Markets, Washing Machines, and Baby Sheep

I broke my jet lag avoidance rule and let myself take a nap yesterday, so here I am at 4:20 with ideas swirling around in my head, unable to sleep.

Yesterday Ferayal took me to the shopping mall where I bought home products (linens, dishes, food, etc.). She also took me to buy a cell phone, then helped me to choose a cell phone company that gave me my phone number and activated my phone, then she helped me buy contours, or phone credits so that my phone would work. Lastly we went to the market where we bought produce. She showed me how to buy produce –what is good, what isn’t – with much higher standards than we demand at our supermarkets. The villagers come in to town every Wednesday and Sunday to sell their produce and textiles at a huge husting open-air market..

Throughout the day she insisted on treating me; first it was lunch, then Turkish coffee, and then produce at the market. At the supermarket, I (rather skillfully, I thought) mimed to the clerk that I would pay for the drinks. Ferayal told her in Turkish that I was her guest, and the clerk promptly refused my money and took Ferayal’s instead. Turks have a strong ethic of taking care of their guests and showing them true hospitality.

Without Ferayal’s help, I have no idea how I would have done all of that. For instance, the cell phone system is extremely different here than it is in the U.S. Instead of signing up for a plan with a company, people buy counturs(sp) which are basically cell minute credits that must be used in 3 months. You continue to recharge your phone with these credits. Calls to cell phones of your provider are cheapest, calls to cell phone holders who use different providers are more, calls to land lines cost more still, and whether calling or receiving, out-of-country calls will cost you an arm and a leg. Although people know the gradation, no one really knows exactly how many contours for each item. As far as I can tell, it is a diabolical plan on the part of the cell phone companies.

When I got home I decided I’d take a try at the washing machine. The similarities the washers here share with the ones at home follow: they are white, box-shaped, and I’m pretty sure they use water and electricity. Beyond that, there were tons of buttons with bewildering pictures that are intuitive to some Turkish industrial designer. There were also a number of signs in the laundry room punctuated with copious exclamation points elaborating some message that all users should be aware of before doing laundry. My pocket dictionary contained about ¼ of the words on the sign.

One hour later, I had a still dirty and now half-soaked blanket. I caught up with a woman walking down the stairs and asked if she spoke English. Edin did not speak English, but she came up and mimed to me that the washer I had chose was broken. Only one of the set of three worked.

A few minutes later her son, Okan, knocked on my door. Edin had alerted her son that I needed remedial home-economics training. Her son speaks some English and he explained/mimed how to use the machine.

A few minutes later still, my landline rang for the first time. Okan wondered if I liked coffee and would I join them in room 206. I agreed. Since my room is 204, it seemed that their room, 206, should be rather near. Later I would find that it is two floors above me and on the other wing of the building. I couldn’t find it, so I returned to my room. About 15 minute later, Okan found me wandering around with a trash bag in my hand. Giving me a quizzical look after I put together what my dictionary and travel book represented as a well-formed sentence asking where I’d find the dumpster, he took the bags, walked across the street, and dumped them in the dumpster.

Okan, a Ph.D. candidate in statistics, shares a room the size of mine with his mother. The rooms in this building are the size of a small motel room with a bathroom, a mini-fridge, and a sink. Mine also has a bed, a chair that folds out to be a bed, a kitchen table/desk, two small chairs, and a bedside table. In my mind I had been going over plans to convince the powers that be that I needed something larger, but when I saw that both Okan and his mother lived in the same space that I live in, I became immediately more content with my lot. Okan has two computers, a huge flat-screen monitor on which he somehow gets television stations, and, wonder of all wonders, high-speed Internet. He assured me that he could help me get Internet in my room too. Tomorrow he will go out and buy the requisite cable and then help me to get hooked up. Skype, here I come.

We had apples, grapes, tea, and pastries. When I left Okan’s mother told him to tell me that I was her “baby sheep” while I was here, and that she would help me. If ever I was hungry, I should come by and she would cook for me. It reminded me of something I read once, that all travel is essentially meeting new people and convincing them that they want to take care of you. In Turkey it seems that one doesn’t have to do a lot of convincing.