Friday, Scenic Gateway to the Weekend
Good Morning from Istanbul, home of the one Lira Mystery Sandwich. Friday is always the emptiest day of the week at the school. More people cut class or just leave at their first opportunity instead of hanging around Funky Cafe, no matter how groovy our salad are. Satellite television has come to the Funky Cafe and now sports games and music videos flicker on three of the walls. This has prompted my house mate Geoff, a teacher at the school, to request the Cafe being opened for him to watch the Superbowl on Sunday. The prospect of coming into work 6 hours early on a Monday morning to watch someone yell at a sports game and drink Raki is terrifying. But they'll probably have one of the ever present security guards unlock the cafe for him if things go that far.
Social classes are very ridged in Turkey from what I've seen. There are people called "villagers" who make up the lower tier of the work force. I assume the term originally came from the many people who leave their villages in the country side and come to large cities for work, but now it encompasses anyone lacking an education, even if they have lived in Istanbul their whole lives. According to the civilized folk villagers are harder to understand when they speak and are all crazy. Educational opportunity is limited in Turkey, universities are few and crowded and there is no such thing as community college.
In Turkey there is 16 months of mandatory military service for all men when they turn 20, though university students are exempt. The cooks in the cafe were all asking me about my military service, not knowing the United States uses an all volunteer army at present. When I told them I didn't serve in the military and had no intention to join they laughed and called me the Turkish equivalent for a sissy. In Turkey it is a matter of national pride to serve your time in the military. Hasan then stepped in and told them I was in the Army in Iraq and killed five men then made an necklace from their ears, something that seemed much worse than being called a sissy. But a hurried denial later and we were all laughing.
I keep trying to explain to one student what his t-shirt means. It has a simple spanish phrase on it, "de puta madre." I would assume Turkish students would also spend their study time looking up dirty words in their dictionaries, but he didn't seem to understand my English translation of his shirt.
Obligatory street cat photo.
Social classes are very ridged in Turkey from what I've seen. There are people called "villagers" who make up the lower tier of the work force. I assume the term originally came from the many people who leave their villages in the country side and come to large cities for work, but now it encompasses anyone lacking an education, even if they have lived in Istanbul their whole lives. According to the civilized folk villagers are harder to understand when they speak and are all crazy. Educational opportunity is limited in Turkey, universities are few and crowded and there is no such thing as community college.
In Turkey there is 16 months of mandatory military service for all men when they turn 20, though university students are exempt. The cooks in the cafe were all asking me about my military service, not knowing the United States uses an all volunteer army at present. When I told them I didn't serve in the military and had no intention to join they laughed and called me the Turkish equivalent for a sissy. In Turkey it is a matter of national pride to serve your time in the military. Hasan then stepped in and told them I was in the Army in Iraq and killed five men then made an necklace from their ears, something that seemed much worse than being called a sissy. But a hurried denial later and we were all laughing.
I keep trying to explain to one student what his t-shirt means. It has a simple spanish phrase on it, "de puta madre." I would assume Turkish students would also spend their study time looking up dirty words in their dictionaries, but he didn't seem to understand my English translation of his shirt.
Obligatory street cat photo.
posted by Alex Gray at 09:35
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