grilled cheese sandwich, and a tost makinesi is a sandwich grill. I hadn't been able to find anyone who even understood the concept of a toaster before we left). We also found a little supermarket that supplied the other essentials we'd been missing: peanut butter, Parmesan cheese, and Scotch. No Cheez Wiz though.
Saturday we rented a car and drove around the southern half of the island. Wow! Such scenery! And interesting stuff going on, too. The main industry of the island is the production of mastic, a gum that is collected from a bush that grows all over the islands, and on the Aegean coast of Turkey too. It seems that only the bushes on Chios produce this resin. It's been a big business for them for 500 years or more - maybe for millennia. The smell of the stuff permeates the island (it's a very nice smell).
We visited some towns that were established by merchants from Genoa and fortified to protect the mastic and the people who harvested it. They're still medieval-looking, and very quiet now because most of the younger people have left. There isn't as much demand for mastic as there was in Ottoman days, when the ladies of the harem were addicted to chewing the stuff. Petroleum has taken over in most of the industrial applications, but there's still a big market in the Arabic countries apparently. There's a good web site here that tells a lot about the towns and the island.
Anyway, we got some pictures that don't even begin to catch the beauty of the place (mine are in the Yahoo photo album). Then we caught the evening ferry home, and were back in our little apartment in Izmir by bedtime. Good trip. Good to be home.
The boat to Chios that we were booked on leaves in the morning, so the night before we went to Çeşme, the tourist town closest to this particular Greek island. It was really strange being a tourist again! It was the first time in three months that we'd been surrounded by languages other than Turkish. There weren't a lot of English speakers there, but an awful lot of Dutch and Scandinavians. It seems like there are package tours to the Greek Islands from northern Europe that give people a day in Turkey as an extra bonus feature.
I kept wanting to say, when touts leaped out at us from store doorways, "No, I'm not a tourist. I live here!" We did that a couple of times, which opened long conversations with the nuisances still aimed at getting us to buy something. That's a part of Turkey I don't like. But we had a nice chat with the restaurant busboy who used to live a block or two from our apartment. He really wanted to talk with us to work on his English, but his boss kept sending him back to work. Pity.
So in the morning we got up earlier than I wanted to, finally found the boat departure place and staggered on board, having our exit duly noted by Turkish authorities. Half an hour later we were in Greece.
It's awfully tempting to make comparisons between Greece and Turkey - or between Chios and Izmir - that don't flatter Turkey all that much. I'll try not to do that. Basically, it struck us that Greece seems to be looking outward, northward and westward, and is eager to be a part of Europe in every possible way. It shows most in the prevalence of English. Even in tourist spots in Turkey you won't find many people who speak English. Tour operators seldom have English-speaking staff. The customs and immigration officials we've met don't speak English. And if you don't have English-speakers there, where are you going to find them?
The problem is, Turkey didn't place much importance on teaching foreign languages until a few years ago. And we suspect that their teaching methods don't equip students to think independently and face new situations with confidence. So if you're going to Turkey you have to learn at least a little bit of Turkish, and make Turkish friends really fast because you're going to need them.
Anyway, we liked Chios. It was pretty, it was clean, it was fairly quiet and people could talk with us. Friday we walked around town a bit, eating lunch (our first meal of the day), checking out things like the Orthodox cathedral and a few stores (but Chios believes in the siesta principle - businesses shut down between 2 and 5 or so), and getting our bearings. In the evening we found a store that sells toasters - wonder of wonders - and got ourselves one (in Turkey "tost" is a grilled cheese sandwich, and a tost makinesi is a sandwich grill. I hadn't been able to find anyone who even understood the concept of a toaster before we left). We also found a little supermarket that supplied the other essentials we'd been missing: peanut butter, Parmesan cheese, and Scotch. No Cheez Wiz though.
Saturday we rented a car and drove around the southern half of the island. Wow! Such scenery! And interesting stuff going on, too. The main industry of the island is the production of mastic, a gum that is collected from a bush that grows all over the islands, and on the Aegean coast of Turkey too. It seems that only the bushes on Chios produce this resin. It's been a big business for them for 500 years or more - maybe for millennia. The smell of the stuff permeates the island (it's a very nice smell).
We visited some towns that were established by merchants from Genoa and fortified to protect the mastic and the people who harvested it. They're still medieval-looking, and very quiet now because most of the younger people have left. There isn't as much demand for mastic as there was in Ottoman days, when the ladies of the harem were addicted to chewing the stuff. Petroleum has taken over in most of the industrial applications, but there's still a big market in the Arabic countries apparently. There's a good web site here that tells a lot about the towns and the island.
Anyway, we got some pictures that don't even begin to catch the beauty of the place (mine are in the Yahoo photo album). Then we caught the evening ferry home, and were back in our little apartment in Izmir by bedtime. Good trip. Good to be home.
Monday, September 19, 2005
More hospitality, and other Monday notes
Well, it had to happen. Saturday afternoon we decided to go out shopping together, but I didn't want to bring my purse because I had all sorts of things piled onto & in it to take to church on Sunday. So I grabbed my wallet and nothing else - especially not my keys. I went out the door and started down the stairs, and Ron followed - without his keys, as it happened. As the door clicked shut he said, "Do you have your keys." "No," I answered. "Do you have yours." "No!"
Fortunately he had his phone, so we called the blessed Semiha. Half an hour later she was at the house with the card a locksmith needed to make a new key.
Meanwhile the neighbour across the street had seen us waiting forelornly outside the apartment. First he insisted that we take a couple of chairs and sit on them, and then he convinced us to come inside for a glass of tea. And that's where Semiha found us, sitting in the middle of an extended family from Antakya (mother, older sister and neice of our neighbour visiting for a wedding) drinking tea listening with minimal understanding to a spirited discussion on Turkey and the EU. Of course Semiha had to have tea, too, so the whole exchange took another couple of hours of her time, but it was kinda fun.
Given our limited memories, we're going to have to find a place to keep the spare key. Maybe our neighbour across the street would look after it for us. Hmmm.
Church on Sunday - I preached for the first time since leaving Creston. The gospel was one of my favourites: the landowner who paid the workers who worked an hour the same as the ones who worked a whole day. It's a good one for that congregation, which seems to be about half Turkish, many of them born Muslim.
St. John's doesn't make a special effort to convert Muslims. Its priest and most of its English-speaking congregation have a healthy respect for Islam in its healthier forms. But Atatürk's vision of the new Turkey was a secular, modern society, not tied down by Islamic tradition. As a result many young Turks have been raised essentially without religion, or with only the outward forms and not the inner meaning. They're trying to find something to fill the hole in their lives, and some of them end up in the Anglican church.
The congregation is a warm and welcoming one, and Father Ron, our priest, has developed a service that both Turkish and English people find comfortable. His Turkish is excellent, so he's able to preach part of his sermon in Turkish. The Gospel and the prayers of the people are done in both Turkish and English, and there's a booklet giving the Turkish translation of the whole service. Last week, when I presided but didn't preach, I found it quite unsettling at first to hear the congregation's responses coming back in two languages - but how good it is! Many of the non-Turkish members speak good Turkish and help welcome the new young people. And the rest of us - Ron and I, at least - are working at learning more. I'm looking forward to being able to do more in Turkish, but not just yet - my accent is too atrocious.
Fortunately he had his phone, so we called the blessed Semiha. Half an hour later she was at the house with the card a locksmith needed to make a new key.
Meanwhile the neighbour across the street had seen us waiting forelornly outside the apartment. First he insisted that we take a couple of chairs and sit on them, and then he convinced us to come inside for a glass of tea. And that's where Semiha found us, sitting in the middle of an extended family from Antakya (mother, older sister and neice of our neighbour visiting for a wedding) drinking tea listening with minimal understanding to a spirited discussion on Turkey and the EU. Of course Semiha had to have tea, too, so the whole exchange took another couple of hours of her time, but it was kinda fun.
Given our limited memories, we're going to have to find a place to keep the spare key. Maybe our neighbour across the street would look after it for us. Hmmm.
Church on Sunday - I preached for the first time since leaving Creston. The gospel was one of my favourites: the landowner who paid the workers who worked an hour the same as the ones who worked a whole day. It's a good one for that congregation, which seems to be about half Turkish, many of them born Muslim.
St. John's doesn't make a special effort to convert Muslims. Its priest and most of its English-speaking congregation have a healthy respect for Islam in its healthier forms. But Atatürk's vision of the new Turkey was a secular, modern society, not tied down by Islamic tradition. As a result many young Turks have been raised essentially without religion, or with only the outward forms and not the inner meaning. They're trying to find something to fill the hole in their lives, and some of them end up in the Anglican church.
The congregation is a warm and welcoming one, and Father Ron, our priest, has developed a service that both Turkish and English people find comfortable. His Turkish is excellent, so he's able to preach part of his sermon in Turkish. The Gospel and the prayers of the people are done in both Turkish and English, and there's a booklet giving the Turkish translation of the whole service. Last week, when I presided but didn't preach, I found it quite unsettling at first to hear the congregation's responses coming back in two languages - but how good it is! Many of the non-Turkish members speak good Turkish and help welcome the new young people. And the rest of us - Ron and I, at least - are working at learning more. I'm looking forward to being able to do more in Turkish, but not just yet - my accent is too atrocious.
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